He parked the car and told his passenger that he’d be back shortly.
He crossed the grass toward the carousel.
The grandest Coney Island Style carousel ever made, this 1895 masterpiece was built by master carver Charles Looff and was his largest and most elaborate creation. For over a century, sixty-one intricately carved wooden horses and four ornate chariots had traveled around and around, delighting children and adults alike. Of the carved horses, fifty-six were jumpers—all four feet suspended and linked to a mechanism allowing the rider to simulate a gallop. In addition, there was a ring game: outer carousel riders reached for rings from a dispenser as they passed. Most of the rings were iron, but a few were brass. A brass ring earned you a free ride. In his entire childhood of coming here with his mother, he had only gotten the brass ring once.
Typically, he and his mother went to the library when his father was unwell. Occasionally, if his mother had some extra money, they would visit the carousel afterward.
That’s what she’d say. “Daddy’s not feeling well. Let’s give him some peace and quiet.”
They’d slip out the back door, walk down to the library and spend a few hours browsing the stacks. He’d choose a book, she a magazine, and they’d sit at a table in the corner and read. If a study room was free, she’d read aloud to him. She had read classics. Around the World in Eighty Days, Gulliver’s Travels, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn were his favorites. He loved it when she read to him, even after he was old enough to read those books himself.
They’d stay away from home long enough, so that his father would be asleep when they got back.
He knew, but never said, that his father wasn’t sick at all. He was drunk. If she didn’t want to talk about it, he would not push it. She protected him from his father, and in return, he accepted the pretense.
His father wasn’t a mean drunk. He knew other kids in the neighborhood whose fathers would drink until they ended up beating everyone in the house. No one talked about it. You just knew. Sound carries through open windows. Closed windows, too, if you were yelling loud enough. His father wasn’t like that. Most of the time. He’d just drink too much and fall asleep on the couch. Sometimes, he’d tell you a story you’d heard a million times before and you’d have to pretend that it was the first telling. It was annoying, but not a big deal. But, every once in a while, the man would take offense at nothing at all. She had a gift for seeing the warning signs and they’d be out the door before any fireworks had even started.
As a result, he always felt safe when he walked into a library. He always felt joy upon seeing a carousel. She had whisked him to safety, exchanging any upsetting memories he might have had with scenes of reading in a quiet space and whooping for joy as he tried to grasp the brass ring.
Once he left for college, she found employment and divorced her husband.
His father got sober ten years after that. It was too late for his parents to have any kind of friendship, but she was always cooly cordial to her former husband whenever their paths had crossed.
Now he stood watching the horses go around, listening to the squeals of the children as they reached out for the rings.
His father walked up and stood beside him.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. Just memories.”
“I don’t remember ever coming here.”
“You didn’t. Mom and I came.”
“Ah. So, this is where you went?”
“Here and the library.”
“Hiding from me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry she had to protect you from me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“You’re here now.”
“And she isn’t.”
“No, she isn’t. It’s just chance, isn’t it? You don’t choose your family.”
“No, you don’t. It’s luck. You were lucky to have gotten the mother you had.”
“Yes. I got the brass ring.”
© 2021 Liza Cameron Wasser