Participants:
| Scene Title | The Periphery of Memory |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Delilah brings her father to an important moment in time and confesses her past to him. |
| Date | October 1, 2018 |
The New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company Building, located at 42-10 - 42-16 Vernon Boulevard in the shadows of the Queensboro Bridge, was designed by Francis H. Kimball in 1892. The company was one of the leading manufacturers of terra cotta between 1886, when the firm was founded, and 1928, when it went bankrupt. They manufactured terra cotta for use in such landmarks as the Ansonia Hotel and Carnegie Hall.
Following the 2006 explosion in Midtown Manhattan, Ferryman operator Andy Rourke, son of the structure's owner Karl Rourke, secretly converted the building for Ferrymen use. In 2010, the Ferrymen abandoned the structure in advance of a government raid on the facility. Following the formation of the Safe Zone, the "Brick House" was renovated and repaired as part of the resettlement efforts initiated by the Praeger administration. SESA converted it into a small museum and memorial for those who fought and died on the side of Phoenix and the Ferry. It contains an archive of pictures, a 20-person cinema that airs Civil War-related documentaries a few times a year, weapons used by the organization under glass, various other artifacts, and a wall listing all the names of the dead, both Ferry Operatives and those who died under the organization's protection. The stoop is covered in fresh flowers, year-round. Admission is free.
Before the war, there was the Ferrymen. Before the Ferrymen, there was a bomb. Before the bomb… life was okay. Hard, sure, but nowhere near what it would become. Delilah was fine with what she was, where she was. A kid just trying to get out of high school with all of her hair intact. That life never lasted, ending before she had the chance to be used to it. After midtown was wiped out, and Delilah went with her aunt to the FEMA park, everything seemed to spiral from there. Little money, few jobs. Delilah did what she could to help, though often it was barely enough to scrape by- - at least those first couple of years.
Then she manifested. Then she met the others. And we all know how that story goes.
Well, everyone except Daniel Trafford.
He knows enough, of course… the timeline, the history book version of things, what he may see or hear over current avenues. People talk, in the Benchmark. Delilah has not elaborated, nor has she pressed to ask what, exactly, the Deveaux Society has taught him. For the last couple of months Delilah has focused on mainly one thing. She has her father back. His health is the most important, and overloading him with information and emotions would have done more harm than good.
So for a time, Delilah kept things quiet. He knows that she was with the winning side. He knows that she is also SLC-Expressive. He does not know the extent of her ties, nor the extent of her power. Delilah would keep him from it as long as she could, but- - at one point or another, he needs to know. He deserves to know what happened to the world, and to his only daughter. So it is now or never, because Dee knows that if she keeps putting it off, he will find out on his own, in ways she can’t control- - not unlike a recent incident with her son.
“Here we are…” Hands clutch a canvas shoulder bag slung around Delilah’s chest, red hair tied back in a braid and an oversized, multicolored knit sweater below. Her jeans are tucked into a pair of rainboots, worn in defense from the autumn muck. The bus is only half full as it pulls up to a sidewalk corner in Jackson Heights to let them off, the red of the Brick House Museum down the way. Riding the bus gave her the chance to show him some things on the way, and from a safer distance. One day he will get to the point where he can see them up close and personal.
Neil’s focus is always on the bridges. Whenever they're by the coast, there's a distant look in his eyes whenever he sees the broken back of the Queensborough, specifically. With it looming behind the Brick House Museum, it's hard to pull his fascination away even as he steps off the bus. The electric engine hums softly at his back, door silently sliding shut as the last passenger disembarks to the curb.
“It's all gone a bit weird, hasn't it?” Niel asks as he stares at the twisted wreckage of the Brooklyn side of the bridge’s remains, the Manhattan end having fallen into the east river from structural damage in 2015. “I used to walk that bridge with your mum in the springtime. Just over to Manhattan and back, there was a bakery…”
Neil’s brows furrow, his expression scrunches up, and his eyes focus on the more relevant structure of the Brick House looming small and squat nearby. His attention moves to the flowers scattered on the steps, votive candles in the stoop, faded vinyl record cases that read Else Kjelstrom and the Shattered Skies across the front. Even without going in, it's a museum.
“It's all gone so weird,” Niel repeats, looking to have some trouble juxtaposing present-day with his memories of this place. If only just.
Some of the other passengers go their own ways, and a couple of them pass by Delilah and her father on their way inside the Brick House. Dee’s own eyes are on the door when she notes Niel’s continuing fascination with the bridge. She smiles faint when she turns to his words, following the stare with a glance.
“Before you came back I’d never even remembered we lived here. Maybe I wasn’t around yet, but… kind of explains why I keep coming back.” Delilah’s smile lingers, and she extends a hand for Niel’s in a casual affection. “I worked at a bakery for a while when I was a teenager. Was in the city, little place…” She leads him a few paces closer to the stoop as he examines it, hands linked firmly.
“I lived here for a while, too.” Delilah lifts her chin, taking in the ever familiar silhouette of the brick. “Weird is a bit of an understatement, Da’.” She’s used to it, even if he is not. “I thought that it was time I tried to explain some more about… myself. Something happened with Walter recently and I just…” Brown eyes move down between them, and she takes a breath. “I had been putting it off because I didn’t know how to say a lot of things, and with your recovery…”
“So that’s the other reason we’re here.”
Slowly, Niel pries his attention away from the bridge, brows furrowed and lips pursed like he heard something he wasn't entirely sure of. “Oh no, no we definitely lived here for a time. That was… oh, eighty-four or so?” None of that lines up with what Delilah knows about her parents. “We lived across the street from one-another… it's how we…”
Niel trails off, brows furrowed, searching for the right word. He makes a face, gestures in the air, then shakes his head and looks swiftly back up to Delilah like she'd just said something. “What's this all about my grandson then? Is he getting into trouble?” Niel smiles hesitantly. “Traffords do that. Habitually.”
Delilah pauses in regard to her father’s dating of things, brow knitting for a moment. Just as it seems that he’s going to remember something more, he doesn’t. Or chooses not to say it. She can’t quite tell, save that he has a hard time finishing the thought in the first place. Good thing she’s patient.
“Yeah, we definitely do. Habitually.” If only he was ready to hear everything, then he’d know how right he is. Delilah leads her father up the stairs of the Brick House, and she gives off the aura of someone arriving home when she opens the door for them. “He’s not getting into trouble just yet. I know he will someday.” She breathes out, letting Niel get a first look at the inside of the museum. Already she sees things that bring back memories, discounting those old album covers outside.
“The other day he was asking me about things I did before the Civil War. One of his friends must have been on about something, but… he more or less found out that I’ve killed people, so that was just… peachy.” Delilah searches Niel’s face then, dark eyes showing more age than her years as she goes back in her head.
“During the war and before it, I was with the Ferrymen. Before them, I was… with a rebel group called Phoenix. Walter’s father was a part of it all too. Both groups had to do a lot of things to keep ourselves and others alive, and a great deal of that is recorded here.” All the way from the earliest days, until the end of the war. “I want to tell you about me, and this seemed like the place I needed to start.”
Although her explanation of why they are here comes in a roundabout way, it comes nontheless.
A collage of photographs on the wall at the entrance, showing young members of the Ferrymen in candid moments during their lives taken between 2008 and 2010 have Niel’s attention first. He squints at them, looking at the faces and mouthing soundless words to himself. Below the collage is an embossed plaque listing the names of everyone in the photographs who died.
It is nearly all of them.
Blinking slowly, Niel turns to Delilah and it isn't clear that he's heard her at first. For a moment it looks as though he just realized that she's even in the room with him. But then, slowly approaching, Niel wraps one arm around his daughter and draws her into a hug. It's a wordless, desperate thing, a hug that tries to make up for a lifetime of absences, through no fault of his own.
“We've all done things,” Niel whispers into her hair, “that keep us up at night. Because that's what we had t’do, t’keep the people we love safe, isn't it, love?” That, more than anything, sounds like the father she remembers.
Delilah keeps an eye on his exam of the photos, her own expression restrained when she looks at the plaque. When her father moves back to her she is waiting, wrapping him up in return. Knowing that he seems to understand the gravity of it all means more to her than she had realized it would.
She leans into the whisper against her hair, feeling the beat of heart at the back of his coat.
“That's the truth.” A somber note lingers in her words, but the smile Daniel gets is mixed with bittersweet. “I have a few regrets, but I think that's always a given. But I can say that I'm proud of where I was.” Am.
“I wish you could have known some of them,” Delilah takes a half step forward to touch the plaque of names. “But they're not all gone. You've met Lynette and a few others, and maybe sometime you'll meet more. We're kind of everywhere these days.” At this she gives Niel a wider smile.
“Your grandad would be so proud of you,” Niel says with a hesitant smile, leaning back from Delilah but cupping one of her cheeks in a calloused hand. “He always…” Niel’s brows furrow, his eyes wander to the side, and he seems to lose his train of thought. Then, something entirely other catches his attention, and his hand slips from Delilah’s cheek and he wanders over to a wood-encased display.
Inside a mahogany frame is a colorful piece of concrete with a single, poorly painted fish on it. The plaque below describes it as part of a living mural that once could be found in Grand Central Station in Manhattan. A fluttering smile crosses Niel’s face as he reaches out to touch the glass covering the block, looking both sentimental and fascinated all in one.
When his thoughts trail like they do now, Delilah wonders if this was too much stimulation. But really, she hadn’t anything else to make this easier. This was all she could think of as a buffer. She smiles back at the mention of her grandfather, brow knitting some as she follows the look and wandering step just after. A hand settles at the top of Daniel’s back while he studies the piece of mural, and Delilah hangs there on his left.
She remembers the mural in its life, of course. Grand Central was a big part of things for so long.
“We always seemed to find ways to distract ourselves. Not all of it was as productive as painting.” There’s a small laugh from Delilah at this, a tiny bit sheepish. Her eyes lift to the information alongside the frame, hand moving to note it for him. “Midtown was where nobody wanted to be, so there we were. A lot of things happened there at Grand Central. Some of my first jobs with the Ferry were there.” Chin lifting up, the young woman leans back to scan some more of the nearby walls, the layout of the building taking her back to a youth not so far gone.
Delilah doesn’t babysit her father for terribly long; some of the items kept in lidded cases draw her to them. Various personal items recovered from old safehouses or hubs, with a note on its frame that indicates an effort to return some of them, to no avail. Dead, gone, or just unwanting.
Niel, too, wanders the museum though never strays far from Delilah. In one corner they have the ratty couch and armchair with the plywood coffee table on broken chair legs arranged much as it was when safehouse operators and guests would sit by lantern light and talk. It is surrounded by a velvet rope now. Someone, long ago, left flowers on the couch that have dried.
There's a very clearly understood reverence that Niel shows in this place. He lingers at each plaque describing the plight of the Ferrymen, the great efforts they went through and the losses they suffered. One photo of Delilah, Else, Cat, and Melissa at the Rock Cellar draws Niel’s attention. It hadn't been here when Delilah last came through, but some of the displays change every six months or so as new artifacts are donated.
Niel reaches out, nearly touching the photograph, then curls his hand closed and stares at the image of his daughter lock-armed with a woman who is now Secretary of State. There's such visible loss in his eyes, such regret, and a weight that she hasn't ever truly seen on his shoulders.
“Love,” he says to Delilah without looking away from the photograph. “I'm so bloody sorry I missed so much of your life…”
Delilah hasn’t been here in long enough that she takes a few moments of her own, thoughts stirring for herself and her memories. She lifts her head up from a study of the roped-off snapshot in time to find her father, spying him amongst the photos. Her approach slows a step when she nears, realizing this portion of the wall is one she hasn’t seen before.
She can feel her eyes grow larger when she scans the new additions, and when she sees herself standing there in the photo next to Else there’s nothing to stop a visceral turn in her ribs.
The next that Niel looks to his daughter, she is wiping tears messily from the tops of her cheeks, mouth tight as she attempts to compose herself. Her father’s words come through, yet she can’t quite articulate a response right away. Pain of missing someone- someones- wins out.
“It’s- it’s not your fault.” Delilah sniffs, clearing her throat. “Never tell yourself that it is. Please…”
“Oh hush now my sweet phlox,” Niel is quick to say as he turns around, stepping over to embrace Delilah and run his fingers through the hair at the back of her head. “We've both… lost so many things. We've got to be happy about the things we have left, about all the good we've got still.” There's such a familiarity in that embrace. A sensory memory that makes Delilah a little girl again, safe and secure in the embrace of her father’s arms.
He's quiet for a time, and Delilah picks up the scent of his favorite cologne, of almond raspberry tarts served at a long oak table when she was young enough to need to be lifted into the seat. Memories of reassurance, family, grandfathers.
“How’d I ever get such a brave girl?” Niel asks with a smile felt against her hair. “My Delilah, the hero.”
This time she allows herself to be swallowed up by Niel’s embrace, rather than reciprocate it; her arms tuck against his chest as he presses hand to her hair, and she feels the droplets spilling onto his shoulder when she rests her head there.
He is warm, and he is familiar, and when she closes her eyes to that faint almond, what Delilah sees is sun streaming in through old shutters, scattered light on old wood.
“I remember when grandad planted those for me,” Delilah breathes out a tiny laugh into Niel’s chest, her fingers clasped to the long collar of his suit jacket. “And then whenever he’d teach me tricks the flowers would always be the same…” It’s something that she tries to concentrate on, a tangible sort of memory. Delilah swallows hard to regain some of her composure, slackening into her father’s grasp with a tentative sigh.
“I thought I wouldn’t have any trouble here. But that one- -” The picture just behind his shoulder, “It’s new.” She wasn’t ready for it. Still, when Delilah parts from Niel, she turns with him back to the wall, jaw tight and hand moving to the frame. A breath exhales through pursing lips, a deep inhale to come. An exercise in calm. “Melissa, I still don’t know what happened to her. Cat is- - well- - Catherine.” Warm brown eyes move to the last, finger tracing part of the picture.
“That’s Else. For a while she was one of my best friends. She was even there for me when I was as big as a whale.” This has Delilah’s cheeks pulling in a laugh, streaks still damp down paths of freckles. “But she never even… got to meet him.” There is little more to Else’s story that Dee can really explain to her father; there is so much more to it, but for his sake she stays simple, and poignant.
“It sounds like you had an embarrassment of good friends,” Niel admits with a fond smile. “I miss…” his brows crease together, eyes look distant, like he's trying to remember what or who it is he misses. “We’d ah… by the ocean? With— ” he makes a noise in the back of his throat, “with the seagulls and stale bagels? She um…” Niel starts tapping his forefingers and thumbs together. “By the old radar dish? You know the ah— the ah…”
It doesn't come to him.
“I'm sorry,” Niel mumbles to himself, curling fingers into his hair gently, then dragging the palm of his hand down his face. “I'm sorry I'm a big box of jumbled jigsaw puzzle pieces. I just can't find any of the corners.” He always like starting in the corners. He's a sensible man.
Delilah draws his other hand into hers as he struggles to form his thoughts and memories. She knows by now that waiting is all she can really do to see if he can bring it back on his own. Once in a while, maybe. Right now he doesn’t quite click them together, and Dee signals her reassurance with a small squeeze of his fingers, and a rub of hand at the back of her neck, lingering self-consciously at the tattoo there.
“I think I remember feeding gulls, when I was small. I remember the park pigeons more. Gran would tell me they were rats with wings but I loved them anyway.” There is a small laugh, a little secretive. “Once when we were feeding them I distinctly remember you trying to convince me that they named the neighborhoods after us.” From her tone, it doesn’t sound like he managed to sway her.
Delilah gently leads her father from the wall of new photos, taking one last look before wandering to the next space. There are shadowboxes of items here, less somber and more akin to the warm glass of history displays. Tiny rectangles label artifacts, dictating what they are and where they were found- - sometimes even the name of the person who donated it. The oldest models of the SLC-E test are there, in a box alongside an empty negation gas canister. The carcass of an IED, red and orange paint gnarled in metal. A laptop with screen shattered and a series of phones in different states of decay and damage, one of them fairly good. The last are labeled with a longer excerpt on technopathy and those who managed the network’s communications. The educational part of the tour, it seems. An advertisement for the Children’s library and Public library is posted along the wall, cheerfully indicating they have subject matter.
“Some of this stuff I’d have never even thought about keeping as history.” Delilah looks up away from the cases to where there are dioramas of Roosevelt Island and Eltingville. “I suppose you never quite realize what it means to people to have something tangible.” She lifts her eyes back to her father. “So we’ll just have to remake those corners, okay?”
Niel smiles weakly, turning and regarding each display with a pointed look of weight that they deserve. He absolutely understands where he is, the context of things. Benchmark has been helpful in diagnosing where Niel’s challenges lie, and all of it rests in his declarative memory and his ability to keep past events in proper alignment. Results of tests as to the cause are still pending.
“That's a right brilliant idea, love.” Niel’s belated response comes with a weary look, his hand gripping her shoulder gently. “We… find our own pieces, paint over them, and make the picture whatever we want it to be,” is said so clearly and succinctly he might as well be reading it off the page.
“Thank you…” Niel says softly, drawing Delilah into another embrace. “Thank you for— for sharing your life. All the good parts and… and the… the ah… the donked up parts too.” There's an awkward smile there. “Maybe when I get all my ducks in a row, I can show you whatever it was I did when I was your age.”
The smile that spreads across Niel’s face is a weary one, but one that has a genuine love of where and when he is in this particular moment. But, as always, it's haunted by something on the periphery of memory.
“But I doubt it was as important as this.”