The Man in the Chair
Amy Entin
*This is a story I wrote about a house I passed all the time growing up, with an old man in a chair who’d always sit on the curve and watch the cars go by. Every time we drove past, he seemed to always be there. I hadn’t driven that way again until I was much older, when I drove by and saw that the chair was empty. After a while, I assumed he passed away. Another chair joined that one and eventually, they were both replaced with a bench. I always wondered what happened to that man, and I wanted to write a story to fill in the blanks.
My father was, above all, a quiet man. He never raised his voice at me or my twin sister Taylor, even when we knew we deserved it. He’d just look at us and shake his head, and we knew we’d done wrong, and we wouldn’t push him further. That’s the kind of man he was, the kind of father everyone wanted. He made us latkes every Hanukkah and taught my sister how to throw a football and worshiped my mother like royalty. He taught me how to fish in the creek next to our house, not in a hyper-masculine sense, but because it was quiet and we could really talk, and it felt like there was nobody else but us in the world. And he wanted to talk to me.
One day we were sitting on rocks by the stream, holding fishing poles, not having much luck. We never really had much luck fishing. “Johnny boy,” he said, face glistening with sweat, hair slowly graying. I knew he was aging. “You should get Mom something for her birthday. You and Tay. That’d mean a lot to her.”
I smiled. I liked that he still called me Johnny boy. I was seventeen, and it felt nice to hold onto some of my childhood. It was late July, meaning we’d be eighteen in a month, and had three weeks until college. I wanted to hold onto whatever childhood I could.
We walked up to the house, my mom waving to us from the yard on a blanket, reading a book. Our house, just outside Princeton, sat back from a sharp 90 degree curve, and my mom loved to sit right in front of where it curves and watch the cars go by. We all loved to do that. That was our spot, where we’d toss a football growing up or have picnics or lay down and look at the stars. I used to spend hours in the grass in the summer, watching the cars go by and imagining stories about their lives. It was a quiet road, but that was the beauty of it. Every car was driving down this road for a reason. Each person with their own life we’d never know, intersecting with ours for just a moment, then perhaps never again.
I knocked on Tay’s door. “We’re gonna go pick up a present for Mom. Maybe Dad too. I have the perfect idea.”
Tay opened the door begrudgingly, pretending I bothered her, but I knew she had nothing better to do. But still, something about being a twin makes you competitive.
“I’ll go,” she said through a yawn, ”but you’re driving.” I shrugged in agreement and she followed me to the car. When we walked out the front door, she hid her smile at the rock in the front yard. My dad painted a tiny rainbow on it when she brought home a girlfriend the year before. She acts embarrassed but I can tell it’s all she’s ever wanted. She smiles every time.
We walked over to my car, a beaten-up beige Nissan Altima that must’ve been at least 20 years old. It was my grandmother’s, then my dad’s, then he passed it on to me and Tay to share. The back window was held up with duct tape and a sock, and the passenger door opened only a quarter of the way, but I loved that thing. It had personality. “We’re gonna get chairs from Home Depot,” I said, closing the driver’s door.
“You woke me up for this?” Tay asked. “To buy chairs?”
“I did,” I smirked. “It’s a good gift. We always sit in the yard on blankets and our backs kill us after. I don’t know why it’s taken this long to buy chairs.” I looked both ways and turned right out of the driveway.
“That is true,” Tay nodded. “Good call. We should pick up some flowers for Mom, too.”
I turned up the music in agreement, and we pulled up to Home Depot a couple minutes later. We walked in, and I took a big whiff. I loved the smell of Home Depot. Tay went off to find flowers while I went to the garden section.
I found a pair of rocking chairs that looked like they’d do the job. They were tan and wooden, cheap enough to survive outside. “Those are perfect,” said Tay, holding a vase of roses.
“Those are too,” I nodded at the flowers. “Good job, team,” I said sarcastically, and we high fived. Though we were kind of a good team.
An employee helped us get the chairs in the car, and we drove back home. We carried them inside, along with the roses, and set them down in the living room in front of my mom, where she was reading. “Dad!” I yelled, “Come here.”
He walked down the stairs as my mom stood up from the couch. “Happy early birthday,” Tay grinned, meeting my mom for a hug.
“Aw, thank you! That is so sweet,” my mom said, sniffing the roses on the table.
“What are these for?” my dad asked, inspecting the chairs closely for imperfections, as fathers do.
“For the yard! We’re always out there but never have anywhere to sit,” I explained. Then I frowned a little. “Sorry if you were expecting something better. I know it’s dumb for a birthday gift.”
My parents cut each other off, exclaiming, “No, no!”
“We love it,” my mom said. “It is uncomfortable sitting out there on a blanket. I don’t know why we’ve never thought of a chair.
My dad smiled in agreement, and my mom came in to hug me.
“We have the best kids,” my dad said to her.
“True that,” my mom rustled my hair. I hated that. But I knew I’d miss them, and that I was leaving very soon.
One chair was kept in that living room, while the other went to the yard. Soon enough, I was packing my things and heading to school. Lafayette was only an hour and a half away, and Tay would be close by at Lehigh, but I was scared to be alone.
Two months passed before I made it home for Thanksgiving, and I was happy at school, but I missed my family. When my mom picked me up from school and we pulled back into the driveway, my dad was sitting in that chair, just looking out. “He’s been spending a lot of time there,” my mom said. “Watching cars go by, reading, talking to the neighbors.”
I smiled a weak smile. I knew he was getting old.
As the years went on, he stopped speaking as much. I’d come home and he was still my dad, but there was less and less of him each time. He started forgetting things he shouldn’t forget. And he was always in that spot. I didn’t know what he did, sitting there for all those hours. Our neighbors always talked to him, and the people who hiked the trails near our house would always wave, but I didn’t understand why he was always there.
He was diagnosed with dementia years later, well into his 70s. Tay and I, barely scraping 40, tried to visit often. Tay married a girl named Betty she met at Lehigh, and they adopted two boys, aged five and seven. They lived in Princeton, so visiting was no problem for them. I met a girl named Alex my junior year of college, and we got married right before I turned 30. We had a girl named Nat, and we lived over the river in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Nat was six years old the first time my father forgot her name. We visited all the time, but it was hard watching him lose himself. It was even harder for my mom. He would sit outside in the chair all the time, doing nothing, and all my mom could do was watch.
He passed away three years later, right before my 42nd birthday. By the time he passed, we knew it was coming, but it was still devastating. My mom took it the hardest. Tay went to take care of her every day, but eventually Tay would have to leave, and she’d be alone again. One day, she moved the living room chair outside next to its matching counterpart, where she would sit. One afternoon I came over to make her lunch, and we sat in those chairs in the warm glow of the sun.
“I sit here a lot,” she said. “Just like he used to. Sometimes if I close my eyes, it’s like he’s still here.” She closed her eyes and laid her head back.
My mom passed away not long after from a heart attack. While we expected my father’s death, my mom’s was unexpected. It hit us hard, and she was only 75. She always told us she’d live to 100.
Tay and I sold the house to a young family with a dog. Our entire lives, sold to someone who’d never know us. My job relocated us to Texas, but Tay stayed in Princeton. I missed her, but there wasn’t much left for Alex and I here.
One Thanksgiving we were visiting Tay, and I told her I had to run to the store for cranberry sauce. I can’t remember if that was my intention at first. But I got into the car, and I knew where I had to go, and soon enough I was at a 90 degree bend in the road. The house, repainted tan, was still home. Bushes were planted in front of the door. On the curve, a bench sat where two young kids were petting a golden retriever. I knew nothing about their lives. This is what it’s like to be on the other side, I thought. As I drove by, the two kids looked at me, and I liked to think they thought the same. They knew nothing about my life. A tear ran down my cheek. I drove away, and didn’t look back.
Amy Entin is a Sophomore Public Health major from Flemington, New Jersey. Amy writes, ” I’ve always had a passion for reading and writing, but it wasn’t until recently that I’ve really gotten into it. Poetry, especially, is an emotional outlet that has really helped me. Growing up, I’ve played just about every sport, and I currently play for the Rutgers Nightshade Ultimate Frisbee team. I love writing and I’m excited to see where it takes me.”