In September, here in Brooklyn, there will be a summer-warm afternoon, heavy with moisture, when an autumn front approaches. Above me is that sky that made May and June beautiful, fragrant with flower scents and optimism, but that by now has become blurry with summer’s residue. I walk along waterfronts and sit on park benches, anticipating the cool, cleansing air to come.
But when the front arrives, it is an enveloping cloud, dark and foreboding. It is silent and yet not quiet. It is still, and yet it pushes toward me. It is bigger than anything I’ve known. There is no sunlight and no stars. It is beyond meteorology and astronomy. It is frightening and seductive.
As it enfolds me, I am a five-year-old boy again. My father and I are walking by a nightmarish cathedral borne of medieval hardship and cruelty whose lights glower through swirling fog. But I don’t think to tell Dad I’m afraid. As long as I’m with him, I’m safe.
* * *
The dream came to me one Sunday morning as I was working on a memoir. The building in the dream was probably a Victorian train station, and the walk with Dad would have taken place when our home was London.
That long-ago day, my young father would have accompanied me to his beloved Kensington Science Museum. He took pride in his skill at explaining how things worked and surely appreciated my open admiration. But I wonder if he was at all anxious when, as night fell, we walked together to a London Underground station. He would have kept up that appearance for my benefit, no matter how he really felt.
Life’s details obscure our essence. The man I spent my adult life struggling against and reconciling with died five years ago. What endures is a father’s love for his son and the son’s love for his father, as powerful as a dense cloud looming across New York Bay.
What a lovely read. Tender and also a bit sad. I can relate, as a mother, to keeping up appearances for my kids, no matter what I am feeling inside.
Very touching. Sometimes this comes to us too late.