The Old Neighborhood

Second Place Winner--2012 Short Story Award

The Old Neighborhood

Joyce Lekas

July, 2012

I pulled my coat collar up against the wind-driven snow and pressed the bell, but Ma opened the door before I released it. Her face relaxed into a smile in that moment.

“Come in, son, come in before you freeze.”

She swung the door open for me and I stepped into the warm foyer of the house, immediately engulfed in her floral fragrance, while her curly white hair brushed my cheek. She held her hands out for the packages so I could slip out of my coat, scarf and gloves. “He’s been waiting all day for you to get here,” she said quietly as she turned to lead me into the familiar parlor with its peach damask couch and chairs and Queen Anne side tables, fashionable forty years ago, where my Dad was seated in his chair before the fire, swaddled in blankets.

“Well Danny. Did you freeze driving out from the airport?” His voice had a tremor and his face grimaced as he struggled against the pain. He tried to get up from his chair but I crossed the room quickly and knelt to embrace him.

“Airport’s a mess this time of year and you know Boston— never leave a street open to traffic if you can find an excuse to close it.” We both tried to laugh.

Three days before Christmas with icy streets, snow flurries, the temperature hovering at 20 degrees and a wind chill that dropped it another ten or fifteen. I was lucky to get here from the airport as quickly as I did.

“Your mother tell you I want to go into the city?”

“You think that’s a good idea?” I knew he’d probably made his mind up and nothing I could say would change it.

“Would I ask if I didn’t?” he countered, a flash of bright blue eyes and a hint of his old humor.

“Let him warm up a bit before you go out,” my mother intervened. “I have some of that clam chowder he likes and I want to hear how Sarah and the children are before you go carrying him off.”

“Oh all right.” My father settled back in his chair again and looked up at me. He had lost weight and his familiar frame seemed smaller. Sarah had insisted I come here this year for Christmas, while she and the kids went to her parents. I never know how she is so intuitive, but I could see it was the right decision.

We sat at the mahogany table in the dining room and all had chowder, creamy with extra clams the way Ma makes it, though Dad didn’t eat more than a spoonful. It was as good as I remembered. Whether I came by during a business trip or personal holiday, Ma always fed me when I arrived, no matter what time it was. At only four in the afternoon, I could see Dad struggling to stay awake, while Ma and I chatted about my job, family and life in San Francisco. As soon as she took the bowls to the kitchen, Dad perked up. “Let’s go,” he said.

He wanted to ride in his Cadillac, deeming my rental car unworthy for the trip. Ma and I got him into his topcoat, gloves and muffler, then into the shiny, black, three-year-old car with its red leather interior. I buckled him in and backed out of the garage. Ornamental trees and shrubs boasted Christmas lights as we drove through the upscale neighborhood where he and Ma lived, with nary a Santa, elf, or Rudolf to be seen. When we reached the freeway, I accelerated into traffic. The radio was set to Christmas music, so I turned down the volume. “That OK for you?”

“Good. Good.” He shifted. “Just watch for the exit, then I’ll tell you where to go.”

Though we had visited my aunt a few times when she lived here, we had been here only once before at Christmas, when I was sixteen and my sister, fourteen. At the time, neither Stacey nor I got what he was driving at, but we were respectful. We were always respectful with Dad, ‘or else’ he would threaten. I couldn’t understand why we had to go. We lived in a nice neighborhood, had a nice car and enough Christmas lights to blot out the moon and the stars, and we were headed into the bowels of Boston, where Dad had grown up, to see the lights there. When we arrived, it was dark, with single electric candles in the windows of tall, boxy buildings. What was the big deal? We all sat in the car for about fifteen minutes before he turned to us with a smile. “Those are Christmas lights,” he’d said.

Today I was behind the wheel, not sure exactly how to get there, while he knew the way by heart. Once we left the freeway, the streets grew darker with fewer Christmas lights and fewer street lamps. This time of year, the sun set early and with the dark and the cold, there were not many people on the streets. Finally, we reached his old street and cruised to the center of the block. I pulled the car to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. We sat quietly while the few flakes in the air whirled dizzily, too light to reach the ground.

“My Ma used to wait for the right moment and she and I would bundle up and stand in the street to watch them turn on.” He looked at me as he spoke. “The girls were older and interested in other things, so it was just me and Ma. We did it every year until she died, when I was fourteen.” His voice caught on the words, so he turned and gazed ahead through the windshield, watching the tall brick buildings for the first lights.

One by one, the candles winked on in the windows above us, as if compensating for the lack of stars. Some householders drew the shades or curtains behind them, so the candles shone brighter. Some were just foreground with room lights behind them. They were as I remembered them, dime store electric candles with fake wreaths, a few had two candles, even fewer, three. Soon, as the darkness deepened, the car grew colder and the streets more deserted, most of the windows had lighted candles. I restarted the car for warmth. A cluster of teenage boys hunched in their jackets moved quickly along the street, their newly deepened voices loud, reverberating in the canyon of buildings. They glanced at the car as they passed, moved on and turned at the next corner.

A rap on the window and I rolled it down. A Police officer, Ryan on his badge, leaned close. “Problem here?” he asked.

“No problem. My dad wanted to see the lights again. That’s all.”

Dad leaned forward and smiled. “OK with you, officer?”

Ryan looked him over. “Yes, sir. You take all the time you need.” He straightened, then leaned in again. “You grow up around here?”

“Right on this block. I was eighteen when I left sixty years ago.” Dad’s voice was smiling. After his mother died, he had lived with his older sister, Kate, until she married. Then he was off on his own.

“Well then. Merry Christmas to you sir.” He gave a small wave as he turned.

“And to you,” Dad called after him.

I rolled the window up and we sat and watched the tiny lights brightening the old buildings on the cold, dark street. I settled back and began to relax, waiting. Dad shifted in his seat, leaning forward to see all the way to the top of the nearest building. I leaned, too and in that moment, I could see the two of them in the middle of the street, a ten-year-old with his mother looking up at the lights growing brighter around them and felt the joy of the youngster whose heart rose at the transformation of his neighborhood, a rare moment in a life devoid of much enchantment. I turned to Dad. “It’s beautiful.”

“That it is, Danny. That it is.” He reached over and grasped my hand. “It’s getting cold. We can go back now.”

Early the next morning, light seeped through the curtains, the gray of dawn causing objects in the room to emerge like ghosts out of the gloom. I lay there turning our trip to the city over in my mind. I had felt closer to my father yesterday than ever in my life. Even now, my heart wrenched with love for the young boy I had never known, who had shared those magical winter nights with his mother.

A single ray through the crack between the curtains lighted the Star Wars poster that still graced the wall of my old room, promising a brighter day, though probably just as cold as yesterday. Maybe there were other old haunts Dad would like to see while I'm here, I thought. I'll ask him when he's had his coffee if he feels up to another trip. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and planted my feet on the cold floor. A soft tap sounded on my bedroom door. "I'm awake."

My mother opened the door slowly. She stood in her pink robe and felt sippers, he head to one side, with tears flowing down her cheeks. "He's gone."