The (Yellow Brick) Road Home
Katie Greulich
@katiecgreulich
I sucked in a breath when the doorbell rang. It was 9 a.m., a Monday. I was blotchy-faced from the shower, and my hair was a wet tangle. “Pizza!” my daughter, age 2 at the time, yelled over the sing-songy happiness of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
“No, Janey,” I said, sighing, “It’s not pizza. It’s Papa.”
My father’s morning visits began months earlier when we bought the house next door. My husband and I were offered a good deal on the home by my childhood neighbors, and for many, the New Jersey suburb in the greater New York City area was a haven, a paradise, or even, as some say, a “bubble,” a happy community shielded from uglier parts of the world. But to me, it was my hometown. The place where I experienced the trials of childhood and the awkwardness of adolescence.
Still, the offer was too good to pass over.
Due to a recent stroke that had left Dad mostly immobile, I assumed that random drop-ins weren’t a possibility. But one day, there he was, standing at my backdoor like a bear who had wandered onto someone’s deck. After that, it was unspoken. Each day, minutes after my mother left for work, he’d arrive with a bag of goodies.
Dad’s quad-foot cane clicked as he walked through the playroom. I cleared a path, kicking my daughter’s toys aside. In the living room, I pushed the coffee table away from what had become “his” place on the couch. My father knew how to take over a space. Growing up, he’d always had his spot at the dinner table, his chair in the den, and at designated times, the television was his and his only. When Dad entered my house on those morning it felt like a part of my life was being claimed. I wondered if moving back to my old neighborhood was a mistake. My independence was being forsaken; my freedom to make my own morning choices.
He settled into his seat, dropping the bag of snacks on the coffee table where my daughter was sitting. The skin on his cheeks was papery, reddish. He smelled of Listerine and wore flannel pants. After the stroke, Dad rarely wore anything but pajamas.
“How’d everybody sleep last night?” It was his go-to question, and one I resented in an era where insomnia plagued me due to new motherhood, hormones, and anxiety. I murmured a response, but Dad didn’t seem to hear me. Instead, he made silly faces at my daughter while she giggled. “What’s in the bag?” he said, and using his cane, pushed it towards her. It was a standard grocery store bag, brown paper covered with yellow plastic, and of course, filled with junk.
My daughter crawled over to the bag and peered inside. Her small hands retrieved potato chips, cookies, chocolate nuggets, and raspberry yogurt. She held up the cookies and I glanced at the clock: 9:15 a.m. I saw my father’s shape in my periphery. He was a hard man to say no to. Throughout my life, any rejection of his ideas or suggestions, were met with hollering, silent treatment, or at the very least, a look of disappointment—a pursing of the lips, a lowering of the eyes, a heavy sigh through the nose, and subtle shake of the head. This is why I was allowing my daughter to eat cookies at 9:15 on a Monday morning.
My father spoke again, “It was great sleeping weather last night. Mom and I left the windows open.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“Hey, how about this?” Using his cane again, he pushed the yogurt, speckled with drops of condensation, towards my daughter. She turned her body away and continued eating the cookies. “Well, someone’s got to eat it,” he said. I thought about the five containers of yogurt he brought last week, slowly rotting in the refrigerator. Sighing, I ventured to the kitchen for a spoon.
When my father’s visits began, I stopped taking a Zumba class at the Y that began at 9 a.m. It was a popular class with moms who had kids my daughter’s age. We’d all leave our children at the Tot Drop and take the class together. On those mornings, I wondered if moving back home was a mistake, because in my father’s presence, I felt like a child without a voice. I pictured the interactions I was missing and thought of playdates being set without us. I imagined my daughter’s social life floundering, just so she could eat junk food while I talked to her grandfather about getting a good night’s rest.
One week before I had left for college, Dad called me to the back porch. “This is your home,” he said, sensing my impending homesickness. “You can always come back to your home.” Dad had a way of romanticizing homelife. There was an edge to his voice when he spoke, a silent plea: Don’t leave. You’ll miss this. We’ll miss you. I looked out at the backyard of my childhood, the lilies-of-the-valley outside the garage door, the single wooden swing hanging from the crabapple tree, and the brick path Dad built from scratch, “The Yellow Brick Road,” we’d dubbed it, from The Wizard of Oz, my favorite movie as a child.
Maybe I’d internalized too much in that moment so many years earlier. I only lasted one year away at school, my remaining college days were local school, and I commuted from home. After graduation, my husband and I moved to another town for eight years. But now I was back again, in the home next door, seemingly for good. Inside, I think I felt scared, that somehow, I’d sacrificed my independence, that I’d never truly left the proverbial nest. I never spread my wings and flew. Somehow this made me feel juvenile, inexperienced, and unworldly. My father’s visits reminded me of those unresolved emotions.
I returned with the yogurt. It was creamy and smooth but had started to warm. Dad and I continued our conversation. My daughter moved onto the chips. Somewhere in the distance, a 7-minute drive away, the Zumba class began. Cars sped by on the street. A cloud passed over the sun, dimming the room. When the sun appeared again, I’d almost finished the yogurt. I’d eaten most of it without thinking about it, but on the last spoonful, it occurred to me: I did not have to eat it. Dad did not make me eat it. I chose to eat it myself.
The next morning, I called my parents’ house at 8:30, hoping Dad had not started to pack the bag of treats. I almost hung up when he answered, out of fear, or guilt, or something else I couldn’t identify. “Hey, Dad…uh,” I started, “I’m going to take an exercise class today, it starts at 9, so…” I trailed off, letting him figure out the rest. He hesitated, before saying, “Oh! Okay. No big deal. Thanks for calling.”
I rushed to the class, feeling drenched in guilt, and then, after a few minutes, I felt irritated by the guilt. The image of my father sitting at home, alone, in front of the television, weakened my will.I dragged my daughter by the arm into the building, noticing the trees on the front lawn. They were blossoming with plush, white flowers in all their mid-April glory, but in my remorse and panic at being late, I barely processed their beauty.
At the end of class, I felt invigorated from workout endorphins, but a new realization was slowly unfolding. I hadn’t been missing that much. I chatted with some other moms, many of whom commented that they were going to be sore, since they hadn’t been to class in weeks. Everyone was friendly, but seemed focused on where they were going next, and it was clear that morning that I was, in fact, in control of my own life. I’d chosen to go to Zumba class that particular morning. Other days, I’d chosen to stay home for my father’s visits. I’d chosen to eat the yogurt he brought, I’d chosen to come home from college after one year, and I’d chosen to buy the house next door. I’d followed the Yellow Brick Road back home.
The only thing wrong with my choices was my interpretation of them. I wasn’t pulled back home because I was scared and unadventurous, or because I felt guilt over my father’s nostalgia. I went because I wanted to, because I thrive there, like a tree that is planted in one place for life, but yields to what’s old and regenerates each year, and forever reaches for the sky.
Time went on, my son was born, and my daughter began Pre-K five days a week. My mornings were busy with drop offs, pick-ups, naps, playdates, and doctor’s appointments. I saw my parents regularly, but Dad’s visits came to a stop organically, disappearing as quickly as those chips and cookies from the shopping bag.
But soon my old town felt like my new town. New shops and restaurants appeared. Construction projects began on the schools. Old faces were replaced with new ones, and soon, I realized my town existed in two separate perspectives—one where I’m a child, and the other, where I become an adult. My husband built a small brick path that echoed my dad’s yellow brick road that led from our back door to my parents’ driveway. I loved watching my daughter cross the path, connecting our present to my past, because I knew that once she got to the other side, she’d be somewhere safe, somewhere comforting, and in comfort, we always grow.
In June of 2019, Dad went to sleep for the last time, and I can only hope that there is good sleeping weather in heaven. Later that fall, with my daughter in kindergarten at a new school, my son began his Pre-K classes at the Y. One morning, walking him in, I noticed the trees that were blossoming that morning years ago when I rushed to Zumba. Only now they were transitioning, shedding their leaves, creating a vibrant blanket of colors on the grass. They had changed, just like I had. The true mark of adulthood, or independence, isn’t about living towns, counties, or even states away, it’s about recognizing those things in life that are fleeting, like spring blossoms and morning visits, and pausing to see the beauty in them.
Guest essay written by Katie Greulich. Katie is a writer, wife, and mother living in New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in Literary Mama, Motherwell, The Manifest Station, River Teeth's Beautiful Things Column, Mothers Always Write, and HerKind Collective. She is currently revising a novel.
Photo by Lottie Caiella.