I think secretly, he’s happy that I want to be with him. Books don’t make much sense to me, as they do to Dawid. My father, a strong man, teaches me to be handy with a hammer and takes me to construction jobs with him. His men respect that he always does more than his share. He covers for members of his team who are ill and can’t do their job to justify the day’s pay. You don’t see men like my father every day, and I’m proud to be his son. Walking home from our jobs, my father shares his dreams with me. “Bronek, one day you and I will build our own house. We’ll use it to show people what we can do. If people see that a good house can be built for a reasonable price, then we’ll have lots of business and make lots of money—maybe enough to buy your mother a fur coat,” he says with a wink of his eye. “We’ll be partners and we’ll bring Dawid in too. With all his education, he can figure out how much money we’ll be making, because we won’t be able to count that high!”
