Reinhold climbed the last part himself. He said that was his to do. I stood at the bottom with my hand over my eyes and watched my husband, fifty-two years old, hang off forty feet of steel in the April sun and tighten the last bolt on my father’s antenna.
At four o’clock the three of them torqued the last base bolts, walking around the legs with a level and a lot of short sentences. Then they stepped back.
It stood there against the blue sky, straight as a fence post, bolted down square, the antenna catching the light.
Nobody said anything for a while.
Then the young one with the little girl said, “Well. That’ll talk to Maine.”
Reinhold ran the cable from the tower across the grass and up onto the back porch, buried in a shallow trench so nobody would trip on it. He set a little wooden table at the end of the porch, by the rail, with a power strip under it.
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I tried to pay the two men. They would not take it.
“Just tell us how it goes Sunday,” the climber said.
The Phone Call
Saturday evening, before the sun went down, I called Dad. He answered on the fourth ring. He sounded tired.
“Dad, come out for Sunday dinner tomorrow. After church. Florentine too.”
“All right, sweetheart.”
“And bring your radio.”
The line went quiet. I could hear the television in the background, a ball game, and Florentine saying something in the kitchen.
“Hedwig,” he said, slowly, “I don’t have anywhere to hang an antenna anymore. You know that.”
“I know, Dad. Just bring it. And the microphone. And your cap.”
Another quiet.
“What did you do?” he said.
“Nothing. I made a pot roast.”
He laughed then, just a little, the first time I had heard him laugh all week. “You were always a terrible liar. Your mother could lie, but you couldn’t.”
“Bring the radio, Dad.”
“I’ll bring the radio,” he said.
Sunday
We went to the early service that morning. I do not remember a word of the sermon. I remember that the choir sang “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” the Navy hymn, because a man in the congregation had a grandson shipping out, and I had to look down at my hands.
Dad and Florentine pulled into our drive at half past twelve. Florentine had a pie on her lap. Dad had his radio in a cardboard box, wrapped in a bath towel, and the desk microphone in a separate shoebox.
He came around the side of the house carrying that box with both arms. Then he stopped.
He stood at the corner of the house in his gray cardigan and his good church slacks and looked up at that tower. He looked at it for a long time. I watched his eyes go up the sections, one by one, to the antenna at the top.
He did not say a word. He set the box down very carefully on the picnic table. Then he walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, and he left it there. His hand was shaking a little.