by Dan Robson
Thank you.
Sincerely, The Robson Family
The ink of the postscript is a little smudged by tears.
P.S.: The items in this box may not mean anything to you if you are not a Robson. But if you are, then they will mean a lot.
The items we’d felt were essential to tell our story to the future are piled beneath the letter.
The Patrick Roy hockey card. One of Dad’s business cards from Paramount. An inspirational poem called “A Winner’s Creed” printed on a shiny silver wallet-sized card. A photo of our tabby cat, with him partly out of the frame. A photo of our golden retriever. A newspaper clipping about me helping my team win a tournament. An awkward family photo taken for the church directory.
Beneath it all is a folded piece of light tracing paper. I know it right away. I hold my head in my hands and start to cry.
Jai takes the tracing paper from the shoebox and unfolds the sketch of a father and son walking side by side. They face away, moving towards the white void beyond the page. The father’s arm rests on the boy’s shoulder.
The date, June 7, is written at the bottom left corner. It was the day before Dad’s forty-second birthday. The day we walled in the capsule. It was a gift I’d given him so that we could make sure that whoever found it in the future would know.
There is text printed above each character.
“Friends forever, buddy?” my father asks.
“Friends forever, Dad,” I say.
Pieces of broken drywall are scattered across the kitchen table. There is dust everywhere. It’s a mess. I look at Mom and my sisters, and imagine Dad sitting in a chair beside them.
“We just busted a hole through the kitchen wall,” I say. “We’ll have to fix it.”
Our faces are red and wet—but we’re all laughing now. I can see him smiling, too.
28
To mark my father’s birthday a year after his death, I plan a trip to the clouds to see our life from an angle he loved. The lesson at the Brampton Flying Club was a gift from a friend—one whom I’d told about my father’s dream of being a pilot and who had much more faith in my courage than I did. The flight was delayed three times because there was too much wind in the sky. I’m relieved by their caution, but also concerned. Surely planes ought to be able to withstand a breeze?
When I’m finally cleared to fly late on a windless, blue-sky afternoon, I’m introduced to an instructor who looks as though he’s just graduated from high school. Jenna, the bravest among us, has agreed to join me on the flight. After signing away our lives on dozens of pages fastened to a clipboard, we follow the young pilot across the grey tarmac where years before our father had taken flight.
The Cessna 172 Skyhawk he leads us to looks old enough for Dad to have actually flown. It’s white with orange and brown stripes, almost identical to those old Robson Renovations decals. The wings stretch out from above an alarmingly tiny cockpit. The name Super Hawk is written across the engine cowl. Our instructor gives the exterior a quick once-over, then he opens the hatch and we fold ourselves in behind him. It feels as if we’re about to fly the refrigerator box we pretended was a plane when we were kids.
I squeeze into the pilot’s seat, shoulder to shoulder with our instructor. Jenna sits on a padded ledge that folds down behind us. The control panel is a maze of dials labelled with words like vacuum, air speed, vertical speed, manoeuvre speed—another language I can’t speak, but one that seems critically important in this moment. We’re given enormous mint-green headphones with microphones.
Our instructor fiddles with the dials and flicks a half dozen switches. Then he turns towards the open window and loudly announces “Clear prop” to no apparent person. He flips another switch and the propeller coughs a few feet in front of us. It sounds like a lawn mower sputtering to life. And then it sputters to a stop. Our instructor fiddles with a few more switches, looking more confused than I’d like. We move quickly when he gets it going again. The plane rolls forward towards a runway at the far end of the tarmac.
He’s not very talkative—and I’m very nervous. The silence is tense, and I need to break it.
“How high are we going?” I ask.
“About three thousand feet,” he says.
I’m aware that the many commercial flights I’ve taken were ten times as high, but those reach heights way beyond my comprehension. Three thousand feet is close enough to see the ground—and close enough to fear it. It’s not particularly hot, but I can feel the sweat on my back and hands.
We come to a stop and the plane bobs up and down as another white refrigerator box drifts to a landing in front of us and I try to figure out what three thousand feet translates to in terms I can understand. (Later, I learn that it’s nearly twice as high as the CN Tower, our local marker of really high.) Then, before I can brace myself, we’re sprinting down the runway towards the end of the asphalt and the edge of a farmer’s field. The plane whines and moans as we pick up speed—and then, in a moment, we rise. The lift pushes me back in the seat.
But the jolt is only temporary. And the nervousness I’ve been trying to hide deep in my stomach dissipates. The engine still moans like an overheating lawn mower, but the path feels smooth and steady. We’re going higher. I look back at the rows of red-roofed hangars behind and below us. They become figurines in a model landscape. The white planes look like the Styrofoam flyers we used to whip around as children. The green fields below us reach out in plots lined with tractor trails and crops, occasionally interrupted by a stretch of unsettled brush. We can see the country homes and barns laid out across the rising land of the escarpment on the horizon. A long grey line stretches up the middle, with cars moving like ants in both directions.
The instructor’s voice fills my headphones.
“It’s your turn to fly,” he says.
The nerves rush back.
He tells me to hold the controls in front of me. I grip them carefully, like parts of a bomb I need to dismantle. He lets go of the controls in front of him. The plane is in my hands. My arms are tense. I clench my jaw and squint my eyes beneath my aviators. I try to keep my hands as still as possible, afraid to move. We drift forward for about twenty seconds of nervous silence as I try to avoid killing us all.
The instructor tells me to look ahead at the horizon as a marker and to dip the nose just beneath it, indicating a small space with his thumb and index finger.
“Push in to go down, pull out to go up,” he says.
I nudge the controls and feel the first dip of an incline, like the curve at the top of a roller coaster. We wobble left and right, and I tighten my grip as my stomach pushes into my lungs. We glide forward and down for about ten seconds before levelling out again. I catch up to my breath and slow my heart.
And we are floating.
Our little world is different from above. Life feels smaller and slower from the sky. The proportion changes—the places that hold such an enormous space in our memories appear fractional. And there’s a clear view in all directions. Blue sky behind and pink light ahead. The sun falls into a cloud as we follow the rise of the escarpment towards Orangeville.
I can see why Dad loved this. Just beyond the fear, above the ground and beneath the clouds, there is calm.
A deep breath.
Look around.
* * *
—
Dad, you can see it all.
In the fall, I’ll be married. We’ll dance by the glow of tiny white lights in an old barn while the rain pours in the cold night. I’ll wear your wedding ring.
A young family will move into the apartment in the renovated basement and a friend will live upstairs, filling our old house with laughter and love again. Mom will never be alone.
We’ll find a plot in the graveyard in a valley in the Caledon Hills, where the trees turn bright red and orange each autumn. It’s a spot w
e drove by together many times. The four of us will pick it out. We’ll think you’d like it here. But we won’t buy a gravestone. We won’t break ground. The plot will sit and wait.
I’ll circle the world, just as you wanted me to. I’ll visit faraway places and find new adventures. I’ll forget for a moment and press your name in my phone, hoping to share the stories. And my heart will break again, each time I remember that you’re gone. But I’ll search for you in the stars at night—looking up like we used to with the red telescope in the hallway outside your room—and I’ll tell you about it all.
I won’t know if you hear me, but I’ll dream that you always do.
And time will fly forward, revealing new views ahead of the ever- moving horizon. I’ll fiddle with your tools and try to measure up.
There will be a hole above my bed where a ceiling fan should hang. I’ll take apart the bed so that I can use the ladder to reach it. I’ll switch off the power and put up a work light. I’ll lay out the screws and the bracket and the motor and blades beside the instructions—which will suggest that there are seven easy steps. I won’t get past the first one. I’ll use a drill bit on a wood screw and spin it in the bracket. I’ll mangle its star slot into a square, and it will stick there and linger above me as I try to sleep in a stuffy room at night—reminding me of what I am and what I am not.
Years will pass like months. The house will continue to age and creak. The deck will splinter and rot. I’ll come to learn that there is no holding this place up without you. And it will be time to let it go.
Soon Mom will retire and plan to move to a small condo closer to us in the city. A red SOLD sign will sit at the edge of the lawn beneath the streetlight. I’ll fill a moving truck with everything we’re not ready to leave behind. I’ll bring your tools. The new mitre saw and folding stand, buckets and bags of hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and saws. All your old blueprints. The work table you built out of a thick sheet of wood with four-by-four legs. I swear I’ll never stop trying to master them all.
“I’m sad your mom is moving,” a neighbour will say. “But it’s for the best. There was too much to do. This house was falling apart without your dad around.”
I’ll nod and say “Yeah”—because it’ll simply be a matter of fact. She’ll be right. There was no one to keep the house from falling. There should have been.
Before we go, I’ll take one last walk. I’ll remember the walls we took down and run my hands across the walls we put up. I’ll feel the carpet on my toes and the creak of the stairs on the third step down.
We’ll sign our names where no one is likely to find them for years and years. And even if no one ever does, we will remember—and it will always mean a lot.
I’ll be the last to leave. I’ll go through the laundry room, past the spot you last laid down your tools, and out the white door. I’ll trace your name where you wrote it in chalk on the wall.
The garage door will stutter and jam as I close it, as though it just isn’t ready for this to end. But I’ll force it down, one last time. I’ll walk to the end of the driveway, turn and look back.
SOLD.
I’ll never fill the void you left behind.
“Dad,” I’ll say. “I’m sorry.”
That will be the mark of our new life, without you. The space between the moment you gripped my hand and I kissed your forehead and every day hereafter will continue to expand. I’ll feel you slipping away in my dreams. I won’t be able to imagine your face or hear your voice the way I once did. The cruellest part of the future will be the way you fade.
But as hard as it tries, time won’t destroy what you built. The foundation will hold.
It will begin with a phone call, as these things often do.
I’ll be off on another flight and miss several calls in the air. When I land, my screen will light up with messages.
“Call me when you can.”
I’ll feel the same rush of fear I felt that morning when you were about to leave the world.
I’ll text her back.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes. Just call me when you can.”
The plane will taxi for twenty minutes and the passengers will depart as slowly as possible. My heart will pound. We’ll shuffle out onto the tarmac in the humid air of Samos, the island where Pythagoras was born. I’ll dial from the baggage carousel. It will ring nearly a dozen times before she picks up.
“Hey,” she’ll say, finally.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Good. Just taking the dog out and then heading to the gym.”
“Why did you need me to call right away?” I’ll say. “You scared me.”
“It’s nothing,” she’ll say. “It’s just…”
“What?”
She’ll make me wait.
“I’m pregnant.”
And I’ll find myself in a hospital, all over again. I’ll sit for hours, useless and waiting.
The first time I meet my son, he’ll grip my hand tight with his tiny fingers. And he will know I am there. He’ll have the same wrinkles in his forehead as you. And I’ll see you in the dark pools of his eyes. I’ll hold him against my chest and feel his warmth as he falls asleep. I’ll promise to build him a home as you did for me. And I’ll wonder where his first dreams will take him. Mine will stay there, with him—breathing and breathing. Breathing, forever.
* * *
—
We pass over Orangeville and the instructor leads me through a turn. The plane banks, tilting to the side as we curve across the pink sky. I’m calm now. The fear is gone. We level out as we face home and the sun falls beside us.
Before landing, we loop over the old red-brick school. I can see the playground and the blacktop and the basketball net. I can see the brown roof of the wing I watched my father build. I can see every piece of the moments that raised the world we shared.
Time folds over as we float beneath the clouds. The plane tilts towards the runway. We descend, gliding home to live it all again.
Acknowledgments
This book wouldn’t exist without the encouragement and patience of Nick Garrison, associate publisher at Penguin Canada—so first and foremost, my thanks to him. Your belief in this project kept me going when it felt overwhelming. Your guidance helped me express things I felt but struggled to say. You kept things square, plumb, and level. Truly, Nick, thank you.
My sincere appreciation also to Nicole Winstanley, publisher of Penguin Canada, for her support and enthusiasm for this project. This opportunity is the fulfilment of a dream, and I’m forever grateful to have worked with the wonderful team at Penguin Random House to make it come true.
To Karen Alliston, thank you for your thorough and thoughtful edits. You brought precision to my uneven edges.
As always, thank you to my agent and friend Rick Broadhead. Your support throughout this endeavour was indispensable.
I’d like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, for its generous support, which helped provide the resources necessary to complete this project.
To Matt Lockhart, Jonathan Jacobs, and Tim Dewsbury—I couldn’t ask for a better crew to be the weakest link on. Thanks for your hard work and for putting up with me. Matt, thank you for the love you showed in patiently sharing your talent with me.
Thank you to everyone who took time to share stories about my father. To all of his friends not mentioned in the text, but who gave shape and meaning to his life. Your heartfelt contributions were essential.
Thank you to Carol Taylor, Dale Taylor, Cindy Coleman, and Bill Plunket for sharing your memories. To Jerry Agyemang, Jordan Campbell, Michael Grabham, Alex Warlow, Marco Luciani, and Steve Farley—and all my other friends who let me know what my father had meant in their lives. To Gord Holmes and Josh Spilchen, I know he’d be so proud of you both.
To the friends who stood beside me through the toughest days and encouraged me throughout this process, I can’t possibly thank you properly, but here’s to the years and memories to come.
Thank you, John and Jill, for your love and support. And thank you, Nabil, for the evening chats on Big T and inspiring settings to sit and type.
To Auntie B, Larry, and Grandma Robson for colouring in the story of Dad’s life and being such an important part of mine. To Grandma Baechler for being the best storyteller I know.
Mom, thank you for the life you built with Dad and for the endless love you shared. Thank you for your faith in purpose—and in me. You’re a pillar of strength and grace. I love you. Jenna and Jai, thank you for trusting me to tell this story, which is just my part of the bigger picture. I know we each had unique experiences with our father. I hope that this reflects the man you loved, but that we always tell stories that fill in the gaps in our perspectives—and keep his life and legacy growing. LUM.
Jayme, I know that for us this is the story of the hardest part. Thank you for believing that I could find my way back. Thank you for loving me through it—and for being the strength and inspiration to keep me going. I love you endlessly.
And finally, to Oliver Richard Robson, my spaceman. Welcome to our humble corner of the cosmos. We’ll sail these stars together.
© David Wile
DAN ROBSON is head of features and senior writer at The Athletic, Canada. He has won a National Magazine Award and a National Newspaper Award for his writing. He is the author of the national bestseller Quinn: The Life of a Hockey Legend, which was longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize for literary nonfiction. His book Bower: A Legendary Life won the Ontario Historical Society’s Creighton Award for best biography. He is also the co-author of The Crazy Game (with Clint Malarchuk), Change Up (with Buck Martinez), and Killer (with Doug Gilmour), all of which were bestsellers.