It is real now. I officially began querying agents on Thursday, March 14, the 113th anniversary of Grandpa Phil’s birth (and about three years later than I thought). Our project, going out into the world under the title Three Rivers Home, is a work of love. Love for my family. Love for a grandpa I never got to know in life, but found after his death. He never got to take me fishing or show me how to change a tire, but Philip Leo Brenckle, the gentle soul who grew from the scared little boy named Filippo Arturo Venezia, taught me how to catch a dream.

It’s a luxury he glimpsed but never grasped. Grandpa yearned to turn his talent for making Donahoe’s fruit baskets—topped by fantastic, complex bows—into a business. We’re alike in that way, Francesco, Phil, and me. Whether it’s tailoring, basket-making, or writing, using our structured creativity is the essence of freedom.

As I set out on the toughest leg of this journey, Grandpa — once again via my Aunt Mary Ann — let me know he’s watching and rooting along with the rest of the family.

Mary Ann and my uncle Buck live in the family home and have been remodeling it. The basement’s being turned into a full bathroom because, like so many Pittsburgh houses, it’s got a “Pittsburgh Potty” and shower. And, tucked under the steps leading from the basement to the first-floor kitchen is Grandpa’s workbench. It’s sat untouched since he died in 1964. The mysterious concertina, upon which he played only once in memory, belting out Louis Armstrong’s “Sweethearts on Parade,” is lodged in a cubby beneath its broad top, still scattered with baby food jars of nails, brackets, washers, and nuts. Little did we know the bench concealed a secret relic of Phil’s deferred dream.

On March 14, at about the same time I was composing query letters to my first two agents, Mary Ann and Buck pulled back the bench.

Behind it was this wood-burned sign, as close as Grandpa got to becoming the proprietor of his own fruit basket business, which he’d planned to start at the Brenckles’ Garden Center on Babcock Blvd.

My parents happened to be in Pittsburgh last weekend for an event, and Mary Ann presented it to them. Of course, it will go to my brother and grandpa’s namesake, where it belongs.

So, thanks again, Grandpa, for reminding us that you and Grammy are still watching and cheering for the next generation’s success.