The Avenue | 2011
Our Father
this way. With some help from his own By: Melissa Kelly mother, Johnny and the girls soldiered on, and Johnny did the things he thought he ought to do. Eventually he remarried, again out hen Johnny Callahan’s first of duty, to a woman who would bear wife died, he put a dent in a his first son—this they knew before the solid maple door with his fist. wedding. His second wife, Jean, with The dent is still there; you can fit your three children of her own, moved into the own clenched knuckles in the fifty-yearhouse with the dented door and bore that old grooves and think about all the boy, Johnny Jr. Johnny and Jean fought history embedded in that old house; like wildcats. Their children fought. Jean the house that Johnny built. When you rubbed her scalp raw from the anxiety. do, you wonder why, despite endless renovations, nobody ever bothered Johnny bore down on her like one of the vices in his workshop until the day she replacing that door. The disease had consumed Johnny’s was committed. Adoption was bandied wife in a time when cancer was still about again, this time for the infant boy. a whispered word, and left three But in the end, again, Johnny wouldn’t motherless daughters in Johnny’s care — have it. When Johnny told his girls that Jean the youngest, Ruthie, only a few months was leaving, Charlotte sprinted gleefully old. The neighbors told Johnny to give from the room and gathered the girls away. No man her step-siblings’ toys for It was never clear could raise three girls alone. For a time, while the if it was duty or them, happy to see them go. And so Johnny was on his grieving was carried out, love, but again, own again, this time with Johnny’s sister Pearl and Johnny married. four little children. Despite her husband—who were childless themselves, though You will recognize the help of his aging mother, the place in the and the mothering of his not by choice—took Ruthie in, and considered keeping wedding photos— eldest daughter, now 8, her. But in the end, Johnny it is the house with Johnny needed help. Rita was from central wouldn’t have it. the dented door. Pennsylvania. She was a Joyce, the oldest— coal miner’s daughter—or barely six—was already motherly, fussing over Charlotte, making granddaughter really—raised alongside sure her bows were tied tight, her her mother as a sister. She left for shoes were on the right feet. Charlotte, Philadelphia on a wing and a prayer, Johnny’s middle babe, was a left little with a job offer from the big city phone slow by a few moments deprived of company. After the phone company, she oxygen during her delivery. She was met Johnny, and came to care for his smart enough though, far from helpless. children. It was never clear if it was duty or After Johnny’s wife died, he turned love, but again, Johnny married. You his back on the church, for no God he will recognize the place in the wedding cared to worship would have stripped a photos—it is the house with the dented beautiful young mother away from his door. Though if it was duty then, girls. He turned his back on the church, eventually, maybe, it was love. And three but sent his children dutifully every years later, there was another son. Sunday. And for a while, it went on
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