CHARLES "CHICK" BENETTO died last month, five years after his attempted suicide, and three years after our encounter on that Saturday morning.
The funeral was small, only a few family members including his ex-wife–and several friends from his childhood in Pepperville Beach, who recalled climbing a water tower with Chick and spray-painting their names on the tank. No one from his baseball days was on hand, although the Pittsburgh Pirates sent a condolence card.
His father was there. He stood in the back of the church, a slim man with stooped shoulders and thin white hair. He wore a brown suit and sunglasses, and left quickly after the service.
The cause of Chick's death was a sudden stroke, an embolism that went to his brain and killed him almost instantly. Doctors speculate that his blood vessels may have weakened from the head trauma of his car crash. He was fifty-eight when he died. Too young, everyone agreed.
As for the details of his "story"? In putting this account together, I checked into nearly all of them. There was, indeed, an accident on the highway entrance ramp that night and a car, after clipping the front end of a moving van, went over an embankment, destroyed a billboard, and ejected its driver into the grass.
There was, indeed, a widow named Rose Templeton, who lived on Lehigh Street in Pepperville Beach and died shortly after the accident.
There was also a Miss Thelma Bradley, who died not long after, and whose obituary in the local newspaper identified her as "a retired housekeeper. "
A marriage certificate was filed in 1962–a year after the Benettos divorced–for a Leonard Benetto and a Gianna Tusicci, confirming an earlier marriage in Italy. A Leo Tusicci, presumably their son, was listed as a student at Collingswood High School in the early 1960s.
There were no other records for him.
As for Pauline "Posey" Benetto? She died of a heart attack at age seventy-nine, and the details of her life match the accounts given in these pages. Her humor, warmth, and motherly wisdom were attested to by her surviving family. Her photo still hangs at the beauty parlor where she worked. In it, she is wearing a blue smock and hoop earrings.
Chick Benetto's final years seemed to bring him some contentment. He sold his mother's home in Pepperville Beach and directed the proceeds to his daughter. He later moved to an apartment to be near her, and they reestablished
a relationship, including Saturday morning “donuts runs” in which they caught up on events of the week over coffee and crullers. Although he never fully reconciled with Catherine Benetto, they made their peace and spoke regularly.
His salesman days were over, but until his death, Chick worked part-time with a local parks and recreation office, where he had one rule for the organized games: Everyone gets to play.
A week before his stroke, he seemed to sense that his time was short.
He told those around him, "Remember me for these days, not the old ones. "
He was buried in a plot near his mother.
BECAUSE THERE WAS a ghost involved, you may call this a ghost story. But what family isn't a ghost story? Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.
And even though Chick is gone now, his story flows through others. It flows through me. I don't think he was crazy. I think he really did get one more day with his mother. And one day spent with someone you love can change everything.
I know. I had a day like that, too, in the bleachers of a Little League field–a day to listen, to love, to apologize, to forgive. And to decide, years later, that this baby boy I am carrying will soon be called, proudly, Charley.
My married name is Maria Lang. But before that I was Maria Benetto.
Chick Benetto was my father.
And if my father said it, I believe it.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Leslie Wells and Will Schwalbe for their editing; Bob Miller for his patience and belief; Ellen Archer, Jane Comins, Katie Wainright, Christine Ragasa, SallyAnne McCartin, Sarah Schaffer, and Maha Khalil for their tireless support; Phil Rose for his wonderful art; and Miriam Wenger and David Lott for their keen eyes.
Special thanks to Kerri Alexander, who still handles everything; to David Black, who buoyed me through countless chicken dinners; and especially to Janine, who heard this story on quiet mornings, read aloud, and gave it its first smile. And of course, as this is a story about family to my family, those before me, those after me, and those all around me.
This book is dedicated, with love, to Rhoda Albom, the mommy of the mummy.
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