Page 65 of Good Days Bad Days

Charlie

Five Years Later

“Dad? You in here?” I call from the entry, using my key to unlock the smooth navy-blue front door.

I texted him when I landed but he didn’t respond, so he’s either gone on a walk without his phone and is unaware we’re about to descend upon him, or he forgot to text back.

The twins wanted to stop at the beach before coming to the house, so I dropped them off with Ian.

“We’ll walk home. They’ll get cold in, like, ten minutes,” Ian said like an old pro. You’d think he grew up here now after coming here every summer since we finished my parents’ house. He even claims KC’s ice cream is superior to Annie’s, which is sacrilege.

“OK. Don’t forget we’re supposed to meet everyone at Hogs and Kisses at six,” I said loudly so Mack and Bradley could hear the deadline from me as well as their dad.

Lacey and her husband, Finn, and Cam and his girlfriend are meeting us for dinner and drinks.

It used to be weird for Cam and Ian to hang out when we came to town, but over the years they learned how to be friends. “Lacey will freak if we’re late.”

“We will not be late, right, guys?”

The fifteen-year-olds nodded in unison.

“Love you! Be safe!” I said, playfully stern. They chanted “I love yous” back and then ran off wildly toward the lake.

Closing the door, I can hear my dad in the back room now, playing the piano. I drop my bags by the stairs and follow the sounds of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” my parents’ wedding song, to the den.

The floors are a gorgeous ash color throughout the house, the kitchen counters a white Italian marble.

I remember a time when I couldn’t see the floor, much less the walls, and there was a risk of collapse at every turn.

That’s when the house seemed a total loss and so did my relationship with my parents.

If I could go back and tell old me that one day I’d be happy to be in this house, I’d have laughed in my own face.

But instead of anxiety and worry, fight or flight, I’m grateful to be here.

I watch my dad play, his eyes closed and his knobby fingers dancing over the keys, effortless.

I’ve learned so much about my father since we first set out to clean this house.

His amazing musical talents, of course, but also as we finished cleaning this room, we found not only Mom’s history but his as well.

“Dad, what are these?” I asked when I happened upon unmarked canisters of 16 mm film. I’d decided to have all of Betty’s Classy Homemaker episodes digitized and thought I might have found more to add to the collection.

“Oh, let me have a look,” he said, putting on his reading glasses, holding up the cans to the hanging Tiffany light. He fidgeted and slid off his glasses, and I could sense he was battling something inside of himself.

“You can tell me,” I encouraged him. He was working on opening up more, and he couldn’t argue with the positive effects on our relationship. He coughed and sat on the bed, giving me back the film.

“Those are mine,” he said simply. I waited, sure he’d tell me to toss them or give me some placation, but then he added, “We . . . we can watch them if you like.”

When we loaded up the film on the library projector I still had at my rental, what I saw took my breath away. Footage from another land, another time. Footage from war.

“You filmed this?” I asked, stunned. I found out through my search of Mom’s stuff that he’d been a camera operator at WQRX, but I had no idea he went overseas as a war correspondent. I don’t think I ever would’ve known if Betty’s story hadn’t found its way out from the dark.

“I did,” he said, not saying much else as we watched side by side on the couch and it grew dark outside.

We put the films away, and I made a mental note to also have them digitized.

But it wasn’t until we were at the house last summer that I showed them to Ian and the kids, and from the armchair in the corner of the family room, my father told us the stories of his time as a video journalist in Vietnam.

Greg Laramie sold his antique store a few years back, and since then he’s come to see us in LA, visited the Eiffel Tower, walked the Great Wall, and even taken up biking. His life has expanded now that he’s let it.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, walking into the now spotless den where Mom spent her last year. It was once my parents’ prison.

“Oh, hon. There you are.” He turns slowly on the low piano bench.

He’s aged visibly since the last time I saw him, and it concerns me.

He’s had a few of his own health challenges in the past few months, needing home health care of his own.

I will always pick up his call when I see his face on my phone, and the kids have bonded with him, Olivia over photography, and Mack and Bradley over fishing and his war stories.

We don’t know how long he’ll be with us, which summer might be his last, but we’re making up for lost time.

“You sure know how to play,” I say, leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded, remembering the days in his shop when he’d play the same song for Mom.

“Nothing special,” he says, still as humble as ever. “Are the kids here? I have some surprises for them.”

He’s always finding treasures for his grandkids, a special fishing lure, an antique camera, an interesting book he found at a swap meet. It’s touching to see my kids, who grew up in the age of new, new, new in a privileged home, learn the value of the unique items he finds for them.

“Ian took the boys to the beach, and Olivia is about an hour away.” Olivia is flying in from New York, where she’s working on her first documentary.

“I come from a family of storytellers. Thought I might as well give it a shot,” she told me when she broke the news of her change in majors.

I didn’t need Olivia to follow in our footsteps, she could’ve become a waste disposal engineer and I’d have been proud of her, but I get why this path has called to her, and I’m watching each step she makes with great reverence.

“I hope we’re not too much trouble,” I say, squeezing my father’s shoulder, noticing the darkness under his eyes.

“Heavens, no. I’m overjoyed you’re here,” he says, patting my hand. “This is your house, too.”

I kiss his head and help him up from the bench, opening the French doors on the back wall that lead to a private patio. He sits in his favorite chair, my mom’s favorite, and looks out on the lake that’s dotted with boats, and I breathe in the fresh lake air.

He’s right. This is home. A home away from home. The kids have come to call it home even though it’s only for a handful of weeks every summer.

Second Chance Renovation went through with the crossover show with Squeaky Clean. My dad wanted the show to happen, and my dad rarely got what he wanted, so I sucked up my concerns and took the opportunity to get involved in the project.

With the full power of HFN behind us, in two weeks we had the house emptied, and we were able to watch the fireworks over the lake on the Fourth from my parents’ deck.

I thought it’d be awkward, that I’d want to leave as soon as we stepped inside the fully renovated, state-of-the-art, wheelchair-accessible house.

“We should rent a place down the street, just in case,” I told Ian as we got on the plane in LA.

“Let’s give it a try. You never know. If it’s bad, we can leave.”

But it wasn’t bad. Olivia and the twins fell in love with the lake, Ian and I remembered how much we loved one another, and I got to watch my parents love each other in a way I never had as a child.

We went home with sand in our shoes and a sense of peace that called us back to the house again the next summer.

That summer my mom sat in her wheelchair, not my mom or Betty any longer, but a confused version of both who stared at the lights in the night sky like she was watching a miracle from God himself.

The crossover episode was a hit, as Alex had predicted, and all the major networks and magazines covered the story of the house renovation guru restoring her parents’ home.

It was a vulnerable time for me, weathering plenty of online criticism about how I abandoned my parents while others said I never should’ve forgiven them.

I could see both sides in the aftermath of the show and press tour.

But in the end, it didn’t matter what people said.

I’m grateful for the time I got with Betty.

As her memory continued to wane, she faded away from all of us over the next year.

She occasionally seemed to remember her missing treasures or the baby she’d lost or even her daughter who was taken from her house, but she spent most of her last days staring out at the lake through the large windows in her bedroom while my dad played for her on an old Steinway he’d restored.

The repairs and the paycheck he received for letting strangers into his house made it possible for my mom to live in a safe home with round-the-clock nursing care. And one June evening in a rare instance of lucidity, she asked my father to hold her, and she passed quietly in her own home.

We spread some of her ashes in the lake, the rest remain with my dad.

There was a time in my life I thought I’d never step foot in this town again, and now I can’t imagine losing this part of myself and my history.

We considered selling the house and putting Dad into the assisted living side of Shore Path.

He was willing, saying he didn’t want to be a bother.

But, like today, when I watch my father in this house, a home he built with the woman he loved, a home they nearly lost, and a home we restored as a family, I know he belongs here.

We belong here, and I’m glad I finally found a way to come home again.