HomePart I
He didn’t remember climbing the stairs, only that he was suddenly there—suspended between rusted iron and fading brick, looking out over a city that no longer recognized him. The wall in front of him still bore the ghost of a name, half-erased by rain and time: Orpheum Theater Entrance. He used to come here when he was young, sneaking in through the back, hoping to lose himself in someone else’s story.
Now, decades later, the entrance was long sealed shut, but something had pulled him back. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the shape of the fire escape—crooked, looping back on itself like all the choices he never made. From this perch, it felt like time had stopped. Like he could wait here forever, unnoticed, above it all.
Below him, the city pulsed and roared, unaware. He stayed still, breathing the rust, the dust, the memory of applause that never quite died.
Part II
James reached out and placed his hand on the cold brick, just beneath the weather-worn word Entrance. The roughness stung his palm, like the past still had edges. He didn’t expect it to feel this real. He thought maybe memory would’ve softened it by now, dulled it like an old song heard too many times. But the city, this wall, this place—they remembered him, too.
His father had stood behind that door once, navy blazer a size too big, silver buttons catching the theater lights. James used to sit outside after school, pretending to read a book while watching for a glimpse of him through the side alley. On the nights he couldn’t resist, he’d sneak up the same steel stairs he now stood on, slipping into the balcony shadows, heart pounding, just to catch the glow of the screen and the outline of his father, straight-backed, ever watchful.
Those moments were the only times he saw him whole—before the drink twisted his laugh, before the late nights and the slurred apologies. His father’s voice would get thick, the brogue heavier, like the past was pulling him under from the inside out. And then came the night when James came home to find silence, the kind that doesn’t go away.
He left the city before the funeral dirt had settled, chasing anywhere that wasn’t here. Years became decades. A life unfolded—one that looked clean from the outside, orderly. But still, at odd hours, the city would return in his dreams. That red curtain, the scent of popcorn mixed with Old Spice, his father’s outline etched against flickering reels.
Now, nearly fifty years later, the theater was shuttered and forgotten. But James had come back—not for closure, exactly. That word never sat right. He came back because something unfinished still lived here. Some fragment of a boy still hiding in the rafters, waiting for his father to turn, to smile, to wave him down.
The wind tugged at his coat. He didn’t know what he was waiting for. Maybe just a sound. A memory. Or maybe he was hoping the door would creak open one last time.
Part III
The letter had arrived two weeks ago, folded neatly inside a yellowed envelope with his name written in precise, slanted cursive—James Gallagher. The return address had no name, just P.O. Box 1116, Chicago, IL. He turned it over a dozen times before opening it. The handwriting reminded him of another era—an era of coat checks and nickels for matinees, of fathers who wore ties even on their days off.
Inside, the note was brief:
James,
I worked with your father at the Orpheum for many years. There’s something I think you should know.
If you’re ever back in the city, find me. I’m usually down at Molly’s Tavern on 37th after 5.
—T.
There was no last name, no date, no explanation. But something in the letter pulled at him. There’s something I think you should know. It felt like a key offered decades too late.
Now, sitting inside Molly’s Tavern, James gripped a sweating pint of Guiness beer and watched the doorway. He was early. The place hadn’t changed—same warped bar top, same faded photos of long-gone White Sox teams on the walls. It smelled like old wood, spilled whiskey, and secrets that never left.
The man who entered was stooped, his shoulders bent more from life than age. His face was worn but familiar—Tommy, one of the ushers. Older now, with silver hair curling from under a flat cap.
He spotted James and smiled.
“I’d know that face anywhere,” he said, sliding into the booth across from him.
James nodded. “You’re Tommy.”
“I am,” the man said. “And you… you’ve got your father’s eyes. But yours don’t flinch like his.”
James wasn’t sure how to respond.
Tommy took a long drink. “He was a good man,” he said. “But not always a kind one. He was faithful—just not in the way people think. Faithful to what he believed in, maybe, but not always to people.”
James looked down. “I don’t remember much good at the end.”
Tommy sighed. “Because the end wasn’t good. The drink got him. You knew that. But before that… there was light in him. He looked after people, James. Even when he was broken.”
He took a breath, eyes distant.
“There was a girl once. Quiet, small thing. Came into the theater one night, bloody lip, shaking. Wouldn’t talk. Your father saw her, didn’t ask questions. Just said, ‘Get her to the balcony, row K. No one looks there.’ He let her stay. Gave her a place to breathe.”
James stared at him. “He never told me.”
Tommy nodded. “He never told anyone. Not the whole story.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“But,” Tommy added, tapping his fingers against the table, “your dad had another life. There was a woman. Lived in Beverly. Irish-born. Brigid, I think her name was. Red hair, loud laugh, sharp tongue. He’d go to early Mass on weekdays, slip a sawbuck into the poor box, and then head to her place before clocking in. Sometimes he didn’t even bother going home.”
James blinked, stunned.
“He ever say anything to you about me?” he asked quietly.
Tommy shook his head. “Not in words. But every time a boy came into that theater alone, he stood a little taller. Watched a little closer.”
He finished his beer, then reached into his coat and pulled out a folded slip of paper.
“This was in my things,” he said. “I think it was meant for you.”
James opened it. One line, scrawled in his father’s hand:
Tell him I saw him. I always saw him
James swallowed hard.
Tommy placed a hand on the table, then rose. “That’s all I have, kid. But maybe it’s enough.”
He walked out, leaving James alone with the empty glass, the fading jukebox, and the ache of a truth he was just beginning to carry.
Part IV
James returned to the Orpheum that evening. The city had begun to dim beneath a wash of blue-gray twilight, the wind cold and restless. He stood for a long time outside the theater, staring up at the faded marquee, the rusted fire escape, the brick he used to brush with his fingertips on the way home from school. The past felt closer now—closer than it had in years.
The door gave way with a hard pull and a reluctant creak. Inside, the air was still and thick with dust, the faint smell of must and old velvet. James moved slowly through the darkness, past rows of forgotten seats, toward the stage. A single ghost light stood in the center, casting a weak halo.
And then he heard footsteps.
Measured. Unhurried. Confident, in that quiet way people walk when they know a place belongs to them.
She appeared near the edge of the balcony—tall, wrapped in a navy coat, her silver-streaked hair pulled back. She didn’t startle when she saw him.
“You’re James,” she said. “You look just like him.”
He took a breath. “You knew my father?”
She descended the aisle carefully, each step deliberate.
“I did,” she said. “I’m Moira. Moira Hanrahan.”
The name landed with a strange weight. Hanrahan. His father’s original surname before the change to a more Americanized name.
“I’m his sister.”
James blinked. “I didn’t know he had a sister.”
“Not many did,” she said. “Dan—your father—was good at leaving things behind.”
They stood a few feet apart now, the silence stretching between them.
“I volunteered with the historical society,” she said. “When they started talking demolition, I came back. I’ve had a key ever since. I visit now and then.”
She looked around the theater with a strange affection, as if it were an old friend rather than a building.
“I came here tonight because I heard you were asking questions. Tommy let me know.”
James waited. He could feel something shifting in the room, like a curtain about to lift.
Moira reached into her coat and pulled out a scarf-wrapped object. With careful fingers, she unfolded the fabric to reveal a small leather-bound journal, worn and soft at the edges.
“He wrote in this almost every night,” she said. “After everything happened—after your mother left, after the theater faded. He gave it to me just before he died. Told me I’d know when it was time.”
James stared at it. The initials M.D.G. were faintly pressed into the corner - Michael Daniel Gallagher.
“He poured his heart into that book,” Moira said. “His thoughts, his dreams… and his regrets. Especially about you.”
James reached out and took the journal. It was heavier than it looked. Warm, like it had been waiting in someone’s hands for a long time. He brushed his thumb over the cover, and something in him cracked open.
“He never said goodbye,” James whispered.
“No,” Moira said softly. “But he left this.”
They stood there, both quiet. Then she stepped back.
“I’ll give you some time,” she said, and began walking up the aisle toward the lobby.
The ghost light buzzed quietly on the stage. He untied the leather strap and opened to the first page.
Dear James,
He didn’t move for a long time.
Part V
James sat in the front row of the darkened Orpheum, the velvet seat beneath him still faintly plush despite the dust.
He held the journal like a relic, and continued to read.
August 3, 1974
Confession doesn’t begin at the altar rail—it begins in the shadows. I stood at the back of St. Jude’s this morning and couldn’t kneel. My knees hurt, and the truth hurt worse. The priest said, “Say ten Hail Marys and try to do better.” But I don’t think I want to do better. I think I just want someone to see me. All of me.
James read slowly, each line like a breath pulled from the lungs of the past. The writing was tight, direct—his father’s voice in every stroke.
He flipped forward.
October 19, 1975
Brigid lit a cigarette and told me I was too Catholic to be any fun. Then she laughed, kissed my temple, and said, “But you try, love.” I told her I couldn’t keep doing this. She said, “Neither can I,” and poured another whiskey. I don’t know if I loved her. I think I loved the part of me that came alive when I was near her—the part that didn’t feel small. The part that wasn’t afraid of the mirror.
There was an ink blot on the edge of the page, like a thought too heavy to write.
December 2, 1975
Jimmy was at the back of the theater again tonight. Thought I didn’t see him, but I always see him. He watches the pictures like they hold a secret. I should send him home. I should tell him not to follow men like me. But he looks so proud, sitting there like he belongs. For his sake, I try to stand up straighter.
James sat back, stunned.
He turned to the final pages. The handwriting grew more erratic, less precise.
December 11, 1978
I think the drink is starting to win. Brigid’s gone. Said she was tired of being the second woman and the first regret. She left a note in the drawer: “You were more than a sin, but not quite a salvation.” I can’t argue with her.
And then the last entry, written in the corner of a mostly blank page:
If I don’t wake up tomorrow, tell the boy I loved him. Not the way I should have, not as often or as purely—but I loved him with what I had left. Tell him to forgive me if he can. But if he can’t, that’s all right too. Just tell him I saw him. I always saw him.
James closed the journal and held it to his chest. Around him, the theater was silent. But the silence no longer felt empty.
He had come looking for answers. What he found instead was a man—not a hero, not a monster—but a man who struggled, loved, failed, and tried.
And maybe, for the first time, James saw him too.
Part VI
Back home, the city clung to James like an afterimage.
He returned to the quiet street where he lived alone, the same books on the shelves, the same shirts folded neatly in his drawers. But the silence wasn’t peaceful anymore—it was unfinished.
He went about his routines—coffee at seven, the dog-eared newspaper, a walk past the river trail—but his thoughts circled endlessly: the journal, the note, Brigid’s name, his father’s shadow on the screen. The line that wouldn’t leave him:
I always saw him.
A week passed. Then two.
He called the historical society, asked about the Orpheum’s demolition. He went back to Molly’s once, but Tommy hadn’t returned. It didn’t matter. The questions weren’t out there anymore.
One afternoon, reading the journal again, he noticed something he’d missed: the name Brigid Ní Bhraonáin, written in full Gaelic on the back of a loose note. Reverent, almost sacred. Not just a woman—a place.
He searched the name, found a town. County Clare. Ireland.
He sat for a long while, staring at the screen.
That night, he stood at the bathroom mirror and studied his face. For the first time, he didn’t flinch. He saw the resemblance. He saw the difference.
He packed a bag.
Not for answers. For a beginning.
Part VII
Ireland smelled like rain and something older.
He landed in Shannon under gray skies, rented a small car, and drove narrow roads lined with stone walls and low hedgerows. County Clare rolled out before him in quiet greens and muddy browns, interrupted by occasional sheep and chimney smoke. Everything here seemed built to last—except the people, who spoke softly and disappeared quickly.
He stayed at a small inn in Ennis, run by a retired schoolteacher and her husband. They gave him a room with a window that looked out over the river and served him tea even when he didn’t ask.
James spent the week walking. He visited graveyards and churches, scanned old birth records in musty town halls. In the archives, he found her name: Brigid Ní Bhraonáin, born 1944, the daughter of a tavern keeper and a seamstress. No husband. No children on record. But one note said she returned briefly to Ireland in 1978, then vanished again.
“She came back with sadness in her eyes,” a local historian told him over stout in a near-empty pub. “Didn’t talk much. Stayed alone in her father’s house. Then gone again.”
On his last day, James drove to the Cliffs of Moher. The wind howled up from the Atlantic, cold and unforgiving, pushing against his coat. He stood at the edge for a long time, watching the waves explode against the rocks far below.
He took the journal from his pocket, its cover worn soft. He flipped to the final page.
Tell him I saw him.
He whispered into the wind, “I see you now.”
For a long moment, he felt completely still.
And then something shifted—not dramatic, not cinematic, but real. A loosening. A warmth.
It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t resolution. But it was peace, or the beginning of it.
He turned from the cliff’s edge and walked back to the car. A plane ticket home waited in his pocket.
But he would carry something else now.
Epilogue
Months later, James moved back to the city. Not to the same neighborhood, not even the same side of town. He found a small walk-up on the north side, just above a bakery and down the block from an old jazz bar.
The Orpheum was gone. Razed, repaved, replaced with steel and glass and marketing. But James had kept a brick from its foundation. It sat now on his windowsill beside the worn leather journal and a black-and-white photo of a woman with defiant eyes and a flame of red hair—Brigid, still watching.
He volunteered at a community theater on weekends, helped with lighting cues and ran lines with actors who reminded him of younger versions of himself—hopeful, scared, searching. Sometimes, he just sat in the back row with a notebook, holding the flashlight.
He wrote again. Not stories, not yet. Just pieces. Memories. Fragments of a man he once misunderstood. Bits of himself he was only beginning to know.
And sometimes, at night, the city would hum beneath his window, and he’d remember the sound of his father’s keys, the flick of a lighter, the hush before the movie began.
He no longer waited for answers.
He no longer needed the past to apologize.
Because some love is quiet. Some love breaks things. And some love is only visible once you’ve walked through the dark and lit the stage yourself.
The Fire Escape
Bee Gee's Screed...
