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It seemed to Artie that only her face was leaning toward him, but she was sitting forward in her chair, with her arm on the chair’s armrest, holding her glass of wine. It was true that her face was flushed and pointed at him—and very angry.

They were silent for a few moments, and then Artie said, “The way he dressed.” Because he pictured his father-in-law, a tall man, always dressed so well, so properly, either in a suit and tie, or on weekends with a buttoned-up sweater and his nice brown leather shoes. Artie glanced down at his old man black sneakers that were on his feet right now, although Evie was always telling him to take off his shoes when he came into the house.

“Ah. He intimidated you, is what you are saying.” Evie said this with finality, as though she had figured something out. She sat back in her chair.

“I guess.” Artie did not remember ever being intimidated by the man. He thought: Do not apologize. Do not do that.

But he did. He said, “Sorry, Evie, I was just taken aback.” He rose and went into the kitchen, and he did the dishes with more noise than usual, he was that angry. When he was finally done, he went back into the living room and Evie was sitting exactly as she had been.

“I’m going up to bed,” he said. And she surprised him by saying—not unpleasantly—“Okay, me too.”

As he looked at the page of his book on Elon Musk, she came out of the bathroom with her jar of face cream, and she said, without a whole lot of expression, “Okay, I’m sorry I said what I did.”

He put the book down and watched her.

She stopped with her face cream for a moment, looking over at him, and said, “I said I was sorry.”

“Me too.”

But that night began Artie’s almost constant thoughts of his own father. They came to him most thickly as he was getting ready for bed, and then they got into bed with him, and the sadness he felt was almost warm, as though the quilt that covered him was his father, his love for his father, although the sadness remained very real. The sadness was this: After Artie married Evie, Artie’s relationship with his father—with both his parents—changed at a very fast pace. He tried now, in his later years, to understand this, and he could grasp only bits of it. But his in-laws had liked him (he had always believed this to be true, in spite of what Evie had said during their argument), and he had been grateful for that, and they had taken him and Evie to a variety of places around the world—and all of this had made Artie’s young head spin.

But he saw now that his father had understood what Artie had not understood back then: that Artie had been removed from him.

—

Quietly a small sickness came to him as he remembered the first time his parents had met Evie’s parents. His future father-in-law had suggested that they meet at a small diner in Boston, and they had—and it was smart of the man, because Artie could not imagine his parents setting foot into the home of Evie’s parents. But Artie could only, now, vaguely remember that date in the diner. He had not been embarrassed. He had worried that his mother might be “off” that day, but she was not. She had sat and talked mainly to Evie, and also to Evie’s mother, and Artie’s father-in-law-to-be had spoken with Artie’s father. What had they talked about? Artie could not remember. But he remembered that his father had kept up his part of the conversation, had sat up straight and laughed with the man. Artie had understood (of course) that these two couples were very, very different, but he was young and newly in love and he did not know all the ramifications.

—

Artie’s father was the son of a German immigrant who had come over after World War I, settling in South Boston, and Artie’s grandfather had spoken of how difficult it had been to be German at that time, and to also have been a German veteran of that war. And then to live through the Depression—but he had done it, managing to find employment in a local butcher shop. Artie’s father had had two much older brothers—both long dead by now—who lived in Jamaica Plain when Artie was growing up, and Artie remembered visiting them, playing with his cousins—who were much older as well—but in fact they had never felt a part of Artie’s own little family. His cousins had eventually all moved across the country—Seattle, Kansas, St. Louis; he was out of touch with them, if he had ever been in touch with them.

—

In their small apartment in the basement of that three-floor walk-up (six apartments in each building), there had been constant noises. The floors were wooden, and the family above them, the Albizzis, could be heard all the time; during the summer through the open windows Artie could hear dishes being done, toilets flushing, sometimes yelling occurred, and a variety of cooking smells, mostly garlicky odors, were always around. And also, Artie learned about sex by hearing it through the ceiling. When he first left his home to go to college, he could not believe the silences that surrounded him, even in a college dormitory.

—

His father had carried on his belt a ring with many keys—one for each of the eighteen apartments he was in charge of—and the owner of the three buildings, who did not live in Revere and seldom showed up, would call him sometimes about the Grecos, who lived in the building next to theirs. The owner wanted them thrown out because their apartment was always such a terrible mess, and Artie’s father had somehow (Artie could not remember the specifics) negotiated the situation with finesse. The Grecos stayed.

—

One afternoon (Artie and Evie had been married about six years by then, still childless), Artie’s father telephoned just as Artie got home from school. (Artie’s father was retired by then; he’d had an accident on the job, his back going out.) Artie’s father had telephoned him and said, quietly, “Hi, Artie.” Pause. “You know, I’m feeling kind of depressed.”

And Artie, who was worried about his wife’s not getting pregnant, said, “Come on, Dad. We all have days when we’re feeling down.”

He had said that! He had said that to his father that day. And his father had said, “Okay, son. But I miss seeing you.”

—

Had his father had any friends?

Artie knew only that people had liked his father; even with most of the people in Revere being Italians, it seemed to Artie that no one had held his father’s German background against him. There was one man Artie particularly remembered, a retired policeman who lived nearby. On hot summer evenings, he and Artie’s father would sometimes sit on the sidewalk together in metal folding chairs. But Artie could not really remember much more.

This fact left him with practically a visceral sense of longing. Who had his father been?

A little bell tinkled as Artie stepped over the threshold of the men’s carpeted clothing store. There was almost a sense of stepping inside a small church, it was that quiet. One man stood near the counter, and Artie sensed that the man, who was older-appearing than Artie, was the owner. (The man, Charles Schwartz, was older, and he was the owner of the store.) They greeted each other and commented on the weather; it was dark quite early now, and they both agreed that they did not care for that.

“What can I help you with today?” the man asked. Wearing glasses with modest brown frames, he had a pleasant, yet almost steely, aspect to him, a small man. He wore an impeccable dark suit and a blue tie, and somehow Artie found this touching, as though from days gone by.