62 of 123

Write now Article Tools

Ave Maria

My father comes home from work smelling like grease and sweat, his face spotted with tiny black flecks, his red hair grimy. He's been working the Newport Bridge with the guys from Local 57, slowly raising it up like an erector set from the bottom of the Narragansett Bay to the sky, steel on steel, concrete on concrete, a miracle of modern engineering. He says we'll get to drive over the bridge someday, but I don't believe him. I think that the bridge will kill him first, like the other men who fell headlong into the Narragansett Bay below and were never heard from again.

I hear him whistling as he comes up the drive, carrying a massive toolbox by a long handle and dropping it by the back door with a noisy clatter.
"How's the oldest girl in the family," he asks, lifting me in the air.
"Phew, you stink," I say.
He takes a shower, and will soon emerge a handsome young man, the freckles on his face and arms reappearing from under the filth. Only a few years earlier, he'd lifted me out of my bed and hoisted me onto his shoulders, walking two blocks on the dark streets of North Providence to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. On that walk, I was in love with the sound of his voice, the feel of his hair in my hands, the bounce in his step.
But I am older now, frozen in my tracks outside the bathroom, listening to his tenor voice in the shower, singing "Ave Maria" in perfect pitch. The song means something to him, but I'll never know what. He has closely guarded secrets, this beer-drinking Irishman who speaks little, but listens well. I know that when he sings in the shower, the dirt and grease are washing down the drain.
I know only bits and pieces of the family history, my grandmother the only reliable source. I sit by her and listen as she unravels skeins of yarn from the basket at her feet, pulling the strands up and over the needles as she knits.
"Your grandfather was a drunk," she says. "He couldn't hold down a job. Then he dropped dead of a heart attack or a broken heart. I'm not sure which."
My grandfather just hadn't been the same, she says, after they received the Western Union telegram. They stood like two stones in the doorway of their cramped Brooklyn apartment, learning that their oldest son, Bill, had been killed in a plane crash During World War II. My grandfather didn't last long after the telegram arrived, a year at the most.
My father never speaks of his sainted brother, dead at the age of 22, nor of his less-sainted father, dead at the age of 45. But I know that as the men in his family disappeared, his life disappeared, too. Their sudden deaths forced him into the role of family breadwinner, and the only work to be had for a 17-year-old was construction, the grease quickly building under his fingernails and remaining there for the rest of his life.
It's Friday evening and we're headed to the bank, as we do every Friday, to cash his paycheck. I sit on a bench inside, swinging my legs and watching the adults come and go. I look at their shoes - wingtips, high heels, penny loafers. Then I look at my father's shoes as he stands in line at the teller's window. He is wearing work boots caked in mud. I look up at him and he's winking at me, and I feel ashamed for what I am thinking.
The following Friday, he appears at my bedroom door, wearing creased slacks, a sweater, and polished dress shoes. "Come on, kid," he says, smelling fresh from the shower. "Let's get to the bank before it closes."

Learn more about this author, Evelyn Mccormack.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Reflections: My father?
We want to hear your view. Write now!