Chapter 7 - The Door in Paterson
Anthony did not return the next day.
Or the day after.
For two weeks, he left Michael alone.
This was harder than it sounded.
Anthony was used to solving discomfort by acting.
Call someone.
Move someone.
Fix something.
Pressure something.
Silence had never been his talent.
Noah asked almost every night.
"Did you talk to him again?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know."
"You say that a lot now."
Anthony looked at him.
"Life gets more complicated when you're old."
Noah grinned.
"You're not that old."
"Thank you."
"Uncle Michael is younger."
Anthony frowned.
"Go upstairs."
On the fifteenth day, a package arrived.
No return address.
Inside was the original photograph Anthony had seen in the cookie tin.
The three of them in the social club.
Vincent.
Anthony.
Michael.
On the back Michael had written one sentence.
Ma gave this to me the year before she died. I think it belongs with you.
Anthony stared at it for several minutes.
No request.
No accusation.
No phone number.
Anthony already had the number.
He called.
Michael answered on the sixth ring.
"Yeah?"
"It's me."
"I know."
"How?"
"Nobody else calls me from a number that costs that much."
Anthony frowned.
"That doesn't make sense."
"I know."
For a second, neither spoke.
Then Anthony said, "Dinner."
"No."
Anthony blinked.
"I haven't asked yet."
"You were going to."
"Maybe."
"You say things like they're orders."
Anthony breathed through his nose.
"Would you have dinner with me?"
"No."
Anthony closed his eyes.
"Why?"
"Because you're going to pick some restaurant where everybody knows you, spend four hundred dollars on food neither of us wants, then try to turn forgiveness into a ceremony."
Anthony almost argued.
Then realized that was exactly what he had been planning.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing."
"That's not helpful."
"I wasn't trying to help."
Anthony hung up before anger could win.
Twenty minutes later, Noah found him pacing.
"He said no?"
Anthony stopped.
"How—"
"You pace when people say no."
Anthony sat.
"Your uncle is irritating."
Noah smiled.
"You sound alike."
"We do not."
Noah's smile widened.
Anthony pointed upstairs.
"Homework."
The following Saturday, Anthony drove to Paterson again.
No call.
No warning.
He stood outside Michael's apartment door carrying nothing.
He raised his hand.
Stopped.
Knocked.
Footsteps approached.
The door opened.
Michael stared at him.
"No restaurant?"
"No."
"No driver?"
"No."
"No giant apology gift?"
Anthony frowned.
"I considered wine."
"Of course you did."
Michael held the door halfway open.
"Why are you here?"
Anthony looked past him.
The apartment was small.
Not poor.
Just modest.
A couch.
Two bookshelves.
A kitchen table meant for four people but set up for one.
A photograph of their mother near the window.
Anthony saw no photograph of himself.
That hurt more than he expected.
"Can I come in?"
Michael studied him.
Then stepped aside.
Anthony entered.
The apartment smelled like coffee and laundry detergent.
A baseball game played quietly on television.
Michael shut the door.
Anthony looked around.
"You always this nosy?"
"Yes."
"I remember."
Anthony noticed a framed photograph on the shelf.
Teresa and her children.
Another of their mother.
Then one of Noah.
Anthony walked closer.
It was a school picture from two years earlier.
He looked back.
Michael's expression hardened defensively.
"Ma sent it."
Anthony nodded.
"Okay."
"You going to make something out of it?"
"No."
Michael waited.
Anthony looked at the photograph again.
"You watched him grow up."
"Pictures aren't growing up."
Anthony swallowed.
"No."
Michael walked to the kitchen.
"Coffee?"
"Sure."
Michael poured two cups.
They sat across from each other.
No waiters.
No polished table.
No men watching Anthony's face to decide whether they should laugh.
Just an old wooden table with a scratch running through the center.
Michael took a sip.
Anthony didn't.
"I've been trying to figure out what to say."
"That sounds dangerous."
Anthony ignored it.
"I was wrong."
Michael looked at him.
Anthony continued.
"About you."
Michael said nothing.
"About Dad."
Still nothing.
"About Ma."
Michael looked toward her photograph.
Anthony's voice dropped.
"About myself."
Michael's expression changed slightly.
Anthony stared at his coffee.
"I spent twenty-three years telling myself you left because you were weak."
Michael's jaw tightened.
"I know."
"And every time anybody questioned it, I got angry."
"I know."
"I think part of me needed you to be weak."
Michael looked at him.
"Why?"
Anthony took a long time answering.
"Because if you weren't, then I had to ask why you left."
Michael didn't move.
"And if I asked why," Anthony said, "eventually I'd have to ask what everyone kept from me."
The apartment was silent.
Anthony looked around again.
At the small kitchen.
The cheap blinds.
The single chair near the window.
The photographs Michael had been allowed to receive instead of the family he had once belonged to.
Something inside Anthony broke quietly.
Not dramatically.
No tears yet.
Just a realization too large to fit where anger had been.
"You should have been at my table all these years."
Michael's face went still.
Anthony looked at him.
He had imagined saying it dozens of ways.
Firmly.
Softly.
With some speech beforehand.
None of that happened.
The words simply came.
"You should have been at my table all these years."
Michael looked down at his coffee.
For a long time he said nothing.
Anthony did not interrupt.
Finally Michael asked, "Which table?"
Anthony frowned.
Michael looked up.
"Dad's table?"
"No."
"The club?"
"No."
"The table where everybody keeps pretending nothing happened?"
Anthony swallowed.
"No."
Michael leaned back.
"Then what are you saying?"
Anthony looked toward Noah's photograph.
"My table."
Michael's expression tightened.
"Anthony—"
"Not the business. Not Dad's chair. Not any of that."
Anthony struggled for the words.
"My house. Sunday dinner. Noah's birthdays. Ma's last Christmas."
Michael looked away.
"Don't."
"I should have known."
"You were lied to."
"I helped the lie survive."
Michael said nothing.
Anthony continued.
"Any time somebody tried to mention you, I shut it down."
"Yes."
"I made your name forbidden in my house."
"Yes."
"My son had to find you in a cookie tin."
Michael's mouth twitched.
Despite himself.
Anthony almost smiled.
Then Michael's expression hardened again.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing."
"That's not true."
"It is."
Michael stared at him.
Anthony exhaled.
"I don't expect you to forgive me because I finally read the right piece of paper."
Michael's eyes dropped.
"I don't expect you to come back."
Silence.
"I don't even know what 'back' would mean."
Michael nodded faintly.
Anthony stood.
"I just needed to say it where you could hear me."
He moved toward the door.
Behind him, a chair scraped.
Anthony stopped.
Michael spoke.
"You drove forty minutes."
Anthony turned.
"Closer to fifty."
"Traffic?"
"Construction."
Michael nodded.
Then he pulled out the chair across from him again.
"Coffee's getting cold."
Anthony looked at the chair.
Michael did not smile.
He simply said:
"Sit down, Anthony."
Anthony sat.
They talked until after midnight.
Not about the family first.
That came later.
They talked about refrigerators.
Baseball.
Their mother's terrible meatballs.
The leather jacket Anthony had once accused Michael of stealing when Michael had actually hidden it because Anthony looked ridiculous in it.
They argued about that for twelve minutes.
Then laughed.
It felt wrong.
Then painful.
Then good.
Then painful again.
Nothing was fixed.
But when Anthony finally left, Michael stood in the doorway.
"Anthony."
He turned.
Michael hesitated.
"Next time, call first."
Anthony smiled.
"There's a next time?"
Michael rolled his eyes and shut the door.
Anthony stood in the hallway smiling like an idiot.
May you like
For once, nobody was there to see it.
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