In Chicago we didn’t see dad except in airports.

One night my mother brought a soft, brown package from him by mail. Katherine (5), Keith (1), and me (3) hopped up and down as mom opened it. She said she was waiting until bedtime because of what was inside: slippered Sesame St. pajamas, one for each of us.

“Go put them on,” she said, “We’ll take a picture of you in them and send it him.”

She told us to sit on the brick bench in front of the fireplace she called a hearth. “Smile now. Say cheese.” My sister grabbed me and hugged me tight (I was her little rag doll back then) and mom snapped her camera.

“There. No go hop in bed. I’ll come and make sure you’re tucked in.”

She didn’t come, though. I heard her watching TV in the front living room, the shag, guacamole green room with green furniture and an egg-white couch. She saw me hanging by the doorway and I asked if I could come in for a little while and watch. I was having trouble sleeping. My sister came in too – both of us still in our new pajamas – and we sat next to mom on the couch and tried to figure out what she was watching.

“Lavern and Shirley,” she said, and pulled us tight to her. She was by the lamp and underneath a throw blanket. I watched goofy Lenny and Squiggy with the two leading women who could have been anybody and thought it was both funny and depressing and wondered why my mom was in here watching it by herself with just a lamp on and the glow of the tube.

She was crying. Not too much, but I noticed. So did Katherine. Mom had a tissue box next to the lamp she was pulling tissues from.

“Nothing’s wrong. I miss your dad, that’s all. He was supposed to be home tonight.”

“When’s he coming home?” Katherine asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He said probably in about three more weeks.”

It was his for his job, she said. We didn’t know what he did.

“Why so long?” I said. “What’s he doing?”

Katherine said, “that’s not too long. It makes me sad, but I can’t wait.”

“Watch the show,” mom said.

But she had to explain it to us. It didn’t seem worth it.

We must have fallen asleep soon afterwards on her lap.

In the morning we sat at the table for breakfast and eat cereal with a cup of juice. Mom took the lid off the sippy cup for me when I was two and told me I would have to learn not to spill it, which scared me but I didn’t know what else to do. After a few spills and threats by her to put the lid back on, I had learned. She gave us the juice with our cereal and we saved it by agreement until we had eaten the cereal but there was still milk floating in the bowl. Then we poured the juice in, mix the new cocktail. Mom told us that was gross but it was our treat before we sat on the floor to watch Sesame Street.

Mom walked back and forth from cabinet to fridge and drawers until she sat down with a bowl of cut grapefruit and and a cartoon of yogurt filled with wheat germ. She sat at the table and looked at the sun coming in the back window, glancing over at us occasionally.

That day she took us to St. Patrick’s Parade. I didn’t know it was called that then and if she told me I’m not the type to catalog memories by meaningless names.

She took all three of us, Keith in a baby stroller, and we walked to the bus stop and boarded. We got off downtown and ate at a McDonald’s that was tucked in the front of a huge building before switching buses. She fed Keith soft food and we ate happy meals. I looked out at the sidewalk and street and the cars and buses going by and the city was all gray and a little dirty. It was overcast. It might have been my first trip downtown. Finally, she packed us up and we went outside to wait for another bus to board.

We got off to find a spot among the crowd and sat on the curb to wait. There were a lot of people all over the street and it was hard to find a spot on the curb to sit but we did. The parade went by and I watched women in short green skirts twirl batons and a brass and drum band pass with men in green pants and short men and women in tall green hats. Some people at the end of the parade threw green confetti on the streets and some landed on us and nearby on the street.

Three weeks went by with this same routine, although we didn’t go out to the city again.

It was winter. It snowed so much one day that it covered our back door. I asked mom if I could go out in it, and she bundled me up and let me. The snow was soft and she told me if I couldn’t walk on top of it I could dig a tunnel. I dug a tunnel as far as I could out and then up. It was a small tunnel just for me, and all I could see around me was white. When I burrowed to the top I was in the middle of the backyard and I saw the fence and then the light shine on the snow as the sun began to melt it. Finally I came back in, after what for me was an entire day of exploration but must have only lasted about twenty minutes.

It wouldn’t have mattered whether it was winter or summer, though, as far as waiting for dad. He was never there. He was always on one business trip or another or else he was home after I went to sleep and gone again by daybreak. I had my third birthday without him and opened up a case full of Matchbox cars and a couple of Hot Wheels. I also got a Little People airport. Mom said how much she liked the company that made Little People because their toys never broke were too big for my little brother Keith to swallow and choke on. Katherine and I didn’t like Keith playing with us. It was Katherine mostly, but I admired her so much I agreed with her that he was a pest. Mom told us to let him play though so we yelled at him and told him not to mess our stuff up.

All this passed by and then one night mom said we were going to meet dad at the airport. She pointed at the jet outside the big glass and we watched as they pulled an accordion tube from the plane to the door we were waiting next to. After forever an airport woman finally opened the door and we watched people walk through the tube and past us. Dad must have been in the middle of them He came out wearing tan pants and a thin tan coat and a long zippered suit bag over his shoulder and a small hardshell case carry-on, both of which he sat down so he could give us all hugs. He looked tired. He was unfamiliar to me then. He was smiling and seemed glad to see mom and us. We were glad he was home.

Later that night I heard them as I lay in bed trying to sleep arguing out in the living room. Dad was laughing and telling my mom to calm down. Something crashed and dad told mom to stop. It was an ashtray she threw. “Sheila, you scratched me.” She told him she was tired of this and she didn’t care what she did to him that he deserved it. He said that maybe he shouldn’t have come back home if she was going to be that way. “I’m here now,” he said.

In the morning dad was gone to work and we sat at the table with our cereal and juice again.