August 12, 1935, came and went. The delivery made and Vince hurried home to relieve Heather of teething duties with the baby. Twenty-month-old Vinnie’s gums were sore and Vince’s remedy of single malt whiskey was the only medicine that worked. Heather was showing signs of exhaustion since she’d laid off the maid and tightened up their personal budgets to avoid making cuts at the factory.
A week later, another Kraft paper pouch came via Pinkerton Agent. Vince opened the pouch and extracted the inner envelope, which was the usual rough home deckled paper. The stationary was a bit better, refined paper, but still of a very pedestrian and cheap variety. The copperplate hand was a bit more delicate and not quite so neat as it had been over the years. The note read:
Mr. Morgan,
It is long past time for you to understand what this has been about.
Yours,
A
Vince sat down on the corner of the porch and reread the note several times. He rechecked the pouch and envelope. Neither yielded anything more.
When it came time for September’s drop, he was there in plenty of time. The train backed in and he watched the conductor swing down, place his step, and then assist passengers down from the coach. When he finished, the passengers boarded and departed. There was no parcel after seventeen years.
October 14, 1935, Vince had lunch in the oyster bar and regaled the proprietor with Vinnie’s latest exploits. He left a tip, but the proprietor still refused his payment. He made his way to Platform 44 and stood near the brass rail, and glared at a sign proclaiming, “Wet paint.” After ten years of quiet waiting, the benches glistened of fresh varnish.
Again the train arrived, conductors and passengers disembarked, boarded, and departed without so much as a second glance from the rear conductor. Vince felt a pang of remorse at having come down despite Heather’s protest. He resolved that this would be the final year that he would continue this one point of contention between he and his wife.
On November 11, 1935, Armistice Day, Vince stopped to talk with the young troops waiting for their sergeant to put them on the train. He took a moment and told them about his time in France and they listened with reverence, then kidded him about the horses and water-cooled machine guns. He wondered why he bothered to talk to the kids as he made his way to his bench under the new metal sign that read, “Platform 44.” He wasn’t surprised as the train came and went without incident, and no parcel. He walked out into the November rain and hailed a cab to take him home.
It was a very tearful goodbye as he left the house on December 9, 1935. Heather had again shared her desire for a daughter, and stated her pitiful plea for another child. Vince hustled through Grand Central station and contemplated taking a train somewhere, anywhere away from the pain in his heart.
Today he didn’t stop and chat with anyone. He made his way to Platform 44 just as the train was backing in. He stood there, near the bench where he’d waited on this train for the past seventeen years. He watched as the conductor at the rear of the last coach swung down, and set his step in place.
Vince watched as the conductor straightened his jacket and offered a hand as the door opened and the first passenger stepped down. The young woman’s French Provincial features bore a strong and haunting resemblance to someone from his past. As she turned her head and made eye contact, he had the distinct notion that he was looking at his father’s maternal likeness, though her gait was more feminine and hinted at his mother. But, she was as much none of them, as she was both of them.
She walked up to him and offered an envelope. He took it and turned it over. His name appeared in a frail copperplate hand. He opened it and pulled out a very tattered tintype photograph of himself in his Army uniform.
“You must excuse me,” she said. “I would have come sooner but three months ago my mother Estelle took sick with cancer and passed away just after sending her letter to you – my father. She sent all the money she ever earned to the Pinkerton Agency to pay for our coming to America. With her dying breath, she asked me to tell you that she was sorry that she had given you a daughter and not a son.”
The young woman’s voice broke and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Father, I hope that you can find a place for me in your house until I can make it on my own.”
A Primal Force – by Kathleen A. Ryan
THE GRAY-HAIRED MAN shuffled along the smooth Tennessee marble of the majestic Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal, about to confess a lifetime of sins into a hand-held recorder, as another spring day dawned in the Big Apple.
Candy, a slim teenager with warm brown eyes who’d made her home among the homeless, the one who ensured her elder counterparts kept safe and ate sufficiently, had just sold it to him. Initially, he hesitated about giving her money, fearing she’d spend it on crack, a raging epidemic and the scourge of the city.
“What do I say to those folks who claim I’m enabling you?” he had asked, noticing her parched lips and sunken cheeks.
“Tell ’em you saved me from prostitution, Grandpa Guiseppe,” she said, stuffing the bills into her threadbare jeans. “Besides, this gadget will come in handy – you have so much to tell your newfound family!”
Candy demonstrated how to use the device. She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks!” she said, as she skipped away. Guiseppe made the sign of the cross and said a silent prayer for his young friend.
Guiseppe spoke into the recorder, addressing his recently discovered great-grandson.
“Antonio, it warms this old man’s heart to know you exist – but it also aches, realizing the magnitude of what I’ve missed.”
To the throngs of commuters and visitors swishing by, the 89-year-old man wearing a tweed coppola probably seemed like a typical New Yorker talking to himself.
He removed the key attached to a chain around his neck and accessed his locker. He shed a few layers no longer needed.
The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee lured him straight to his favorite vendor. “Buongiorno, Guiseppe,” the vendor said. “How ’bout a cannoli with your morning cappuccino?”
“Sounds divine.” He leaned his head toward the brilliant sun rays peering through the 75-foot-high arched windows. “Morning makes the day, doesn’t it?”
The vendor nodded. “Each day the sun rises, my friend, it gives us another chance.”
“‘With a rooster, or without a rooster, God will still make the dawn,’ my sainted mother always said.” He attempted to pay, but the vendor just waved his hands and shook his head. “You suggested adding cappuccino to the menu, and your family’s cannoli recipe is our treasure. You are a permanent guest, Guiseppe.”
“Millie Grazie,” he said, bowing his head gracefully.
The elderly, yet muscular man, who could pass for 75, placed his breakfast on a small table and sat to people-watch, one of his favorite pastimes. In between sips and devouring the rich pastry, he talked about events he’d not spoken about in decades.
“What a miracle – between your extensive genealogy research and the newspaper report of the homeless epidemic in the terminal, you found me. After you contacted the terminal, the cops said to prepare for a joyous, life-altering surprise. Discovering family I never knew existed? A dream come true. I bawled like a bambino. Our conversation was the best phone call of my life.”
A patrol officer stopped by to chat. “Hey, Mr. Celebrity. Aren’t you meeting your long-lost relative today?”
“At one p.m. my great-grandson and I will meet under the clock,” he said. A smile spread across his wrinkled face. He shrugged his shoulders. “Where else?” he said with a giggle.