Father's Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

Montmartre, where they took off their shoes, put their feet on the couch, and drank wine. They laughed and gossiped about work, the men who were interested in them, and the ones they thought were gay. Harvey warmed up little bites in the microwave, or cut cheese and saucisson sec.
    I N THE DAYS before she left Long Island for a new life in Paris, Harvey cooked things that could be frozen and reheated. She also hid notes around the house that would make her father laugh or remember things they had done together.
    Driving to JFK, the traffic was slow because of an accident. When they saw planes circling overhead, her father said they were close.
    At the line for security, Harvey turned and went back. “I can’t go,” she said. “I can’t do this.”
    Her father held her and said nothing.
    Then she picked up her bag and rejoined the line. He watched her inch along, then hung around the terminal until the screen said her flight had taken off.
    When someone at the United desk confirmed that her plane was in the air, Harvey’s father bought a cup of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts and sat watching the bags and cases move along the belts. Then he followed signs for the AirTrain.
    After looping the terminals once, he got off and looked for the section where he had parked only hours before. He retraced the route he had walked with his daughter. Remembered the weight of her suitcase. Then he sat in the car outside airport parking.
    He could imagine Harvey on the plane listening to her iPod or making conversation with the person next to her.
    He remembered what she was wearing when they said goodbye. How he’d wiped the tears from her cheek with his hand.
    He felt that something had come to an end, yet everything around him was going on as normal.
    He stopped for gas near the Belt Parkway and wondered if he should have tried to enjoy things more—marveling at the finality of moments he now recognized as happiness.
    Then he drove to Jones Beach and walked up and down, as if trying to find what was already his.

IX
    S OPHIE MET H ARVEY at the airport, and they rode in a taxi to a hotel on the rue de Rivoli. Harvey’s room looked out on a Ferris wheel.
    But Harvey soon found a place she liked in Montmartre. The apartment complex had a birdcage elevator with a sliding grate door. The elevator moved slowly between floors and would not come at all if the grate had not been properly closed by the previous occupant. There was red paisley carpet on the stairs, and hall lights clicked on when they sensed motion. Most residents were long past retirement and had lived in the building since their glory days in the 1970s.
    The concierge, Monsieur Fabrice, was a slight, yellow-haired man in his seventies who was once connected to the fashion world of Yves Saint Laurent. He lived now on the first floor with two cats, oversize velvet cushions, and heavy-framed photographs of Richard, his late husband of four decades.
    Monsieur Fabrice told Harvey where to put her garbage, not to flush the toilet between midnight and six unless absolutely necessary, and that the hillsides of Montmartre were once covered with windmills.
    The day Harvey moved in, she kicked off her shoes at the front door, but then heard her father’s voice and carried themdutifully to the closet. The apartment smelled of fresh paint, and it would take time to pick out furniture.
    Everyone was nicer to Harvey than she had anticipated, and her new cell phone quickly filled up with numbers. She learned early on not to mistake the French aversion to change for unfriendliness.
    Harvey’s new workspace soon resembled her desk at home, a mess of colored markers, scraps of paper, comics, magazines, gum wrappers, empty soda cans, and various Apple devices she needed to do her job. It was one of many desks arranged in a square under an ancient skylight. Heavy rain drummed upon the glass in spring and fall—and in winter, interns balanced on ladders,