Chapter 5 - I did not call my father from the basement.
That surprised everyone except Anthony.
Louise looked ready to dial the number herself.
My mother kept glancing between me and the phone.
Anthony simply said, “Take it home.”
So I did.
For three days the number sat on a yellow sticky note beside my kitchen sink.
I moved it to the refrigerator.
Then the counter.
Then underneath the fruit bowl.
Apparently hiding a phone number beneath bananas did not make it less powerful.
On Thursday evening, Anthony texted.
Dinner?
I stared at the message.
A month earlier I would have answered with a joke.
Now everything between us felt too complicated for jokes.
I typed:
Are you asking as Ryan or Anthony?
The typing bubble appeared.
Disappeared.
Returned.
Finally:
Anthony. Ryan has terrible judgment about appetizers.
I laughed.
Then I wrote:
One hour. Public place. You’re paying.
His reply came immediately.
Fair.
We met at the same restaurant where we had first shared a table.
He was already seated when I arrived.
One empty chair across from him.
This time he stood.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
He looked nervous.
That helped more than it should have.
I sat.
He pushed the menu toward me.
“I have decided not to express opinions about calamari.”
“Personal growth.”
“I’m trying.”
For several minutes we talked about harmless things.
The shop.
The restored marquee.
Louise’s discovery that people were deliberately arriving after dark just to see the sign.
Eventually Anthony set down his water glass.
“My lawyer found something.”
I stiffened.
“That sentence sounds ominous.”
“It isn’t.”
“What?”
“The old Russo Electric books.”
I waited.
“The twenty-eight-thousand-dollar transfer can be corrected in the company historical records. It won’t undo what happened to your father’s career, but the record can state clearly that Vincent Russo authorized it.”
I stared at him.
“You would do that?”
“I already started.”
“Does it cause problems for you?”
“Some inconvenience.”
“That sounds like rich-person language for expensive.”
He smiled slightly.
“Possibly.”
“Anthony.”
His smile disappeared.
“My father benefited from Daniel staying quiet. I benefit from the company my father left behind.”
“That doesn’t mean you owe me money.”
“I know.”
“Or my father.”
“I know.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because the record is wrong.”
Simple.
Uncomfortable.
True.
I looked down.
“You really are a sign guy.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“What does that mean?”
“You can’t stand something being crooked.”
That made him laugh.
For the first time since Riverside, I saw Ryan again.
Or rather, I understood there had never been two separate men.
That had been the mistake.
Anthony Ryan Russo could be kind and evasive.
Funny and guarded.
Powerful in ways I didn’t fully understand, yet awkward about whether he should order pie.
People were not required to fit cleanly into the names we gave them.
Including my father.
“I haven’t called him,” I said.
“I figured.”
“Do you think I should?”
Anthony considered the question for a long time.
“No idea.”
“That is extremely unhelpful.”
“You asked what I think.”
“And?”
“I think you should decide what you want from the call before you make it.”
“What if I want an explanation?”
“Then ask for one.”
“What if I want an apology?”
“Ask.”
“What if I want him to somehow give me sixteen years back?”
Anthony’s expression softened.
“I don’t think he can.”
I looked away.
There it was.
The thing no mystery could solve.
Even if my father had spent sixteen years ashamed, even if his disappearance had begun with a complicated act of loyalty, even if every missing piece finally fit—
He had still missed birthdays.
Graduations.
My first apartment.
The day I bought Corner Print from my mother.
Thousands of ordinary mornings when he could have called and didn’t.
Understanding was not a time machine.
Anthony leaned back.
“My father died before I asked him the questions I should have asked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
He looked through the restaurant window.
“If I could have one conversation with him now, I don’t think I’d spend it demanding that he make the past different.”
“What would you ask?”
“Whether he understood what his choices cost.”
The answer stayed with me.
That night, at 9:17, I called the number.
It rang twice.
Then a man answered.
“Hello?”
I knew his voice.
Older.
Rougher.
But I knew it.
I sat on the edge of my bed.
“Dad?”
Silence.
Then one quiet breath.
“Emma.”
I closed my eyes.
For sixteen years I had imagined this moment in a hundred dramatic forms.
I would yell.
He would cry.
I would demand explanations.
Instead I said the simplest thing.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Another breath.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”
“That is a terrible reason.”
“Yes.”
I waited for excuses.
None came.
He said, “I called your mother four years ago.”
“I know.”
“I almost called you afterward.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I kept thinking I needed to come back with something that would make leaving understandable.”
“Did you find it?”
“No.”
That answer cracked something open inside me.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But space.
“Where are you?”
“Syracuse.”
I almost laughed.
“Syracuse?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ninety minutes away.”
“I know.”
“All these years?”
“No. I lived in Pennsylvania for a while. Then Albany. I came back to Syracuse two years ago.”
“You were ninety minutes away.”
“Yes.”
Anger finally arrived.
Not explosive.
Heavy.
“You could have come.”
“I know.”
“You could have written more than three letters.”
“I know.”
“You could have called.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m sorry.”
I stood and walked across the bedroom.
“You don’t get to make this easy by agreeing with everything.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Then explain.”
So he did.
Slowly.
Badly.
Honestly.
He told me about the Riverside payment.
About Vincent.
About agreeing to take responsibility because he believed Russo Electric would collapse under scrutiny at a time when dozens of employees depended on it.
About believing the truth would eventually be corrected.
About becoming bitter when it wasn’t.
About drinking too much for a few years—not dangerously, he insisted, but enough to become unreliable.
About leaving Rochester for work.
About telling himself he would return once he had rebuilt his life.
Then losing his job again.
Then being embarrassed.
Then allowing embarrassment to become distance.
There was no hidden noble mission.
No secret sacrifice that transformed him into the father I wished I had possessed.
There was simply a man who had made one compromised decision, then another, and another.
Just as my mother had said.
“You kept paying for the storage room,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was cowardly enough to leave but sentimental enough not to throw anything away.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“That sounds like you.”
“I hoped you might find it someday.”
“You could have mailed me the key.”
“I know.”
“Dad.”
“Sorry.”
Silence.
Then I asked, “Why four months ago?”
“What?”
“The receipt.”
He was quiet.
“I heard Riverside was restoring the marquee.”
“How?”
“Online.”
“And?”
“I drove to Rochester.”
My heart shifted.
“You were here?”
“I sat across the street for twenty minutes.”
“Did you go inside?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I saw you.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“You were carrying boxes through the front door.”
I remembered the day.
Programs.
Louise arguing about table arrangements.
“You saw me.”
“Yes.”
“And you left.”
“Yes.”
That hurt differently.
He heard it in my silence.
“I almost crossed the street.”
“But?”
“I realized I was about to walk into your life because I felt ready. I didn’t know whether you were.”
For the first time that evening, I didn’t know what to say.
“So you paid the storage fee.”
“Yes.”
“And left your number.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if you opened the box, then you were already asking questions.”
I sat again.
That was not redemption.
But it was, perhaps, the first thoughtful choice he had made about me in years.
“Are you married?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you have other children?”
“No.”
“What do you do?”
“I repair commercial printers.”
I laughed.
He did too.
There was something almost absurd about it.
I owned a print shop.
My absent father repaired printers ninety minutes away.
“You realize that is ridiculous.”
“I have thought about that.”
We spoke for forty-seven minutes.
Not enough to repair sixteen years.
Enough to begin.
Before hanging up, he said, “Emma?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I’d still like to see you someday.”
I looked at the sticky note beside the fruit bowl.
“Someday.”
“I can wait.”
“You’ve done enough of that.”
He exhaled.
A small laugh.
“Fair.”
A week later, Corner Print received a service request from Riverside Neighborhood Center.
Their ancient copier had started producing a gray stripe down every page.
Louise called me personally.
“This machine is possessed.”
“It needs a drum.”
“It needs an exorcism.”
“I know a repair technician.”
The words came out before I fully considered them.
Louise became suspiciously quiet.
Three days later, my father came to Riverside.
May you like
I asked Anthony to be there.
Not because I was afraid.
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