Our meal menu’s can be monotonous with Papa. Not for him, but for the rest of the family.

“The wonderful smell lures me down the stairs.” He enters the kitchen, with a swish of his heels. He’s happy.

“What is that?” He points to a cast iron pan of sautéed greens.

“Broccoli Rabe.”

I give my pot of arborio rice a stir.

“Broccoli Rabe? Really?” His voice lilts up at the end. “Oh, papa, I love that. It’s been so long since I’ve had that!”

He had it yesterday. And two days before that.

“That’s good, then you’ll enjoy dinner tonight.”

I smile.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.
― A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

I have to remember that evenings are more difficult for Papa than any other time of day – except early mornings. And for a man that rarely sleeps and when he does it’s in an easy chair upright and not in a bed, night and morning have very little delineation.

But this particular Sunday I had come home from an outing alone – a rare occasion – to find Papa and Victor enjoying the unseasonably warm late afternoon sitting out on the back lawn in patio chairs. I joined them with a glass of wine. We were finishing a lively conversation, hearing stories of the many celebrities Papa had met along his career as a journalist for Hachette Rusconi media. As the sun was just balancing above the pine trees I mentioned I had to run to Stop and Shop for a quick second. Papa’s eyes lit up. The grocery store was like Disney World to him. A cavernous array of interesting colors, food, and people. I missed the window of opportunity to avert my eyes and move quickly toward the garage. Too late, our eyes connected and his eyebrows wiggled up into his brow comically.

“Hmmm” he hummed melodically.

I laughed. “Want to come along?” I asked rhetorically.

“Oh yes!” He jumped from his seat in a motion uncharacteristic for an 80 yr old man.

On the drive down, Papa continued to share memories of celebrity interactions from his vast history.

I never even thought of the time.

One the second aisle of our trek through Stop and Shop heaven, Papa picked up a can of something – I can’t even remember what it was- and held it up like a fine specimen in front of his cataract clouded eyes.

“Ah, I’ve had this when I was in Samantha.”

I stopped pushing the cart.

Papa stood frozen, holding the can in the air where his eyes had been. But now he was looking at me in a dazed panic.

Make him laugh, I thought.

I smiled widely “Papa, who is Samantha and why were you eating food while you were in her?”

His brow furrowed “Papa, why would I say Samantha. Where did I live before this?” He chuckled.

“Meriden, Papa. You lived in Meriden.”

“Ah so. Yes. Meriden. Why Samantha?”

“I don’t know, Papa, maybe an old girlfriend.”

When we arrived home, I mentioned dinner in an hour. Papa went up to his room. I went up an hour later to let him know dinner was ready. He looked up from his movie, surprised to see me.

“Papa, why are you still here? Don’t you need to go home to cook for your husband?”

The sun had fully set.

“Hon, come here.”

Victor was in the kitchen looking toward the backyard. He pointed. “What’s in the bird feeder?”

It was April, and Papa had been living with us for over two months. In that time we had met with four or five different agencies on aging, senior services, visiting nurses, and two new physicians.  Resources seemed plenty but not one had provided support yet.  Lots of info, little action.  But they all agreed- there is some stage of dementia at play here.

I stared hard at the cylindrical feeder swaying in the spring wind.  To help Papa feel adjusted and structured, one case manager suggested we find small, manageable duties he could perform around the house. “Assimilating into your family and being of purpose will be important to his mental state. It might help with the depression to feel a valuable part of the family.”

Easier said than done.  Every task we started, was more difficult than the last. Loading the dishwasher resulted in broken glasses. Unloading the dishwasher created a treasure hunt. We finally found that filling the bird feeder was pretty indestructible. So for two weeks, Papa had been bringing in the feeder to the garage, opening the clear Rubbermaid bin of seed that sits right next to the back door and scooping it in, filling the feeder to the top.

But this morning, inexplicably, something had been different. Some synapse, that had been happily firing along the same line for 14 days, decided to detour left and propel Benny beyond the back door to the heavy, bright yellow bin across the other side of the garage, and to fill the feeder to the brim with kitty litter.

Between my fathers accident in January and his subsequent court date in February, he worried a lot about what would happen to him. Papa thinks big, so in his mind he was going to Sing Sing for this misdemeanor ticket for driving without a license and evading responsibility.

He was without his license because last May when it came due for renewal on our birth date (we share a May 10th birthday, 28 years apart), the DMV required him to take an eye test, which he promptly failed. They sent him to an eye doctor before he could get his license. The eye doctor told Papa that he needed to have his cataracts removed before they would authorize him to drive. Papa suggested the doctor fabricate approval. The doctor was not amused and so he left with no appointment for surgery and no license. But still driving.

Evading responsibility had to do with the fact that he drove over five miles after hitting the parked vehicle, with a broken front axle and a passenger side panel that looked like a SPAM can opened with its own key.

It was clear we had to fix this. These tickets could be costly. Luckily Vic remembered someone he knew in the traffic court system who assured us he could help. Papa would of course not be able to get his license back, and might have to pay a small fine, and couldn’t possibly continue to live alone 45 minutes away without our lives being reordered to accommodate his needs. But all would be good.

On the morning of the court date, Papa was up and in the bathroom shaving at 4:30AM. By this time we had moved him in with us and he was living in the cozy studio we had transformed of my boys bedroom.

Vic and I took separate cars, as I had a noon client meeting I could not miss. Papa drove to the courthouse with me.

“Mm, papa, where are we going?”  The Route 9 view of the ride to the courthouse was bright and relatively traffic free. He looked out the passenger window.

“The court house in Meriden. Vic has a friend that said everything will work out okay.”

“Oh sure,until they come and put the stripe shirt on me and take me away in chains. Ah, that’s okay, at least then you won’t have to have this old bag intruding on your life and taking up all your time. Mannaggia. ” His face darkened and he looked away.

By the time we arrived at the courthouse, and navigated the icy walkways to the courthouse steps, we realized that the doors were locked and would remain locked until 9AM. Papa had to pee. We slipped and slid over to the police station next door. I shouted through the bullet proof glass that my father needed the men’s room and the police dispatcher buzzed him in.

I noticed when he came out of the bathroom, his pants were wet. We didn’t say a thing to each other.

We entered the courthouse once they unlocked the doors. They brought us through the metal detector. Papa looked ashen, afraid, and surprisingly small for his 6’3, 250 pound frame. I realized he really was frightened. Vic tried to make light on the subject. When Papa asked about the room they were directing us to, he teased that they were going to fit him for his ankle bracelet. Papa gave a weak smile.

The proceeding went as planned- a $75 fine and revoking his license. Papa could not have been happier with the results if he were a spring lamb in a field of clover.

He wanted to take us to breakfast to celebrate his ‘release’. Seriously, those were his words. We headed across the street from the courthouse to the local diner, indulging in omelets and pancakes and bacon and pots of steaming coffee.

And then God laughed.

As we were leaving the small diner, a young man in workout gear with a black knit cap held the door for us. He stared hard at my father as we passed by, then at me, then back at my father. Being uncomfortable, I asked the young man if everything was okay?

“Are you his daughter?” he pointed to Papa.

“Yes, can I help you?”

“I’m the officer who responded to his accident.” He extended his hand, while at the same time placing his other hand on Papa’s upper arm. “Benny, how are you?”

Papa looked confused. “Oh, yes, yes,” Papa responded vaguely. I could see his brain trying to catch up, placing this person.  “How are you” he responded politely.

“I’m good Benny. I’m so glad to see you here with your daughter.”

Benny smiled again “Well, she takes very good care of me.” He backed away from the stranger slowly, averting his eyes toward the pavement.

Vic hung back to speak to the officer and thank him for his kindness in staying with Papa at the medical office that morning, waiting for Papa to get his blood drawn, which he insisted had to happen before he could be escorted home, as that was the whole point of his morning outing.

Papa sidled up beside me and turned to the street. He repeated aloud how lucky he felt.

“Lets go buy a lottery ticket.” he said.

“Papa, I was in an accident a while back….”

This is how this all started. My father called me at 8:15 on a Friday morning in January. He calls me papa, an Italian term of endearment.

“Papa, I was in an accident a while back. The police came and I have to go to a magistrate on February the 9th.  I told him to call a you, you are my daughter and will take care of it.”

I was confused. “Why do you have to go to court Papa, what happened?”

“I was driving the motor vehicle, I left very early because when I go to the medical doctor to get my blood test, there are plenty of people and I don’t like the lines. So I got up very early, and it was snowy, it was my fault of course, I cleared off a very tiny spot. But I drove slow, because the people all drive too fast and they make me nervous. So I drive slow near the edge of the road. Then, there is a car that is parked halfway in the road, and of course I don’t see it. And boom, I hit it.  I stop, but the cars, they are all beeping and going fast around me. I get out, I look in the car, eh-no one is there. So I get back in and drive to the clinic, just 100 meters up the road. I tell the ‘Latina’ at the desk to call a the police. And before she does, the police are there. He gives me a ticket, I don’t know what it means.  Mah, I don’t hav-a my license, the lady at the motor vehicle kept my license and my passport. They stole it from me. This government papa, it’s an awful thing.”

I’m reaching for my glasses and a pad and pen now, I need to take notes to sort this all out.

“Papa….” I ask him, “Papa, when did this happen? This week, last week?”

“No, papa, this happened this morning!” He’s fully irritated with me.

I motion to my husband, just passing through the bedroom, to wait a minute.

“Papa, where are you now?”

“I’m home. Papa, I don’t have my car and I need groceries. The car service is so expensive, its $35 there and $35 back. And the driver he doesn’t want to wait for me at the Stop n-a Shop.”

My father is of dual citizenship, having arrived from Italy in 1955 on the Andrea Doria, a year to the day before it sank. He met my mom in a publishing house were he worked as an account man and she worked as a secretary in the stenography pool. She was 19. He was 25. They married in 1959 and had me in 1962. Around 1964 they divorced and in 1969 he took a trip to Italy for business and didn’t return.

“Alright Papa, let me have Vic come up and look at the ticket and then take you to the grocery. How did you get home?” My husband is a saint. He has been unemployed for two years, trying hard to get back in the groove and helping me out as well. My own business is growing and takes up 110% of my time. My father wants the other 110%.

“No, papa, for God’s sake, don’t bother the man” my father spits at me through the phone “I have a little pasta here, I’ll be ok.”

“No, he is in the area anyway. He’s happy to stop by. I need some things at Stop and Shop too, so he can pick that up for me.”

None of which is true.

“Oh, ok, well if it’s not a bother. I’ll be waiting.”

…and that’s how this all started.