A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [48]
Soon after Diane and I had settled into our home in Brooklyn, I noticed an ad in the New York Times saying my father would be playing with a small ensemble at a jazz club on the Upper West Side. I suggested we go. Diane was reluctant because she didn’t want me to reach too close and be hurt again, but I insisted.
When we entered the small bar, with its smoky red walls and dim light, the trio was in the middle of a number. My father looked up immediately, stopped playing mid-note, and left the bandstand to come over and throw his arms around me. I returned the embrace, and soon we both had tears in our eyes. When I introduced him to Diane, he could not have been more gracious and charming. They became instant friends.
He became a frequent guest at our house, and Diane had an ease about his presence that allowed us to move forward. He adored her, and she always welcomed him into our home, invited him for dinner, and enjoyed his company. She gave us both space to move at a deliberate but comfortable speed. We talked about old times, but without the bitterness. He told me how his slapping me on the day he left was something he had regretted ever since. I said he could now let that go.
When Diane and I got married, my father organized his friends to play at our wedding. This ensured that we had not just good music but any music, as we lacked the funds for a band. My dad had a rousing good time playing background for Diane’s father’s singing. He even secretly taped our wedding and gave it to us as a special gift. Before the wedding, I worried about how my parents would behave with each other. They had not been together since that fateful encounter at my graduation from Milton. But they treated each other like old friends. Reconciliation seemed to be in everyone’s heart.
My father took to staying with us in Brooklyn for long periods when he was between concert tours or on the outs with his girlfriend. Even when he wasn’t living with us, he was part of our lives, and he was eager to play his part as father-in-law.
After we told him that Diane was pregnant and as the date approached, my father called every day to ask for any news. I kept assuring him I would call when there was something to report, but he kept checking in anyway. On the one day he missed his check-in, Sarah was born after a long and trying labor. I called and called for a couple of days thereafter but could never reach him. Then, the first day that Diane was feeling herself again, I went by her favorite Italian restaurant to pick up a special dinner to take to the hospital. Laden with the food and flowers and little gifts for her and the baby, I stood on a midtown corner trying to hail a cab. My father was then driving part-time a business tycoon’s gray, stretch limousine, and he miraculously spotted me. He pulled up, told me to hop in the back, and asked me where I needed to go. There, from the backseat of a stranger’s limousine in rush-hour traffic, I told him to take me to Lenox Hill Hospital, where I was going to have dinner with his new granddaughter.
The generational bonds were now secure. My dad continued to visit intermittently between concert tours overseas. By the time Katherine had grown into a sassy toddler, he would come to our house in Milton and dote on two precious little girls. He gave them fifes and little flutes and played the sax for them while they danced around our front hall, and he showed them the gentleness, attention, and love that I so craved in my own youth. Sarah and Katherine loved him in return, and my father reveled in it. How fitting that the finest gig of his life was that of grandfather.
My mom’s life took a very different turn. Soon after Diane and I were married, my mother took ill and could no longer care for herself. After a long stay in the hospital, where the doctors could not determine the cause of her seizures and partial paralysis, she