Stocks● Neutral
My 78-Year-Old Dad's Paris Life Showed Me Who He Really Is
After 15 years of summer trips to Paris, a daughter finally joined her 78-year-old dad and met a stranger. The reunion made her want to go back.
Continue with
Every summer for 15 years, my 78-year-old dad and my stepmom packed up their New England house and flew to Paris. The trip belonged to them. My sister and I never joined. In 2023, we finally flew into Charles de Gaulle to see what kept pulling him back.
He met us in the hotel lobby. I almost walked past him. The man in front of me wore a breezy linen shirt, leather sandals, and a scruffy five o'clock shadow. At home he would not leave the house unshaven. My first thought was that something had gone wrong. Misplaced razor. No power.
My sister asked whether customs had started confiscating Gillettes. “It's the Paris effect,” Dad said, as if the answer were obvious.
I knew one version of my dad. In New England he is a down-to-earth parent and a meticulous professor who teaches hand-carved furniture to students raised on Ikea. He works wood by trade. That had been the whole of him to me, because almost all of our time together happened in the northeast.
Paris was another country, and he was another man. The L.L. Bean flannels went on sabbatical. The wardrobe turned mostly linen, with shirts open at the neck. He showed us his favorite corners of the city and grumbled about the crowds. The Eiffel Tower was not on the itinerary. At a small café he ordered for all of us in French, and I had no idea he could.