Memoir of the Sunday Brunch

by Julia Pandl

  “Is it nice out?”

  “Oh, it’s gorgeous, just gorgeous.”

  “Where should we go for brunch?”

  “I don’t know. I brought my folder.”

  My father kept file folders full of information having to do with . . . anything, really, but mostly food: newspaper clippings, magazine articles, recipes, photos, and sometime crumbs. They were kept, in alphabetical order, in a cheap wooden filing cabinet in the garage, each one marked neatly with black Sharpie—Anchovies, Asparagus, Beer, Brunch, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Gravy, Ham, Osso Buco, Tenderloin Tips—you name it. He was like Ready Reference. We could call him up any time and ask, for instance, “Hey, Dad, do you have a file on tea?”

  To which he’d reply, “I don’t know, let me check.”

  We’d wait patiently on the line until he came back. And sure enough, he had a file on tea. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he’d say. “Whaddya know?”

  “Ready?” I asked, grabbing my keys.

  “Yep.”

  “Where’s your folder?”

  “It’s in the car.”

  “Wanna grab it and I’ll pull my car around?” I drove. We had an understanding. If I were shot, or perhaps having a heart attack, and help was nowhere to be found, then maybe I’d let him drive. But only then.

  “Okeydokey.”

  He was right. It was a gorgeous day. The warm air was perfumed with spring—daffodils, tulips, and bluebells—and the grass, littered with dandelions, had managed to turn green overnight. Wisconsin winters step aside for spring every year, yet somehow it’s always a delightful surprise.

  He stood in the street, about a block and a half west of the lot behind my building, leaning against my mother’s Buick, wearing a pair of prescription sunglasses that he had picked up, I believe, during the Carter administration. They had a milk chocolate tint and round plastic rims that were too big for his face, a look that on anyone else might have seemed purposeful, even stylish, but on him just looked ridiculous. He didn’t “do” style, in the fashion sense of the word, on purpose. If it caught up with him at all, it was either by chance or on Father’s Day, wrapped in a box with a bow. Since he didn’t believe in replacing things that were not broken, time passed and sometimes style circled back around and found him again, but it was rare. The shades hadn’t quite made the trip.

  After five minutes of his fiddling around with the seat belt, I finally buckled him in. THE GREATEST GENERATION CONQUERS GERMANY AND JAPAN BUT IS BESTED BY VCRS AND SEAT BELTS. Seriously. He settled into the passenger’s seat and tossed his brunch folder, a book, and his regular glasses on the dash.

  “That’s not gonna stay.”

  “What?”

  “That stuff on the dash.”

  “Sure it will.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I pulled away and all his stuff slid onto the floor. He tried to fold himself in half and set it up, but the seat belt had him in its grip. “I got it,” he grunted.

  “Dad, just leave it. We’ll get it when we park.”

  “Nope, no . . . I’ve got . . . it.” He pinched the folder between his thumb and forefinger, pulled it onto his lap, and flipped it open. “So, what do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, peeking over at the pile. “What are our choices?”

  “Let’s see . . .” He leafed through what must have been fifty loose pages of advertisements, magazine articles, and restaurant reviews, skipping everything that read “upscale” because he didn’t like the word. Its overuse offended him. “How can every place be upscale?” he would ask. “What does that even mean?” He felt the same way about “in-depth” reporting. “If all news coverage is ‘in-depth’ now, what was it before?” He had a point.

  We ended up choosing Miss Katie’s diner. He came across an advertisement and I said I had never been there. A little slice of Milwaukee local color, and not what you’d call upscale, Miss Katie’s fit the basic criteria. The ad said it had a full bar too, which didn’t hurt.

  My father liked to read books before, and sometimes during, Mass, a practice most folks give up shortly before their First Holy Communion. We were not allowed to have books in church, or Cheerios or apple juice, or anything else. We had to sit quietly and pray. George, on the other hand, had his own set of rules. He brought books to church somewhat religiously, if you’ll pardon the pun. For the most part they contained some religious word or idea in the title, like pope or Christianity or maybe even Jesus, so they appeared as if they were appropriate pre-Mass reading, but the content was rarely in lockstep with church teachings.

  “What’s the book?” I asked, as we walked along the chipped sidewalk toward the front of St. Rita’s.

  He held it up in the sunlight: Is the Pope Catholic? A Woman Confronts Her Church. See what I mean?

  I cocked my head, covering my brow with my hand, squinted at him, and laughed. Like I said, the rest was in God’s hands.

  As we mounted the steps, I saw George admiring the church. Just a few months earlier, the two of us stood together on a dusty Roman street, eating gelato, our unified gaze fixed on an imposing Vatican wall. There is nothing imposing about St. Rita’s. It’s a simple redbrick building tucked on the corner of Cass and Pleasant, just south of Brady Street, on Milwaukee’s east side. There is no steeple to be seen from afar, just a subtle stone cross at the center of the roof. Named for St. Rita of Cascia, patroness of impossible cases, it’s the kind of church a person might drive right past and never notice. George’s stride was comfortable. He casually held the door for me, as if we were entering my house or his.

  Inside, however, it is unmistakably a Catholic church, beautiful, but in an understated kind of way. We took a kneeler in a pew on the left, toward the front. I leaned forward, set my elbows on the seat back in front of us, put my face in my hands, and started to say a Memorare. Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary. My father shifted. That never was it known that . . . He shifted again. I looked over and saw him pull one hearing aid from a tiny black leather purse in his pants pocket, stick it in his right ear, and crank it on and off with his fingernail. Each twist of his finger caused it to let out a high-pitched peal that resonated in my fillings like a foil gum wrapper.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I can’t get”—crank—“this thing to work.”

  “It’s making a noise.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. You can’t hear it?”

  “No. It’s noisy in here.”

  He was right. The atmosphere hummed with excited chatter, different from the typical peaceful pre-Mass hush we were used to. I slid across the smooth wood and sat back. People greeted each other with hearty hellos, hugs, and kisses on both cheeks. On the walls surrounding the nave, paintings of St. Francis, St. Rita, St. Thérèse, and a few other saints I should know but don’t, watched and listened.

  I reached over to tuck his sweater tag in and noticed he was still wearing his sunglasses. “What’s going on there?” I asked, nodding toward his face.

  “Where?”

  “Your sunglasses.”

  He reached up, pulled them off, and put them back on.

  “Are you gonna wear those through the whole Mass?”

  “I left my other ones in the car.” He grinned.

  “You’re not gonna go get them, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you want me to get them?”

  “Nope.”

  Apparently, the escapee routine was not completely dead.

  “Do you think you look like Jackie Onassis in those?”

  Smile. Twitch.

  Some things you just have to let go.

  “I think you’re really going to like this priest.”

  “Think so?”

  “Yeah. His name is Father Tim. Last week he was excellent.” Then I added, “They call him ‘Father What a Shame.’ ”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “As in
, what a shame he decided to become a priest instead of getting married.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Because he’s kind of a dish, Dad.”

  Smile. Twitch.

  As I said, my mother was the keeper of the keys in the faith department. She opened the doors and showed us the way. She was our spiritual bus driver, and since she had died, Mass felt like nothing but a brutal crash of emotions, insides broken in a million tiny pieces, colliding with outsides that were trying desperately to look put together. Honestly, for a while I could hardly stand it. Her presence at Mass was so overwhelming, every time, that it pulled a surge of tears from my gut and sent them pouring over my cheeks into my nose, my mouth, and the sleeve of my sweater. It was ugly, or maybe it was beautiful. I don’t know.

  Mass is ritual and practice, which on some days brings memories and tears. On others, it means having an opportunity to plan your week, iron out your grocery list, or ponder your golf swing. Something about the way Father Tim says Mass lets you feel good either way. He’s less piety and more humanity. Yet he has a fervent energy that is truly dazzling. His Mass leaves you with an amazing feeling of enthusiasm and wonder. He’s gifted in a very Christ-like way. He feigns vanity, but his message is one of humility, reverence, inclusiveness, and trust.

  He stood among us that day, in the center aisle, wearing a gold chasuble. I wondered what he thought when he glanced over at George, whose sunglasses made him look like Anne Bancroft did playing Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. Even under the shades I could tell George was paying attention. He sat unusually still, with his hands folded quietly in his lap. He had finally left his hangnails alone.

  Jesus, I trust in you. That was the message of the homily. It was simple, one that George and I had heard and forgotten dozens of times over the years. Father Tim invited the congregation to say it out loud, “Jesus, I trust in you,” three times. And with that, my father glanced over at me, wearing a satisfied little grin, and gave me a tender nod. I could see a sprinkle of mist on his cheeks, and I knew that certainty had gained ground on doubt. The nod, though, that’s what stuck with me. It changed the ritual I had known my entire life. My father looked at ease in a way I hadn’t seen since Terry had died—maybe not ever—like he had parked a truckload of grief with Jesus and trusted that he would know how to help unload it.

  George took my hand as we began the Our Father. This, too, we had done as a matter of ritual hundreds of times, but that day we folded our hands around that nod. His hand was rippled with veins, knobby, and coarse like the bark of a weathered maple, and his grip was gently strong. He pressed his thumb softly into the back of my hand. I looked down and smiled at the deep gray groove that ran along the center of the nail. A birthmark of sorts, that groove had grown more pronounced after two unfortunate meetings with the band saw at the restaurant. As a kid I used to run my small fingers along it, back and forth, back and forth. I didn’t know him without it.

  We held hands like that until the sign of peace; then he wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace and said, “Peace, Julie. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  The crush of tears finally came as we exited the pew for Communion. My father stepped back, laid an almost imperceptible hand on my shoulder, and pressed me ahead of him. He did this all the time, of course, in deference to my mother or any other woman who happened to be behind him. It was a tiny maneuver, sure, one you don’t see all that often anymore, one I was actually quite accustomed to, but it set me off. I felt fat tears roll one after another over my eyelids and down my cheeks, and I watched them drop onto the tips of my dusty loafers. I suppose I had my own truckload to drop off. I missed Terry as much as he did, maybe even more. She did give birth to me, after all. It’s ugly, though, that cry when you’re on your way to Communion. There’s nowhere to hide. But still, you go.

  We came around, slipped back into the pew, set the kneeler on the floor, and slid forward in unison. I put my face in my hands and started a Memorare. Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary . . . Again, George shifted. That never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or . . . Shift. I waited for the ping of the hearing aid, but it didn’t come. Instead, he tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a hankie. I took it without a word and pressed it to my nose. It smelled pretty, like Shalimar. It took me a second to realize what he had done. I looked up at the Madonna and Child statue over the pulpit and saw in my mind’s eye George and Terry’s bathroom and the gold-trimmed oval mirror where my mother kept her powder and her perfume. I knew it was still there. I knew it hadn’t been touched. And I saw him pick up the glass bottle, remove the sapphire lid, hold his hankie aloft, and spray it with a delicate whisper of a reminder. It was beautiful.

  GOD, IT SEEMED, had done his job. It was time for me to do mine. So after Mass, as planned, we headed over to Miss Katie’s. It smelled like you want a diner to smell, like a deliciously greasy pile of hash browns, bacon, and sausage. A cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the doorway between the bar and the dining area. George and I slid into a mint green vinyl booth near the window, with a view of the freeway.

  “That Father Tim is a real dynamo,” George said, folding his place mat up an inch from the bottom and laying down a firm crease.

  “I know,” I said, relieved. “Did I tell ya?”

  “Really, the guy is just superb, superb.”

  “So,” I asked, pressing my luck, “should we make this a habit?”

  “Absolutely. Where should we eat next week?”

  That was it. We ate and enjoyed. He had the corned beef hash and a pinkish Bloody Mary, and I had two eggs over easy, sausage, toast, and hash browns. When we finished, George lifted his glass, shook the remnants of his drink, and said, “Remind me next week to just get a bottle of beer with breakfast.”

  And so our new Sunday morning tradition began, drawing strength from the presence of God and each other: Jesus, with brunch and a beer chaser. Much like our dinners at the restaurant show in Chicago, it grew. The college kids came first: Alison and Charlie, my niece and nephew who attended Marquette University. Then there were others: Treasie and the kids, Zach, Conor, Jenny, and Carly; Jeremiah and his wife, Ashley; our cousin Pammy and her husband Tom. The faces varied, the numbers fluctuated, and the eateries shifted along the path to a perfect Bloody Mary, but the routine, both gentle and powerful, remained the same and tapped the familiar intimacy that came with breaking bread.

  I suppose, at the time, I sensed it. As George knocked on my door each Sunday, and sat in my chair with the newspaper and a handful of M&M’s, he was just seasoning our ritual with characteristically nonexistent pomp. He was the same guy I had met my first day working the brunch but with a softer twitch and quieter tongs. He laughed at me for leaving my vacuum cleaner in the middle of the living room floor three weeks in a row. I told him to mind his own business. He clipped articles from the morning paper about people who were pulled over for driving too slowly and kids who spent eight years in college, bleeding their parents’ checkbooks dry. He read while I drove and we laughed until we cried.

  Once he brought a mayonnaise jar, intending to fill it with holy water for his font at the back door.

  “What’s that?” I asked, watching it roll around on the floor and bump into his shoes.

  “That’s Mom’s holy water jar.”

  “Lemme see it.”

  He leaned over and scooped it up. It was an extralarge jar, the kind found in the basement of the restaurant. The label had been soaked off and “someone” had stuck a piece of masking tape across the middle and written “Holy Water” on it with a black Sharpie.

  “That is not Mom’s.”

  “It sure is,” he insisted.

  “Dad, Mom kept her holy water in petite plastic jars with pictures of saints and shrines on them. There is no way she ever lugged that thing into church.”

  “It most certainly is hers.”

  I looked ahead and let
it go. These moments, I realized, filled a hungry hole for each of us. And we lapped them up, both bitter and sweet.

  16

  Three Days

  I’m driving back from a sales meeting in Baraboo, Wisconsin. It’s a Thursday in February 2007. I’m on I-94, east of Madison. The road is frozen, full of potholes, and surrounded by brittle, barren fields. The sun’s behind a gray curtain of dry clouds. I pick up my cell phone and dial the catering office where Katie works.

  She says, “Dad has prostate cancer.”

  IN A MOVIE there’d be no sound. In real life there’s a whir and a cadence, tires on concrete, where a heartbeat used to be. In real life Emmylou Harris is coming out of the speakers. She’s lost unto this world.

  In a movie there’d be a montage. George smiling and twisting his shaving brush around a chipped coffee cup full of remnants of old soap and lathering his face. George smiling and slapping his naked belly on his way down the stairs. George smiling as he ties his bow tie.

  In real life there’s noise and silence, silence and noise, a thousand conversations that all mean the same thing, noise that changes nothing. There’s a silent, brain-rattling scream.

  The earth has gone crooked, like it’s trying to shuck me off its edge. It won’t have me.

  They tell us three to five years.

  I pick my hangnails until they bleed.

  It’s survivable, but I know he’s going to die.

  There’s no room for sameness anymore.

  KATIE AND I took him to the doctor.

  He lost twenty pounds.

  “Keep an eye on Daddy.”

  They tell us three to five years.

  He gets female hormones; we call him Georgia.

  They tell us eighteen months.

  I PICK MY hangnails until they bleed.

  I know he’s going to die.

  “Keep an eye on Daddy.”

  He reads.

  The future is so noisy. I want to find a corner, curl up, and cover my ears. Instead, I beg and plead against the inevitable. Jesus, please. I scratch, claw, and punch my way into peace, into quiet. It doesn’t work. I don’t trust, so I roundhouse my way in, kicking and screaming.