My Father’s Rolex

My father, Peter Straub, was famous for wearing nice clothes. He was famous for other things, too—writing dark, psychological horror novels, mostly—but his friends and family knew him as someone who dressed like a banker despite the fact that he spent his days alone, at home, writing fiction about murder and torture. He wasn’t a dandy—his clothes weren’t colorful or showy, just well-made and expensive. He wore bespoke suits. He wore proper suspenders, with buttons. He wore bowties, unironically. There is a photograph of my father and me on a ride at Disney World in the mid-1980s, and my father is wearing a striped Paul Stuart sweater and a sportcoat. On a ride. At Disney World. He was committed to dressing the part. 

One of the last conversations my father and I had before he went into the hospital for the final time was about clothes—we were talking about how my children now enjoy thrift shops, like my mother and I do, and how my father had always been averse to them. He’d grown up without much money, a scholarship student at an expensive prep school, and had been embarrassed about his clothes. I pointed out that this might be a reason why he recoiled at the thought of thrift shopping while my mother and I, who both grew up with money, prefer resale shops. Yes, he said. You might be right. 

The day after he died, my mother invited me into the closet she shared with my father. They had moved out of the house I grew up in some seven years before, and so I have to assume that there had already been a major culling. But still, the remaining volume of his clothes was overwhelming—shirts stacked as high as an elephant’s eye; five or six containers of clean, folded, and color-coded sweaters; two rows of suits and jackets. Not only did my father buy new things, he bought them in multiples—this was a man who never had one of anything, once he could afford it. My father’s size had changed dramatically over my parents’ 56 year marriage—he was 140 pounds when my parents were married, closer to 300 pounds for much of my life, and very slim again in the last few years—and his closet reflected those swings. My mother can still wear every piece of clothing she’s ever bought, but I too have a fluctuating body, and so I understand the need to find new things that fit, and that make you feel good. I took home a handful of sweaters, put one on that night, and have rarely gone a day since without wearing something of his. It felt entirely natural, after his death, to want to be as close as possible, in whatever way I could. 

Here is a short list of wearable items I’ve taken from my parents’ apartment in the last six months: about a dozen cashmere sweaters, most of them with a few moth holes; a blue straw fedora, white straw fedora, wide-brimmed brown fur felt western hat, and a pork-pie hat with a teardrop shape, each in their own capacious hat boxes; an Armani suit jacket with my father’s name sewn inside; a gold Oyster Perpetual Rolex watch, as 1980s as a platter of cocaine; half a dozen button-down shirts; two pairs of gold cufflinks from Tiffany & Co; a pile of glasses; a handkerchief; and a clutch of knives. (We’ll call those last ones accessories.) 

Part of my ease with wearing his clothes comes from the fact that I’ve done it before—both my husband and I have nicked a few sweaters in the past, things we maybe meant to borrow but then kept. I’ve never been near a hat of his that I didn’t try on. When my father’s foot problems forced him to stop wearing his John Lobbs and move into comfier slip-ons, my husband inherited half a dozen pairs of truly beautiful shoes. The sweater that my dad wore at Disney World has been in my husband’s closet for a decade, and there are photos of my husband holding our second son (now seven years old) as a brand new baby while wearing it. Good things are made to last. 

Two weeks ago, my extended family gathered in a small room toward the back of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine to park my father’s ashes behind the little marble square that will soon have his name engraved on it. His spot is just down the wall from Joan Didion, a very nice neighborhood for eternity, and while we were waiting to begin, my cousin pulled something out of her purse, somewhat covertly—a small shopping bag from Wilkes Bashford, the upscale men’s clothing emporium near her home in San Francisco, and one of my father’s favorite places to shop. 

“I thought he’d like it,” she said, her voice low, in case the thought would offend. I laughed—he would have indeed. I set the bag next to the small gold container of ashes on the podium and snapped a photo with my phone, the only photograph I took all morning. That day, at the cathedral, I was wearing my father’s watch, an Armani jacket made for him, one of his shirts, and one of his hats. My sons both wore his hats, too, the straw fedoras—there are plenty to go around. It felt less like cosplay and more like a tribute, or even something firmer than tribute: armor. The jacket is too big in the shoulders—too big everywhere, really—but I like the way it fits. My father always loved when I dressed up, and I like to believe he would think it suited me. Really, he is what suited me, and so if he’s gone and I’m left with his things, then I’m going to wear them. Some people don’t talk about their dead. But I find that six months later, not only can I not stop talking about him, I can’t stop wielding him, or what was his, all around me, a sword against the grief. 

My nine year old now sleeps in an extra-large cable knit Brooks Brothers sweater. It’s camel-colored, made of cashmere, and hangs nearly to my son’s knees. I’m not the only one who likes to feel surrounded.  We would do it if the sweaters were ratty old sweatshirts, and I would wear his hats if they were baseball caps, but those weren’t his style. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of my father’s Rolex on my wrist while I’m talking to someone, and I remember how ridiculously extravagant it is, light years outside my price range, and that people don’t know, just by looking at it, that’s it’s not really a watch at all, but a talisman. Lucky me.

Emma Straub's latest novel, This Time Tomorrow, will be out in paperback on May 16.