Through tears, my father told me I needed to take the job and hold on to the good memories. “It’s time to get back to your life,” he said and offered me a job writing for his new television show. We weren’t sure how much longer this would go on. Over the next two years, my mother and I sat next to him through 21 rounds of chemo, but the cancer still spread to his bones. My father had adjusted well to life in America, spending his time fly-fishing, wearing blue jeans, and tending his garden. The day after I got the phone call, I moved back to Connecticut, where my parents were still settled. When my father was diagnosed with cancer, I was working in Los Angeles as a screenwriter. Six months later, my father sold his business and followed us to Connecticut. Why had she let me wear a suit to school? “You gave us no choice,” she said. Later that day, a group of boys sprayed salad dressing all over me. I’m standing in my suit next to them on the bleachers, and I’ve never looked prouder. The boys are wearing T-shirts, and the girls are wearing dresses. Recently I saw a class picture taken on the first day of third grade in America. I picked a suit and tie that reminded me of my father. My father said the cost of fabric and labor was too great, but my mother knew he was prone to giving in to me, so she took me to the boys section of a John Lewis department store. I had one condition: I’d go to America if I could wear a suit. My maternal grandmother had leukemia, and my mother wanted to be close to her my father would stay in London with the tailoring business. When I was eight, my parents told me we were moving to a small town in Connecticut. The ring was made from three interlocked bands–my mother, my father, and me. I’d catch the bolts and watch his hands guide heavy shears through the cloth, the light through his shop window reflecting off his wedding ring. He’d whoop as he rolled giant lengths of tweed my way. As a child, I spent hours sitting on his cutting bench. At the time, my father owned a tailoring shop called Norton & Sons on London’s Savile Row.
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