DIMPLES AND EYEBROWS
by
Kathleen Glassburn
Can a person ever really know someone before marriage? Even people who have lived together for years without a legal commitment—do they really know each other? Aspects of my husband’s personality surfaced years into our marriage.
When we were dating, Dan came to story hours at the library where I worked as an assistant. Dressed in his Seattle police officer’s uniform, he stood talking to little kids circled around him about policemen friends in times of trouble. As he spun engaging tales about good guys and bad guys, the kids hung on his every word as if hypnotized. The good guys always won.
He appreciated my blue eyes and accent—singing a few lines of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling…” each time we passed each other.
I thought, Dan Flynn will be a fine father.
*
Our small children worshipped him as if he were God and the president rolled into one. I adored him in much the same way. Deep dimples drew us into his funny stories. Back then, Dan’s dark eyebrows never drew together in a zigzagged, angry line, at least on the homefront. I took charge of disciplining the kids while he provided our entertainment.
When the theme song for a favorite program came on, I sang, “Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…” while our children rushed to their places on the carpet. They dropped to cross-legged positions, knees knocking together. Susan’s brown eyes and Sean’s blue eyes fixed on Make Room for Daddy.
“There he is.” Sean pointed at Danny Thomas who he thought looked like Dan on the Muntz television set we bought in 1955.
“Daddy’s handsomer.” Susan, his big sister, stretched tall. “He’s funnier too.”
Dan’s dark, wavy hair and flashing brown eyes earned him the nickname “Black Irishman” or “Blackie” for short. As a sergeant, he had several younger cops who reported to him. Everyone appreciated his sense of humor and captivating stories, however, I also overheard mumbles about his iron will and lack of tolerance when crossed. These nicknames and remarks at picnics for police families indicated that perceptions of him were different at the station from what they were at home.
*
Since my family still resided in Dublin, we spent early holidays at the Flynn farm in eastern Washington where Dan grew up. At our last Christmas celebration there, Sean was five and Susan was seven. Grandma and Grandpa opened presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning, so Dan and I followed this ritual too.
The family shared a roast beef dinner and oyster stew that caused the kids to wrinkle their noses in disgust. Remembering well what would come next, our daughter fidgeted at the table.
I kept saying, “Be still, Susan.”
For once, Sean was the better behaved of the two.
For Susan, it must have seemed like forever until Daddy took them out on their search.
After dinner, clanks from dishwashing came from the kitchen, along with Grandma’s and my chatter. “Here Comes Santa Claus” played on the Victrola. The kids huddled together by the tree that Dan had cut down the day before. A wonderful smell of fresh pine surrounded the scene as our children tried to pass the time by counting bubbles gurgling in the twinkling lights.
At last, Grandma and I came into the living room, wiping our hands on towels.
“You can go looking,” I said.
Dan got up from the sofa, folded his newspaper, and casually tucked in his
shirt—savoring every moment.
Feeling Susan’s anticipation, Come on, come on, ran through my mind.
“Let’s go meet him,” he finally said.
I bundled the kids in snowsuits, then hid with the lights turned off at a slightly open window, an afghan over my shoulders and a string of jingle bells in my hands. Grandma and Grandpa sat on chairs next to me with their noisemakers. She held a pan and wooden spoon. He held a beat-up washboard and had metal thimbles on his fingers.
Susan and Sean clutched Dan’s hands, traipsing across the crisp, snow-covered lawn with the barn looming in the darkness.
“Keep looking at the sky.” Dan raised his face to the stars. “He’ll be flying right over…oh, criminy.” He cleaned up his language when the kids were little. “There’s Santa! The sleigh and eight reindeer. Hear his chuckles? The reindeer’s snorts?” On and on he went, making up more details, as Grandma and Grandpa and I provided sound effects.
The kids sang out in unison, “Where, Daddy, where?”
“Can’t see him,” Sean whined.
“I can’t either,” Susan chimed in.
Dan gestured to the house’s roof as Sean plopped onto a snowdrift. “He’s right over there, next to the chimney.” Dan hoisted Sean to his feet. “Better hurry! Before he’s gone!”
“They’re coming back,” I said to the old folks.
We watched them slip and slide all the way to the house. Jingling bells and the clip-clop of hooves and Grandpa’s rumbling “Ho! Ho! Ho!” filled the air.
Stomping snow off their boots on the back porch, they heard “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night,” in whispers from the three of us.
Dan said, “Too bad. You missed him!” He led the kids in stocking feet to the living room and announced, “Look what he brought!”
Spotting the festively wrapped presents strewn under the tree, they momentarily forgot to question the whereabouts of Santa.
I sigh now, Glad for the happy memories.
Soon after this last farm Christmas, Susan asked me what the adults had been up to that night. “It was Daddy playacting, huh?”
I hesitated, another part of babyhood soon to be discarded. Then, “That’s right. Please don’t tell your brother.”
Hours later, Sean ran to me in tears. “Mommy, is Santa Claus real?”
*
Too fast, Susan became a teenager.
Often, out of sight behind her open bedroom door, I listened as Dan checked her appearance. I almost felt her cringe as he said, “You’re not going out like that.”
I imagined Susan’s body shrinking like a cotton T-shirt accidentally left in the drier on high.
“What’s wrong with black eyeliner?” Or, “red lipstick?” she’d say.
I pictured Dan’s foreboding eyebrows seizing his expression.
“You look like a tramp.” He confiscated bottles, tubes, pencils, and I heard the closet door squeak open. “Scrub your face and put this on.”
“That dress is so dippy.”
“No backtalk.”
He stormed from the room, bumping into me. “Your daughter won’t listen. Bleached hair…makeup an inch thick…skirts up to her ass.”
Later, in our bedroom, I pleaded Susan’s case. “If it’s the worst thing she does, why not give her a break?”
“I can’t have a daughter of mine going around looking like a slut.”
I had witnessed Dan with buddies from the force sitting around our Muntz cheering or grumbling about a football, basketball, or baseball game. During an advertisement he’d say, “My daughter is never going to look like that one.” He’d gesture at some girl with heaps of teased hair, sweeping mascara-laden lashes, and a skimpy outfit.
In a day or so, Susan, who must have heard too, made an appearance with an extreme coif, flashy cosmetics, and new suggestive attire.
It all started again.
*
A couple years later, Dan repeatedly listed Sean’s misdeeds in the kitchen, sitting at the gray Formica table, a full ashtray to his right. He’d shove his dinner plate aside and say, “I can smell them on you.”
I jumped up to clear the dishes, wondering, How long will this lecture take?
Susan, once the tirade began, tried to slink off to her bedroom.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Dan demanded. “Get over here and help your mother clean up.”
Rushing through the chore as if we were late for important appointments, Susan quickly managed her exit; I puttered nearby, in a show of support for Sean.
He slouched across from Dan, head hanging, mop of blond hair covering his eyes.
“Where did you get them? You haven’t stolen mine.”
“Around.”
“What do you mean—around?” Dan badgered.
“Friends—around.”
“Who are these friends?”
“Just friends.”
“Say right now,” Dan paused and took a drag, “you’re not going to smoke again.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah what?”
“Yeah, I won’t.”
“You won’t what?”
“Smoke.”
“Do you know how hard these are on your health?” Dan coughed, emphasizing this tack.
“Sure.”
“Do I have your promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah what?”
“Promise.”
“Promise what?”
Later, behind our closed bedroom door, I said, “Drilling him won’t make any difference.”
Dan never budged.
During these years only my Catholic faith kept me from divorcing him.
When Sean was a junior in high school, Dan and Susan and I stood over him lying in a hospital bed. He had regained consciousness after a near-fatal car accident involving alcohol.
“Can I have a cigarette?” His voice was hoarse.
“No way,” said Dan.
*
After he retired from the force we took a trip to Ireland. Visiting Blarney Castle, Dan kissed the stone and later displayed an 8” x 10” photograph as proof of this accomplishment. It hung on a wall in his den with multiple pictures and awards representing his thirty years as a police officer. He had ended an illustrious career as a captain. In the Blarney photo, Dan lay on his back, head tilted toward the stone, a grin spread over his ruddy face. Once he completed the kiss, he thoroughly enjoyed a chat with the attendant who had held his legs.
Dan hoped the Irish superstition would help him. This man of many words assumed if he could find the right ones, people he cared about, which included every acquaintance and friend as well as family members, would behave the way he knew they should.
When we returned to Seattle from our trip, where we had visited my aging relatives in Dublin, Dan bought his neighborhood tavern. He had frequented the spot often with his many buddies. We renamed it Fabler’s, installed green velvet café curtains on rods with golden rings, and hung his Blarney Stone picture behind the bar.
*
In their twenties, Susan worked as a legal assistant at the city prosecutor’s office and Sean taught English at their old high school. Her appearance was natural and understated. He had quit smoking. Frequently, they came into Fabler’s.
During one such visit, I was rolling change from the cash register. George, a retired seaman who made the tavern his second home, sprawled across the bar’s shiny wood surface, an arm stretched toward Dan, the other bent with a hand supporting his forehead.
“You gotta take care of this,” Dan said. “The sooner the better. If you don’t haul her stuff out, put it in a storage unit, she’ll be with you another month. It’ll blow over and you’ll be in the same mess. She’s never gonna change. This is your chance. While she’s visiting that sister of hers.”
Sean and I exchanged a knowing glance.
“You’re right. Now or never!” George jerked upright, knocking into a gallon water jar. Peeled hard-boiled eggs bobbed up and down.
“Do you want me to help? For moral support?”
“Would you do that, Blackie?”
I laughed to myself. Dan’s hair was solid white, but the nickname had stuck.
“I don’t mind.”
“You’re one in a million,” whimpered George.
Dan took a damp cloth and wiped a clean circle on the bar, drew another beer, and set it in front of his disheartened customer. “We’ll get you out of this.”
Weeks later, Susan and Sean came to the tavern again. I listened as they caught up on their own lives. Then, Sean whispered, “Remember George’s problem?” He nodded to a back booth where the tired seaman huddled, nursing a brew. “Dad’s upset because his lady friend still lives with him.”
“That figures,” Susan whispered back. “Why doesn’t he give up, Mom?”
“It’s in his nature.”
Meanwhile, Dan sat in another booth talking to some old floozy about her money crisis.
I went back to stocking crackers and other snacks.
“He has no more success bringing customers around to his way of thinking than he did with us.” Susan grimaced.
“Yeah, but they crave the attention,” Sean said.
*
Eventually, grandchildren entered our life.
From our kitchen window could be seen a junglelike hillside where birds and rabbits and squirrels dwelt. As soon as our grandson was old enough to notice this tangled backyard, Dan told him about wild animals living in its shadows. His favorite story was about a family of monkeys.
“Let’s go play with them,” he said.
“No, Grandpa. I don’t want to. I don’t like monkeys.”
“Why not? Don’t you think monkeys could be great friends?”
“What if they bite?”
“I don’t think they’d bite a big boy like you.”
“Not today.”
“Maybe another time.” Dimples flickering, Dan began his next story about chipmunks under the house.
When our granddaughter grew old enough to join in, she said, “Let’s go looking for monkeys.”
I watched them take off up the hillside with the little sister leading, her big brother lagging behind, and Grandpa bringing up the rear.
His voice rang out, “Look over that way. I saw one. Hey, there’s another one scrambling behind a bush.”
“Grandpa, they’re all hiding,” Melissa said.
Mark’s scrunched shoulders squared up.
Sitting over coffee after they had been picked up by Susan, Dan laughed and said, “No monkeys today, but Melissa got to be in charge.”
“Mark learned how visiting unfamiliar places can inspire confidence.”
“Evened things up a bit.”
In subsequent searches both children raced like curious puppies over the hillside.
*
For the last ten years of his life, Dan faced constant health challenges—diabetes, painful arthritis, a weak heart. Forced to sell his tavern, to my surprise, he also became quiet, like he had nothing else to say. At family dinners, I tried to include him in the conversation, but mostly he listened to the others, a faraway look in his faded brown eyes. Sean’s daughter, Pammy, was still small and unquestioning, so Susan took over the storytelling, glad for a diversion from her own difficult teenagers.
“They won’t listen,” she told me.
“Give them time—they’ll come around,” I said.
Susan and Sean and I met only once at the old Fabler’s. Dan didn’t want to join us. It had been renamed Monkey Bar. Shiny chrome, exposed air ducts, and a stark cement floor had replaced our decor. Jumbled lyrics of blaring music competed with loud conversations.
“I don’t want to come here again,” Susan said.
“No familiar smell of beer and cigarettes.” Sean put a hand on her arm. “We’ll find another place.”
We sipped martinis until, during a lull in the clatter, Susan said, “Should I bring up past hurts, Mom? Discuss them with Dad. Come to some sort of resolution.”
“He’s at peace. Best to let those old feelings go.”
*
At the end, visitors who came by to check on him brought Dan stumbling from our bed and doing wheelies down the hall on his walker. I followed, ready to catch him if he lost his balance. Remaining subdued, a grin lifted his sagging dimples.
At one of our many alone times, he told me, “I want to be cremated. Put my ashes in the Puget Sound.”
The idea of this brought on a shudder. With my traditional Catholic beliefs, it was a hard thing to accept. Still, “I’ll honor your wishes,” I promised Dan.
He died just after a somber Christmas.
In January, the family sat in his den planning a simple service. Memorabilia, including the Blarney Stone picture, set the mood.
“I’m going to wear my blue dress,” I said. “It was always his favorite. Told me that it made my eyes alert and bright as a white rabbit’s.” I never felt like a rabbit, more like a watchful owl. But I thought, This would make him happy.
Susan paused with the notes she was writing. “I’m trying to choose music and readings that Dad would like, in spite of never going to church. What do you think of “Amazing Grace” and Psalm 23?”
“Overused, but maybe it’s because they’re appropriate,” Sean said. “I want to include “Danny Boy.” ”
“Absolutely.” Susan began to hum.
In the chapel of Finnegan’s mortuary on St. Patrick’s Day, we displayed Dan’s photos and other treasures. Chief of the Seattle Police Force, a longtime friend, gave the eulogy.
“Dan Flynn could be hilarious…at times. Those dimples would dance. Other times, I’d see his dark eyebrows drawn together and know that someone was in for it. He always wanted the best for everyone he cared about.” The Chief looked directly at Susan and Sean. “He touched many during his eighty years, the consensus being that no one enjoyed a good talk, or a humorous yarn, or passing out advice better than Dan. His no-nonsense, common-sense remarks often did hit the mark, even though they were given in a black-and-white way. Often these declarations and admonitions were ignored, despite him being an excellent cop. Yet, we miss them, just as we miss Dan himself.”
I’d decided not to speak, instead to listen. It amazed me when Susan chose to sit quietly too. “I’m afraid if I say something I’ll lose it in tears,” she said.
Friends and relatives and customers shared their Dan stories. Near the service’s end, Sean stood.
“It’s already been said many times, but bears repeating. My father was the most talkative man I ever met. I didn’t inherit that quality.” He nodded toward Susan. “These last few years, words failed him. Unlike Dylan Thomas’s father, ours did go quietly into his dark night. I like to think that he was silenced in order to hear what would come next, and I’m certain that whatever it is will be good.”
*
Mowbray, our small Puget Sound town close to Seattle, refurbished its waterfront the following fall. This project included benches with dedication plaques. The family picked a spot for Dan’s bench where one street ends and another curves out of it. There’s a panoramic view and it’s a short distance from where we sailed on a friend’s boat to spread Dan’s ashes.
On an unusually balmy afternoon, a few months after our first Christmas without him, I parked my Honda close to his bench and watched Dan’s visitors. At least ten people stopped by, some of them lingering. A woman with a girl of about five sat down and stayed longer than the rest. The girl was crying and her mother looked upset.
He’ll help those two, I thought.
A sea lion bobbed and dove and peered at them.
I could hear Dan telling the girl about this mysterious creature’s exploits…where it had been…where it was going. He came from the south, way down in California. He’s headed up north to Alaska. He wants to say “Hi” to you.
I pictured Dan placing his hand on the woman’s shoulder. With a sigh, she relaxed on his bench, and gazed across the water to the Olympic Peninsula with mountains surrounded in pinks and purples. The little girl tilted her head and gave a wave. She’d listened to perfect words, spellbound, and now wore a smile.
I felt wistful, but past wishing that things during our kids’ teenaged years could have been different.
This was his gift—communicating with little kids.
THE END