Chapter 32 end

Charles (Chick).Bernato died last month. Five years before his death, he had attempted suicide: I met him one Saturday morning three years before his death. The funeral was small, with only a few relatives in attendance, including his ex-wife and a few old childhood friends from growing up in the small town of Pipeville Beach.They talked about the past, how they climbed up the water tower with Chick and sprayed their names on the water tower with spray paint.The Pittsburgh Pirates sent a tribute card, but none of his fellow baseball players showed up. His father came and stood behind the church.He was a lean man with drooping shoulders and thinning gray hair.Wearing a tan suit and sunglasses, he left after the service.

Chick's cause of death was a sudden stroke, and a blood clot entered his brain, killing him instantly.The doctor speculated that he may have suffered a head injury in the car accident that year, which made the blood vessels weak.He was fifty-eight years old.Everyone said it was too early to leave. As for the details of his story?In order to tell this story, I almost searched all the relevant details.There was indeed a crash that night on a freeway on-ramp when a car hit a truck head-on, the car flew over a curb embankment, smashed into a billboard, and the driver was ejected onto the grass.

And indeed there was one named Rose.Widow of Templeton, in Lehigh Street, Pipewell Beach.She died shortly after that car accident.There is also a Therma.Miss Bradley also died shortly thereafter.An obituary in a local newspaper described her as a retired cleaner. There was a marriage certificate registered as 1962, a year after the Bernatos divorced. That was Leno.Bernato and Gianna.Tu Xiqi's marriage certificate confirms that the two had previously been married in Italy.There is a man named Leo.Tu Xiqi, who should be the son of the two men, was enrolled at Collingwood High School in the early 1960s.No other records related to him can be found.

Well, Pauline (Percy).What about Bernato?She died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-nine.The details of her life fit the preceding narrative.Her family said she had a great sense of humour, kindness and maternal wisdom.Her picture still hangs in the beauty salon where she worked.In the photo, she is wearing a blue work smock and a pair of hoop earrings. Chick.Bernato's final years seemed content.He sold his mother's house in Pipewell Beach and gave the proceeds to his daughter.He later moved into an apartment near his daughter's home and reconnected with her.Every Saturday morning, father and daughter have donut time, drinking coffee and pancakes, and chatting about the past week.He is not with Catherine.Bernato has completely rebuilt the old relationship, but they live in peace and talk to each other often.

Instead of being a salesman, he found a part-time job at a nearby center that manages parks and recreational activities.He made a rule for locally sponsored ballgames: Everyone gets a chance to play. A week after his stroke, he seemed to sense that his days were numbered.He said to the people around him: Don't remember the me in the past, just remember the me in the later period. He is buried near his mother's grave. The story is about a ghost, so you might say, it's a ghost story.But what family is not a ghost story?Letting others know about those who have left us can save us from actually losing them.

Chick is dead, but his story will flow like a river through the hearts of others.It flows through me.I don't think he's crazy.I think he really got an extra day, a day to spend with his mother.A full day with the ones you love can change everything. I know.I've had a day like this too.It was a day like that in the stands at a minor league stadium, to listen, to love, to apologize, to forgive.And that day made me decide years later, this boy in my womb, I'm going to name him Charlie with honor. My married name is Maria.Lane. Before marriage, my name was Maria.Bernato. Chick.Bernato is my father.

My father said so, and I believe so. (End of the book)