“I had never seen this man except in the photograph, which I looked at with occasional interest. Few of my friends had fathers at home. I knew the man in the photograph was ‘fighting overseas,’ because that’s where men disappeared to during the war. They were invisible, but they were ‘fighting overseas.’ The families on our street were made up of grandparents and mothers and children. There were old men and teenage boys, but hardly any men of fighting age.

“And then, on a sunny day in October 1945, when I was six years old, everything changed. I remember leaves whirling through the air. I remember the sun’s warmth—even in the crispness of fall. Much like weather we have here in Wilna Creek. Golden leaves were scattered across the grass and along the edges of the sidewalk. When the leaves were spread out like that, I shuffled my way through them and told myself I was walking on the sun. The leaves had to be raked—that was a boy’s job, my job. I see the outline of the leaves now; I see everything so vividly. I recall this detail because in the midst of the scene, a tall man, a stranger I had never before laid eyes on, walked into my yard. He was wearing a uniform, and he picked me up and held me high in the air and said my name. He put me down again and reached into his tunic pocket and pulled forth two gifts. Both were for me. One was a brown leather wallet. The other was a crinkly package of Planters peanuts. He put these gifts in my hands and told me he was my father.

“I was awed by the presence of this man called Father, by the gifts, by his sudden appearance, by the uniform. And then I remembered the photo, which wasn’t exactly this man, but maybe almost like him. I went running and jumping down the street, kicking through the leaves, shouting out to my friends who were playing in their front yards and on the sidewalk. ‘My daddy’s home! Come and see what he brought me! See my wallet! Look at the bag of peanuts, Planters peanuts!’ Everything, every detail of that afternoon, is imprinted on my memory. And when—or if—I think of this, the scene is always enacted as if it took place only moments ago.

“My father was home for two days before he disappeared a second time. He went away, left us—my mother and me—and never came back. The wallet, the peanuts—these are my sad, my deep memories. Running down the street, kicking aside the leaves, shouting out because my father had miraculously appeared. I did not know that within days, he would just as miraculously disappear.

“There was another woman. Of course, another woman. A second family in another country. England, as we found out. Maybe he had other children, I don’t know. I might have had—might still have—brothers and sisters. I never saw him again. Nor did my mother. She had to try to get support; that’s the way she found out about his other wife. Things like that happened during the war. I learned about similar situations later; these were not unheard of. But we never talked about this out loud. My mother was bitter, angry. I was not permitted to say his name, to ask questions.”