His son, but a stranger
They came with increasing regularity after that, the moments when we knew. They always followed the same pattern: an awkward hiatus of disorientation on his part, that fugue-like, fog-like detachment from reality, followed by a question, bemusement, then the whole suspension of time rescued by a clever wisecrack pulled from the bag of tricks that was his sense of humour and that seemed, even in desperation, be inexhaustible. You see, my sisters and I would shake our heads at each other when it happened, he’s always there, he’s in there. He was a dapper, lightning-fast man, not so much slowing down as bobbing and weaving now in circles.
There was the first time he forgot who I was. We’d gone for lunch at the Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street, a favourite street of his, the one he’d grown up on, and he’d correctly guessed that we’d been there before to check it out for a brunch my sister was throwing. I did what I usually did when we were in “old Toronto” — asked him about his early childhood, and he regaled me with stories of his older brother, who had a habit of lowering him into the window wells of the Ukrainian church a few doors down from their store when my father tagged along too relentlessly, and leaving him there. On the drive home I took him up Shaw Street, along the edge of Trinity Bellwoods Park, where he’d played ball — his self-explanatory nickname was Bunty — past a church that had originally been the synagogue he’d attended on High Holidays. He was in fine form, remembering the ravine that had been filled in, and the precise view you got looking out of the synagogue windows at the park. It was dusk by now, and it had started to rain, and in the car beside me on the way home he was peaceful and quiet. And then at one point he looked over at me and said, “Excuse me, but who am I driving with?”
“It’s between you and me”
“Jay,” I said. “Your son.”
“Jay Teitel?”
“The one and only.”
“Son of a bitch. I apologize profusely,” he said. “It was just that looking at you from this angle, I didn’t recognize you for a second. I’m sorry.”
“Dad, it’s okay,” I say.
"No, it isn’t.”
When we pulled into his apartment parking lot, he caught my arm before I got out. “Jake,” he said, “when we go up please don’t tell your mother what happened before. That I didn’t know who you were.”
I felt like weeping. “Don’t worry, Dad. It’s between you and me.”
