I stopped in the downstairs lobby and opened my subway map. I had checked the address of my father’s office over the weekend and it hadn’t changed. It was still in downtown Manhattan and I could pick up a train a couple of blocks from where I was to get there. I buttoned up and went out into the cold.

If the photographs had stirred up my emotions, approaching the place where my father had worked most of his adult life nearly made them explode. Much of downtown Manhattan has changed little since the turn of the century. Some old factories and warehouses have been torn down or converted to fashionable living quarters or have become artists’ lofts, but this one was just as I remembered it, old, brick, solid, dirty, windows cracked or even boarded up. I had visited only a few times as a child, brought by my mother for occasions like a Christmas party or by my father once in a while, just to show me off. I had been treated like royalty, admired, complimented, hugged, and patted. Chocolates had materialized, cookies had been sent for. My father had glowed and my natural shyness had eventually given way to a feeling of comfort. I remember always going home with stories for my mother about this one and that one, sharing my cookies with her, telling her how everyone had liked my dress.

The street door was open and I climbed a steep flight of stairs to the second floor and walked inside. People were dressed in jeans instead of the more formal attire of a quarter century ago. One woman in a skirt and blouse asked if she could help me, and I said I was looking for a Mr. Jackman if he was still working there.

“Sure he’s here. Can I ask you what your business is?”

“It’s more personal than business. My father worked here for a long time.”

“Come on in. He’ll be glad to see you. I think he’s having lunch at his desk today.”

I had forgotten lunch, not unusual for me when I’m working on something. I considered leaving and coming back in half an hour, but she was already far ahead of me and I ran a couple of steps to catch up.

The office was the kind I remembered, windowed so you could see into it from the inside. But the man eating a sandwich at his desk was far too young to have been working here when my father had.

“Go on in. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks.” I went in and he stood and looked at me.

“Do I know you?”

“I think your father knew my father. I’m Eddie Bennett’s daughter.”

“Eddie Bennett, I remember the name. My dad used to talk about him.”

“I met your father a few times when I was a little girl. I’m Chris.” I offered my hand and we shook.

“Pleased to meet you. What brings you down here today?”

“A couple of memories. I wonder if you could check something for me. I think there was a woman who worked here who lived on the west side in the Lincoln Center area that we used to meet when we went to the Thanksgiving Day parade. I don’t remember her name, but I wanted to see her again.”

“How old do you think she’d be?”

“I’d guess between sixty and seventy. I met her when I was five or six and not a very good judge of age.”

“You want to wait while I ask?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Be right back.” He picked up the rest of his sandwich and left the office.

I went to the outside window and looked out onto the street. Places that don’t change fascinate me. It must have something to do with the comfort of finding one’s way, the way you do in a house you’ve lived in for years. Night or day, you know the position of every piece of furniture, every door, every board that creaks and rug that trips you up. I have heard people complain about returning to scenes of their childhood or their most memorable experiences and being overwhelmed with disappointment. Buildings are gone, replaced with steel and glass, not the substances of mortal memory. But here time had stopped. Perhaps in another twenty-five years and a huge input of money, this area might become gentrified, replaced, converted into a park. I would not think about that today.

“Got it,” a voice behind me said, and I turned to see Mr. Jackman with a piece of paper in his hand.

“You do? Really?”

“Here she is, Betty Campbell. Name ring a bell?”

“I’m not sure.”

He handed me the address. “Amsterdam Avenue, right near Lincoln Center.”

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Well, not exactly, but one of the possibilities.

“Well, I hope you find her. She’s retired, lives by herself, I think. Nice woman. Worked here a long time. Your father died quite suddenly, didn’t he?”

“That’s what I remember. I think they came for me at school one day. It was a heart attack.”

“Shame. He was not only a nice guy, he was the kind of salesman everybody loves, customers and us. Man with the kind of sense of honor you don’t find in a lot of young people nowadays. He was a gem.”

“Thank you.”

“Is your mother still alive?”

“Unfortunately no. She died a few years after he did.”

“Well, you come from a nice family, Chris. You can be proud of them.”

We reminisced for a few minutes more and then I left One of the women came out of her office as I passed and said something about my father. She had known him only a couple of years but remembered him well. As I walked to the west side subway, I felt closer to my father than I had for years. Imagine a woman coming out to say a good word. It was a kindness I really appreciated, one that would stay with me.

I went down into the subway and rode uptown to find Betty Campbell.

—

I got off at Sixty-sixth Street, right under Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and made my way to the street level, not certain where I wanted to be. Once outside, I took my bearings and walked a block west to Amsterdam Avenue. On the west side of the street a group of redbrick apartment houses ran the length of several blocks, although no street went through them. They’d been dressed up with greenery, that is, trees that would be green in the spring. So much of New York is concrete and brick that it always makes me feel good to see vegetation in brown earth.

With a little difficulty I found the entrance with Betty Campbell’s number and rang her bell. She answered in seconds with a loud “Hello?”

“Ms. Campbell, it’s Christine Bennett. May I come up for a minute?” I find that a woman who gives her name is frequently welcome even without an explanation.

“Oh yes, they said you’d be coming.” Then she buzzed.

I pushed the door open, realizing someone had called—rather intelligently, I thought—to say I might be on my way. The elevator was waiting and I rode up to the fourth floor. A door was open and a woman was looking out. “I’m Chris,” I said as I walked toward her, keeping my disappointment out of my voice. As dim as my memory was, as unreliable as a child’s perceptions may be, this could not have been the woman at the parade. She was too short even to be a finalist in the nonexistent competition, and age or disease had crippled her, hunching her shoulders.

“Come right in. They said you were Eddie Bennett’s daughter. Nice man, Eddie Bennett. I remember you when you were little, all dressed up to see your daddy’s office.” She turned two locks and shuffled, using a cane, to the kitchen.

I followed, my heart feeling heavy at this woman’s pain. “These look like nice apartments,” I said.

“They’re nice enough. Gotta watch yourself at night, though.”

“That’s true everywhere.”

“Times have changed, haven’t they? Cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Then let’s sit in the living room.” She shuffled her way there and sat in a big, worn chair, hooking the cane on the arm. “Sad when Eddie died. You must’ve been no more than a child.”

“I was about eight.”

“What a tragedy. Man taken away from his family like that.”

“He left a good legacy, a lot of happy memories.”