Love Saves the Day

The next time the littermates come over, Josh’s father drives his car from his house in New Jersey to go out to lunch with them. I dart upstairs to take a nap on the cat bed in Home Office, but when I hear everybody come back, I leap down and curl up beneath Josh’s desk, trying to look as if that’s where I’ve been napping all along. By the time they’ve gotten upstairs, I’m licking my right front paw and using it to wash my face clean in a lazy-looking way, just to make sure they’re completely fooled.

“Whew!” Josh’s father says, and settles himself into one of the chairs Abbie and Robert usually sit in. His face looks paler than I remember it being, and there are little drops of sweat-water on his forehead. “The heat’s so much worse here in the city than where your mother and I live. It’s hard on an old man.”

“Are you all right, Dad?” Josh sounds anxious. “Do you need a glass of water?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” His father waves his hand in front of his face. “Don’t tell Mother I got dizzy,” he adds sternly. “She worries ever since that scare with my heart last year. I’m seventy-five years old, and she still thinks I don’t know how to take care of myself.”

“I’ll bring you a glass of water, Pop-pop,” Abbie says. “Robert and I are thirsty anyways.” The two of them run out of the room (the littermates never seem to walk), and I can hear their footsteps thudding down the stairs.

“So tell me about this work you’ve been doing,” Josh’s father says. “It’s all the kids can talk about these days.”

“I’m only doing a small part of it.” For the first time, Josh seems almost embarrassed to talk about his work. “There are organizations that exist for the sole purpose of preserving Mitchell-Lama housing. I’m just helping a little where I can.”

“Show me,” Josh’s father says. “I’m interested.”

“Well …” Josh pulls together some of the papers he usually gives to Abbie and Robert to put into envelopes. “I’ve been writing press releases and sending them out to reporters at newspapers and different websites, letting them know what’s going on. And I’ve been interviewing all the tenants in the building, collecting their stories. I’m writing them up and putting them together with some old photographs they were able to give me. I think showing that side of the issue might be effective.” He hands the papers to his father, who begins to flip through them slowly.

“I’ve also been pulling together a history of the music studio in the building’s Basement. It’s actually become pretty important in the community over the years. I’m trying to help them reincorporate as a not-for-profit, so they have some legal standing if we’re able to get this to a hearing.” Josh walks out and goes into my room, returning with a stack of Sarah’s black disks. A wisp of Sarah-smell follows them. I have a sudden, vivid memory of Sarah in our old apartment, wearing a long, thin summer dress and standing in front of the shelves where she kept her black disks, saying, I think I’m in the mood for Betty Wright today. What do you think, Prudence? But, just as quickly as the memory pops into my head, it pops back out and goes to where I can’t find it.

“If you look at the liner notes”—Josh hands the black disks to his father and points to some of the tiny word-writing on their cardboard covers—“you can see how many important albums were recorded there. So I’ve been putting write-ups of that together with photos of some of the bands, and sending it to the editors at my old magazine and some of our—their, I mean—competitors. I’ve also created a website and Facebook page for the building, and we’ve been encouraging community residents and owners of nearby mom-and-pops, who’ll eventually be threatened by the same economic factors, to contribute their own stories and memories. And we’ve put together an online petition. We’ve gotten about five thousand signatures so far.”

“Some of these photos take me back,” Josh’s father says. “Your mother and I were buying the house we raised you and your sister in at around the same time this building went up, it looks like.”

“Probably.” Josh smiles a little. “There are tenants who’ve been living there since the sixties.”

His father half closes his eyes. “When a man has lived in one place for fifty years,” he says, “and raised a family there, he doesn’t like to leave unless it’s on his own terms.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Josh says quietly.

His father opens his eyes. “You’ve put a lot of work into this. It must have taken a lot of time to talk to everybody and do all this writing and research.”

Josh’s face turns a light pink. “I’ve certainly had the time.”