Emil returns in April to visit his father. I confess that I had imagined him using these months to actually pack up and make the move to Milwaukee, since there seems to be nothing much tethering him to Pittsburgh, and given that Janusz will turn eighty-seven this year. With all the time together that they have lost, it felt like a logical decision. Janusz had not mentioned it, but I think he harbored the same expectation. In any case, Emil has allowed himself more time with his father on this trip, so perhaps he is working his way toward that end. I only hope that he does not let too much time lapse.
Emil has rented an apartment in Elm Grove for a month. The place is only about ten minutes away, so he can easily drop by the nursing home for visits. He has been here for just a week when Emil invites Janusz and me to the apartment for lunch.
I’ve been learning some Polish recipes, he tells us. He seems proudly embarrassed. I haven’t had anyone to try them out on. You’ll be my first. If you want to come.
Janusz grunts his acceptance. You know, Julian owned a restaurant back in Sheboygan. He ran the kitchen. You’re inviting a food critic.
I’m no critic, Janusz. And I don’t know the first thing about Polish food. I would be happy to be Emil’s guest and guinea pig.
The meal starts with an appetizer of kielbasa and brown mustard and slices of dark rye bread. For the main course, Emil brings out a clay pot filled with dumplings, a platter of breaded pork chops and a bowl of red cabbage.
The cabbage is from a jar, he acknowledges. But I made the pierogies myself. I had to throw out the first batch, but I think this one is better. He spoons two of the dumplings onto my plate and does the same for Julian. I cut into one with my fork, let the steam escape, and take a bite. I think this might be my first pierogi. The inside is a creamy cheese-and-potato concoction. I quite like it.
Dessert is a warm apple cake. Another store purchase, Emil concedes. I can see that Janusz is enjoying the food as much as I am – our meals at the nursing home have become so routine and predictably mediocre that Janusz has even stopped complaining about them – but this experience for my friend is clearly more than a culinary one. He is sitting at a table eating food from his own childhood, prepared and served by a son who has been out of his life for fifty years.
Jordan especially has been looking forward to seeing Emil again. As the one who located Janusz’s son, and having arranged the reunion, I think he feels some pride of ownership in this rekindled relationship between father and son. Emil is here when Becky and the boys arrive, as scheduled, on Saturday morning.
Mom has a surprise for you guys, Peter announces as they enter the room.
Emil has been sitting on his father’s bed, but when he sees Becky he stands and nods his head respectfully. Hello, Becky. Hello Jordan and Peter. Which guys are you addressing?
All of you guys. Right Mom?
Becky makes her way to the bed, drops her purse and takes a seat. Do you mind if I catch my breath, Peter?
Peter stares at his mother impatiently.
We thought it would be nice to have a family dinner at Grandpa’s old restaurant in Sheboygan. The Atheneum. Uncle Leander is going to close the place for a day. That’s the big surprise. We’re planning it for next Saturday.
It’s for the Markowicz family too, Jordan adds. You and Grandpa Pappas are like brothers to each other, so we thought it’d be fun if everyone came and met everyone.
Janusz and Emil appear at a loss for words. I am not much more articulate. You planned all this? And everyone’s coming?
Becky nods. Aunt Maggie’s flying in. Mom will be there, obviously. Will is coming, if there’s not some emergency at the hospital. Kat and Mark said they’d be there. And of course Uncle Leander will make sure that all the hot food is served hot and all the cold dishes are served cold, although I’ve told him he’s not allowed to be working in the kitchen that day.
What do you think? Peter demands.
Of course, it will be wonderful to have everyone together again. I had doubted that there would be an occasion for such a gathering, short of my own memorial service. I am sure that being back in the Atheneum will arouse in me an assortment of conflicting emotions, but I can certainly manage all this, given the obvious thought and planning that has gone into arranging this event. It occurs to me that this may very well be the last time I ever set foot inside the restaurant – and that this may even be the case for Maggie and Tessa, Becky and Kat and Mark, Jordan and Peter. Leander is reaching the normal retirement age, and there is no family member who might conceivably inherit the Atheneum. The place has its legacy – serving Greek food, almost without interruption, since Mama and Papa arrived in Sheboygan in 1925 – and it might well carry on under new management. But there will not be a Pappas running the kitchen, and that will feel almost like a family death, whatever name is on the rooftop sign.
Emil will need introducing at the dinner. The details of his long estrangement from his father are elements of a story that has remained private to Janusz and Emil and me. How Emil and his father choose to characterize their relationship is their concern. But I will be the senior member of the host clan at the event, so I will have to be prepared to say a few words about what it is that brings us all together.
As the date approaches, Emil grows more anxious. Everyone in my family has come to know Janusz to one extent or another, but Emil enters the scene as a stranger. On Thursday, he spends an hour interviewing me about each person he will be meeting – their relationships to me and to each other, their ages and occupations, the marital status of each adult, their interests, special personality traits. Emil had apparently learned something about Maggie’s politics, and he asks if there are any other conversational landmines. He is very thorough, and he takes detailed notes just as he has seen Jordan do.
Everyone is to meet at Becky’s house at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. I have been advised that Jordan, now fully licensed and competent, will chauffeur Janusz and me from the nursing home, and we are dressed and ready when he arrives. Emil has made two test drives from his Elm Grove apartment, just to be certain that he knows the route, and he is already at Becky’s, waiting. Tessa is there as well, having driven up from Elmhurst. I had not realized that my daughter would be part of our little caravan, but it makes sense. Becky, ever the organizer, has made the seating assignments. Tessa will drive one car, with Emil in the front seat, Jordan and Peter in the back. Becky will drive the other car, with Janusz in front and me in the back. Will was supposed to have joined us, but he was called into the hospital at four o’clock in the morning and has not yet returned home. Jordan is unhappy being a passenger, but he voices his complaint once and says nothing more about it. I like that quality in the boy.
A handwritten banner reading Welcome Family hangs on the wall inside the restaurant. Leander emerges from the kitchen, grins at Becky, and greets everyone with hugs.
No more working in the kitchen, Becky admonishes her uncle. You promised.
Just checking on the help, Beck. All is well.
Despite the distance and the age difference, it seems that Becky and Leander have developed a relationship like siblings trying to hide their fondness for one another, or an old married couple who have fallen into comfortable ways.
Tessa and Emil stroll around the room together. I cannot guess whether Becky had something in mind with the car arrangements, but it seems that my daughter and Emil’s son have found something to talk about on the drive from Milwaukee, and the conversation is carrying on. I notice that Becky is keeping a close eye on the two.
The room fills over the next hour. Maggie and Sarah arrive together, Maggie apparently having spent the night with Leander and his wife. Sarah is dressed in a dark blue pantsuit, looking a lot more glamorous than a typical Sheboygan wife. She has a New York agent now and has had several showings of her photographs in East Coast galleries, as well as a feature story in a national magazine. Her life has continued to divert from Leander’s, but they both seem comfortable with the way things have turned out. It would not be unusual for a husband to feel inadequate, with a spouse who has achieved some level of celebrity. But it seems as if my son has never been happier. When he spies his wife, Leander hurries over, gives her a quick kiss, takes her hands and leads her into the room.
For a moment, Maggie stands near the door, alone. I know that people say you are never too old to find the love of your life, but at sixty-eight I am quite certain that Maggie will never remarry. I never met the man to whom she was briefly married, and I have forgotten his name. It seems like ancient history. Tessa has kept me updated on Maggie’s love life – sharing at least those stories a father should properly be hearing about his daughter – so I know that she has had some romance and companionship with the passing of the years, although marriage is a lot more than romance and companionship. Maggie is now older than her mother when Thea died. That is something I do not like to dwell on. It only serves to remind me of how many years I have had to live without her.
Maggie spots me, walks over and hugs me tightly. I feel a warm ache in my heart. If I have had a favorite child, I suppose it would be Tessa, but each of my children has occupied a special place in my life. It was Leander who returned to Sheboygan, defying my expectations, who stayed and saw that the business started by Mama and Papa carried on. Leander and Sarah were the constants in my life, after Thea died. But Maggie was our first. Stubborn, defiant, fierce, rebellious, self-assured, she challenged the traditional father-daughter relationship and forced me to rethink many of the foundations on which I had built my life. And now, near the end, what I feel from her, and for her, is simply love.
I tell Maggie that it was good of her to make the trip from Denver. She tells me that she would not have missed it. We look at each other, leaving more unsaid, for the moment.
Kat and Mark arrive, and they are not alone. I do not see much of my younger granddaughter, living with her husband in St. Louis all these years, and I know Mark hardly at all. Becky has told me that they decided, quite late, to start a family. Kat was thirty-five when she gave birth for the first time. Her daughter Charlotte is now three. Kat is holding Mark’s hand on one side, Charlotte’s on the other. They look almost as if they are posing for one of Sarah’s black-and-white photographs.
Becky has stepped up quietly behind me. Remember, Grandpa. She’s not Kat anymore. It’s Katherine.
I nod. I had felt sad when Becky first told me. I remember the pair of them as young girls, always Becky and Kat, talking privately and playing together at the house in Sheboygan, going for walks with Thea and me, working alongside us in the kitchen. Becky is still Becky. Hearing that Kat was no longer Kat was hard enough, but her birth name was Katerina, after Mama. Now, she is simply Katherine. An American mother.
I hug my granddaughter and shake Mark’s hand. He is a tall, good-looking man. His handshake is firm, but his attention seems to be elsewhere. I stoop down and take Charlotte’s hand. I am not sure if I should kiss it or simply hold it. My experience with very young children is long forgotten. Of course I have seen photographs, but this is the first time we have met. Charlotte has the darkest eyes, unruly dark hair that falls down to her shoulders in tight little curls. She looks at me, opens her tiny pink lips and speaks in a soft, rehearsed voice.
It’s nice to meet you, Grandpa Pappas. She looks at her mother, who smiles and nods.
Leander has been walking around the room, making sure that everyone has drinks and that the food platters are properly arranged. This is what Thea would have been doing, back in the day when she and I were hosting private functions. The food looks exactly like I would have prepared and presented it thirty years ago – dolmades properly folded, pita sliced into small triangles, diced scallions sprinkled over the tzatziki, eggplant lightly batter-fried, cherry tomatoes and cubes of feta in bowls. Two young hostesses in matching blue-and-white dresses are circulating unobtrusively, disappearing periodically into the kitchen and returning with replenished trays.
Janusz is sitting at one of the tables with Emil and Tessa. Janusz is more animated than I am accustomed to seeing him. As I watch, I see that he is doing all the talking, and Emil and Tessa are listening. And if I am not imagining it, there is a chemistry between Emil and Tessa that I would never have envisioned.
Since we arrived, Becky has been hovering close to me. They’re getting along well, she says casually. Don’t you think, Grandpa?
Emil and your mother?
Becky smiles and shakes her head. Yes, Grandpa. Emil and mom. I like him. I’m glad we did this. Aren’t you?
If you mean the party, yes. I’m glad too. Although maybe you’re not talking about the party.
What else could I be talking about, Grandpa? Becky turns, walks over to one of the tables, takes a feta cube and pops it in her mouth. She returns with two dolmades on a plate and hands me one. I am tasting Papa’s food. I never altered his perfect recipe for dolmades, and either Leander has carried on the tradition or he has resurrected it for this occasion. Either way, everything about today is as perfect as it could be.
It is late afternoon when we head back to Milwaukee. The seating arrangements are the same, except that Maggie has joined Janusz and me in Becky’s car. She and Tessa will be spending the night at Becky’s then driving back to Chicago together. The choreography of it all is impressive. The only missing element was Will. During the party, I saw Becky checking her phone surreptitiously every few minutes. Whatever had required Will’s attentions at the hospital apparently kept him there for the rest of the day.
The day has been long, but Janusz seems more energetic now than he did this morning. He and I settle into our recliners back in the nursing home. Jordan tosses a blanket over my knees, stands back, waiting to be dismissed. I thank him, and he quickly departs.
My son and your daughter… Janusz remarks.
Yes?
They seemed to have a lot to talk about.
I suppose so. Strangely, I have not thought much about Tessa being lonely in the way that Maggie has experienced loneliness in her life. After all, she has Becky and Will and the boys, and Kat and Mark and a new granddaughter, and she still teaches her young students down in Elmhurst. But her daughters live in other states, and when Tessa goes home in the evening there is no one there to greet her. When I see her, she is always in the company of Becky and the boys, so the possibility of loneliness has somehow escaped me. But two adults of roughly the same age, long divorced and never remarried…why would they not find that they share certain things in common?
Emil tells me he’ll be driving down tomorrow to see your Tessa. He didn’t want me to be sitting around waiting for him.
This piece of news startles me. Janusz is studying me as if trying to see if I approve of this sudden liaison between our offspring.
You’re surprised? Janusz asks.
I didn’t…not surprised…I’m happy they’re…getting along. I hate being at a disadvantage, which is where Janusz has me.
Well, good for them, whatever happens. They deserve it. I think your sneaky little granddaughter has been doing some old-fashioned matchmaking, but I don’t disapprove.
I know Janusz is fond of Becky and the boys, so I take his characterization in the spirit with which I presume it was offered.
Tessa tells me little about her visitor, but I know that Becky will keep me updated on any important new developments, and Emil will do the same with his father. Things are suddenly a lot more interesting in our small world.
Emil has another week and a half before he needs to make the drive back to Pittsburgh, and he comes to the nursing home to see Janusz without missing a day. Most times, the three of us have lunch together in the dining room. If Becky is visiting, Emil will take his father out for a drive, leaving us the room. I ask Becky, on one of these visits, how her mother is getting on. I feel rather gossipy, but Becky is happy to share what she has learned.
She and Emil talk every day, she tells me. Mom said he called her a couple of nights ago, at bedtime, and they talked for forty-five minutes. Honestly, I feel like now I’m the mother of a teenage girl. I never had little girls to do girly things with, and I’ve skipped right to the teenage years. I like listening to Mom talk about it. I’ve never seen her like this.
I like Emil. Although I can’t say I know him that well. It hasn’t been that long. I hope your Mom doesn’t move too fast.
Becky puts her hand on my knee. Grandpa, it’s OK if they move at least sort of fast. Mom just turned sixty-six. She’s been living in that house by herself for more than fifteen years. I’d rather she moves too fast than too slow.
Becky is right, of course. I have more regrets about the things I failed to do, the things I did too late or too deliberately, than the things I rushed into headlong – which, I am sad to say, have been few. I am not an impulsive person. That was not a conscious choice but simply the nature of my character. Thea could be more spontaneous, but I think we both found comfort in routine. If Tessa makes the mistake of being too hasty, she will be hurt. But the experience will not destroy her. She is hesitant to confide in me, I am sure, because she expects me to counsel caution. But I will follow Becky’s example and resist the impulse. I want to able to talk to Tessa, and more than anything I want her to be happy.
Emil leaves Milwaukee a day early so can spend time with Tessa in Elmhurst. I send Tessa a short, positive, non-judgmental email which I hope will reset things between us: I’m glad you’ll be seeing Emil on his way back to Pittsburgh. I like Emil. I hope you have a good time together, and I hope we all see more of him.
Tessa has always taught summer school, but this year she decides to take the semester off. She locks up the house, drives up to Milwaukee, and spends most of July with Becky and Will and the boys. She and Becky visit me at the nursing home at least twice a week. Jordan and Peter have busy schedules, with friends and soccer and camping and daytrips to Lake Michigan, so I see them less than I did in the spring.
On one of her visits, Tessa tells me that Emil has finally, fully retired, and that he is getting his apartment in Pittsburgh ready to sell. He said it shouldn’t take long. I think men who live alone don’t accumulate things the way women do. He’ll make a few trips to Goodwill, and a few trips to the landfill, and the rest of it he can probably load into a trailer that he can hitch onto the back of his car. Tessa and Becky smile knowingly at each other. It is easy enough to read their thoughts: Men.
He’s moving out here? I ask.
He wants to be close to his dad. Becky and Will are going to help him find an apartment in Milwaukee, or maybe somewhere around here.
That’s nice, I say. It’s nice that he wants to be close to his dad.
Tessa nods and smiles again. She and I…we are not quite there yet, but we are making progress.
Everything takes longer than expected. Getting the apartment ready requires a vigorous decluttering, a complete interior paint job, a new dishwasher and the replacement of all the kitchen cabinets. Finding an honest realtor requires a half-dozen interviews. Inspections require an inspector. Putting the listing on the Internet requires the services of a professional photographer. Leander and Sarah handled all this for me when I moved out of Sheboygan. Belatedly, I can now tell them how much I appreciate it.
Janusz is anxious for Emil to get resettled in Milwaukee, and I know that Tessa feels likewise. Sometimes, when we talk, she seems to question whether the move will actually happen, and I am put in the unfamiliar role of having to reassure her that it will all work out. And I think it will, although I understand my daughter’s temporary inclination toward pessimism.
Becky and Will have found several suitable apartments for Emil – one in Elm Grove, one in Wauwatosa, and two in Milwaukee. They have sent Emil photos and short video tours of each place. He says they all look fine, but until he is actually here and can see the apartments for himself, there is nothing much to do.
Autumn ends with a sudden cold snap and the first snowfall of the season, blanketing the courtyard and leaving the birds confused. Back in Pittsburgh, where the weather is more or less the same, Emil’s realtor advises that it might be wise to pull the apartment off the market and wait for the return of warm weather. With spring, the snow and ice will be gone, everything will look brighter, buyers will have an easier time imagining themselves in a new place. Emil appreciates the professional advice, but he is ready to move. And if he has to lower his selling price, that is what he will do. On the first Saturday of November, he finally gets an offer – and against his realtor’s advice, Emil accepts it without negotiating. By the end of the month, he is back in Milwaukee for good. Or rather, he is staying an hour south, in Elmhurst, commuting every day to look at apartments. Tessa says that he would like to be in his own place by Christmas. But if he has to wait until the first of the year, Emil is not in a great hurry.
After long deliberations, Emil signs a contract on the apartment in Wauwatosa. The whole congregation – Tessa, Becky and Will, Jordan and Peter, Janusz and I – had toured both the Wauwatosa and Elm Grove places and cast our votes. At the time, it seemed almost as if Emil was less invested in the final decision than anyone, as if the apartment would simply be another in a long list of addresses that he could attach to his name, rather than the place where his life would resume. And maybe an address is all it is. Between spending time with his father in the nursing home fifteen minutes west and spending time with Tessa an hour south, maybe the apartment is nothing but a way station.
In late January, the evening news broadcast includes a strange story about a mystery illness which apparently originated in China and has now appeared for the first time in the United States. Nobody seems to know much about the disease – how exactly it originated, how a person contracts it, how it is spread, how deadly it is and how it can be cured. When Mama and Papa left Greece for America, exactly one hundred years ago, Europe was just beginning to emerge from an epidemic of influenza that had claimed at least ten or twenty million lives. Medicine has had a century to make great advances, so I am certain that this new disease will not plague the world in the same way that influenza once did. The news reporters seem alarmed, but alarm is their usual disposition, whether the story is about a winter storm moving across the Midwest, or a bus that went off the highway, or a young mother who has been reported missing from her Kansas farmhouse, or a new disease imported from China. I have witnessed enough in my lifetime to know that, aside from wars, the world’s troubles are usually not as serious as they first appear to be – and Janusz and I are certainly safe in our little room in this small Midwest nursing home – so I will worry about those things that deserve worrying about.
But stories about this disease do not cycle away, as stories typically do. And to my concern, and Janusz’s, it seems that the first actual outbreak of the disease in the United States has been in a nursing home in Washington state. Early in March, there are reports that six residents of the facility have died from the disease, dozens of others are showing symptoms, and family and friends have been told that they cannot visit their loved ones. The disease has been named the coronavirus – and while I had thought otherwise, it may in fact be cause for worry.
One Saturday morning, Jessica appears with our breakfast, and she is wearing a mask over the lower part of her face.
Janusz picks up his muffin, sniffs at it, sets it back down on the tray. Are you here to rob us or something? Because I think you’ll have better luck with the independent living folks.
Jessica’s reply is hard to understand. She pulls the mask down slightly and tries again. They want us to wear these things all the time. And these gloves, when we’re handling things. She holds up her hands, which are cloaked in blue latex gloves.
It’s that coronavirus everyone’s talking about, I say. Isn’t it?
Jessica nods and quickly pulls the mask back over her mouth. Washington state is a long way from Milwaukee, but if this virus has already traveled here from China, it may not be long before it makes the trip to Wisconsin, and any other place it cares to infect. Strangely, the influenza epidemic through which Mama and Papa lived disproportionately affected healthy young people. It is early, but based on what is happening in Washington state, the coronavirus seems to have other, more conventional ideas.
Emil arrives later in the morning for his regular visit. Becky and the boys follow fifteen or twenty minutes later. Everyone is masked. Jordan and Peter look especially uncomfortable. Peter’s mask slips down beneath his nose whenever he speaks. Becky pulls it back up, adjusts the straps. Janusz and I have not been issued masks, but if staff and visitors are being forced to wear them, I am sure it will not be long.
I wasn’t sure if they were going to allow us in, Emil says. A lot of places are restricting visitors, you know. I hope this isn’t our last visit for a while.
Becky fiddles with her mask. It is a piece of green cloth that does not look breathable. They’re figuring it out as they go. Nobody knows what this is, or what to do.
Jessica returns just before the lunch hour. I’m sorry, she says. Your guests will have to leave. We just got the order. And the residents are confined to their rooms. I’ll bring your lunches in, but they’ll be late today.
Our world suddenly shrinks. Janusz and I see each other, and the masked nurses and attendants who shuttle quickly in and out of the room, and no one else. After a few days, a maintenance man appears and erects a partition dividing the room into two segments, so now Janusz and I scarcely see each other. No one knows how the virus circulates, whether we contract it by touching infected things, whether we acquire it when we inhale and spread it when we exhale, so even with the partition between us we are asked to wear our masks. I keep mine down around my chin. Janusz tells me he will put his on when someone enters the room.
They’ll figure this out before long, I tell Janusz, and we’ll get back to eating lunch and dinner in the dining room and having visitors.
But weeks pass, nothing changes, and our world shrinks further. I am grateful that we have our phones and the computer – which Janusz and I share, wiping down the keyboard after each session. Still, I have come to appreciate the importance of real human interaction – sitting across the table from Becky and hearing about her troublesome sixth graders, eating frozen custard with Becky and the boys on a bench in Mitchell Park, going for long, destination-less drives with Jordan, listening to Emil talk about Tessa’s plans to add some character to the apartment. Emil and Becky and the boys have figured out that they can visit by entering the courtyard through an exterior gate, but conversations through a closed window only serve, in the end, to remind you of how confined you are, and what strange times we are living in.
When you are confined to your room, or to your half of a room, every day seems pretty much like every other day. Every breakfast is the same, every lunch, every dinner. Talking to Janusz over the partition grows difficult. Neither of us has any interest in watching television, knowing that the news will be all about politics and the coronavirus – the spread of which is now being called a pandemic, which sounds a lot more dire than an epidemic. Maggie and Tessa and Leander send emails every day. The pandemic is affecting everyone’s life: Maggie is working from home, Tessa and her students are doing lessons on their computers, Leander has closed the Atheneum altogether. But with no news of my own to report, my replies are little more than brief, sympathetic acknowledgements.
With limited opportunities to speak, day after day, I think that something happens to your vocal cords. I hear it in my own voice when I talk to Becky on the phone. I sound as if someone has inserted a hose down my throat, and then quickly pulled it out. But I hear it especially when Janusz is on the phone with Emil. We know each other well, and I can tell that he is getting physically weaker. I cannot imagine that he has developed any of the symptoms of the coronavirus, being as isolated from the outside world as we are. But it seems that the disease is still confounding all the medical experts, so maybe it has tricks that we have yet to learn. With the partition between us, I am never sure when Janusz is napping and when he is just sitting idle in his recliner, so rather than talk to the nurse on duty I give her a handwritten note: Janusz does not sound well. Can you please have the doctor check on him?
When he finally appears, a day later, the doctor tests us both for the virus. Janusz responds with his usual grunt of disapproval. I am relieved to learn that the virus has not infected either of us. But at the same time, Janusz’s decline is all the more worrying. As far as I can tell, he gets out of his recliner only to use the bathroom and to get into bed in the evening. I am not much better, but I do walk to the window and stand there two or three times a day, watching the birds. And now and then, I venture to the door and look down the hallway to see if there is any activity. I have noticed that Janusz’s meal trays are often retrieved by the attendants untouched. Accordingly, I presume that he is losing weight, although it is hard for me to tell. I can only hope that the nurses on duty – and the one doctor assigned to our unit, whom I have only seen twice since the lockdown started – are keeping a close eye on Janusz’s health, and that they will not allow him to simply waste away.