"Some of his letters were funny. I mean, really, really funny. I didn't know he could be so funny. And some were philosophical. He wrote about how happy he was, and how sad he was, and all of the things he wanted to do but never did, and all of the things he did but didn't want to do."

"Didn't he write a letter to you?" "Yes." "What did it say?" "I couldn't read it. Not for a few weeks." "Why not?" "It was too painful." "I would have been extremely curious." "My wife—my ex-wife—said I was being crazy not to read it." "That wasn't very understanding of her." "She was right, though. It was crazy. It was unreasonable. I was being childish." "Yeah, but you were his child."

"But I was his child. That's right. I'm babbling. To make a long story short—" "Don't make it short," I said, because even though I wanted him to tell me about my dad instead of his, I also wanted to make the story as long as I could, because I was afraid of its end. He said, "I read it. Maybe I was expecting something confessional. I don't know. Something angry, or asking for forgiveness. Something that would make me rethink everything. But it was matter-of-fact. More of a document than a letter, if that makes sense." "I guess so." "I don't know. Maybe I was wrong to, but I was expecting him to say he was sorry for things, and tell me he loved me. End-of-life stuff. But there was none of it. He didn't even say 'I love you.' He told me about his will, his life insurance policy, all of those horrible businesslike things that feel so inappropriate to think about when someone has died."

"You were disappointed?" "I was angry." "I'm sorry." "No. There's nothing to be sorry for. I thought about it. I thought about it all the time. My father told me where he'd left things, and what he wanted taken care of. He was responsible. He was good. It's easy to be emotional. You can always make a scene. Remember me eight months ago? That was easy." "It didn't sound easy." "It was simple. Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good."

"And what about the key?" "At the end of his letter he wrote, 'I have something for you. In the blue vase, on the shelf in the bedroom, is a key. It opens a safe-deposit box at our bank. I hope you'll understand why I wanted you to have it.'" "And? What was in it?" "I didn't read the note until after I'd sold all of his belongings. I had sold the vase. I sold it to your father." "What the?"

"That's why I've been trying to find you." "You met my dad?" "Only briefly, but yes." "Do you remember him?" "It was just a minute." "But do you remember him?" "We chatted a bit." "And?" "He was a nice man. I think he could see how hard it was for me to part with those things." "Could you please describe him?" "Gosh, I don't really remember much." "Please." "He was maybe five foot ten. He had brown hair. He wore glasses." "What kind of glasses?" "Thick glasses." "What kind of clothes was he wearing?" "A suit, I think." "What suit?" "Gray, maybe?" "That's true! He wore a gray suit to work! Did he have a gap between his teeth?" "I don't remember." "Try."

"He said he was on his way home and saw the sign for the sale. He told me that he had an anniversary coming up the next week." "September 14!" "He was going to surprise your mom. The vase was perfect, he said. He said she'd love it." "He was going to surprise her?" "He'd made reservations at her favorite restaurant. It was going to be some sort of fancy night out."

The tuxedo.

"What else did he say?" "What else did he say..." "Anything." "He had a great laugh. I remember that. It was good of him to laugh, and to make me laugh. He was laughing for my sake."

"What else?" "He had a very discerning eye." "What's that?" "He knew what he liked. He knew when he'd found it." "That's true. He had an incredibly discerning eye." "I remember watching him hold the vase. He examined the bottom of it and turned it around a number of times. He seemed like a very thoughtful person." "He was extremely thoughtful."

I wished he could remember even more details, like if Dad had unbuttoned his shirt's top button, or if he smelled like shaving, or if he whistled "I Am the Walrus." Was he holding a New York Times under his arm? Were his lips chapped? Was there a red pen in his pocket?

"When the apartment was empty that night, I sat on the floor and read the letter from my father. I read about the vase. I felt like I'd failed him." "But couldn't you go to the bank and tell them you'd lost the key?" "I tried that. But they said they didn't have a box under his name. I tried my name. No box. Not under my mother's name or my grandparents' names. It didn't make any sense." "There was nothing the bank people could do?" "They were sympathetic, but without the key, I was stuck." "And that's why you needed to find my dad."

"I hoped he would realize that there was a key in the vase and find me. But how could he? We sold my father's apartment, so even if he went back, it would be a dead end. And I was sure he'd just throw the key away if he found it, assuming it was junk. That's what I would have done. And there was no way I could find him. Absolutely no way. I knew nothing about him, not even his name. For a few weeks I'd go over to the neighborhood on my way home from work, even though it wasn't on my way. It was an hour out of my way. I'd walk around looking for him. I put up a few signs when I realized what had happened: 'To the man who bought the vase at the estate sale on Seventy-fifth Street this weekend, please contact...' But this was the week after September 11. There were posters everywhere."

"My mom put up posters of him." "What do you mean?" "He died in September 11. That's how he died." "Oh, God. I didn't realize. I'm so sorry." "It's OK." "I don't know what to say." "You don't have to say anything." "I didn't see the posters. If I had ... Well, I don't know what if I had." "You would have been able to find us." "I guess that's right." "I wonder if your posters and my mom's posters were ever close to each other."

He said, "Wherever I was, I was trying to find him: uptown, downtown, on the train. I looked in everyone's eyes, but none were his. Once I saw someone I thought might be your father across Broadway in Times Square, but I lost him in the crowd. I saw someone I thought might be him getting into a cab at Twenty-third Street. I would have called after him, but I didn't know his name." "Thomas." "Thomas. I wish I'd known it then."

He said, "I followed one man around Central Park for more than half an hour. I thought he was your father. I couldn't figure out why he was walking in such a strange, crisscrossing way. He wasn't getting anywhere. I couldn't figure it out." "Why didn't you stop him?" "Eventually I did." "And what happened?" "I was wrong. It was someone else." "Did you ask him why he was walking like that?" "He'd lost something and was searching the ground for it."