“You don’t sound objective to me.”
“Let me ask you, Rosa, how’ve you managed since your husband died. Living alone, I mean.”
“I can bring the old fool back anytime I want. I have the gift, remember?”
“Ah.”
“You’re lonely?” “A little.”
“Well.” Rosa spreads her arms. “I make a hell of a spaghetti dinner.”
“Pasta won’t be banned, comes the revolution?”
“Lord, I hope not.” She touches the back of his hand. “You need to have faith in something, Sam. An idea, your fellow workers. When the balance of power changes — ”
“Forgive me, Rosa, if I don’t hold my breath.”
“You and Ike.”
Dear Sam,
I’m slow adjusting — seems the cold left an impression on us both. Whenever I hear people talk about work or the goals they’ve set for themselves, their conversation strikes me as silly. I think of the ice; life here seems awfully easy — and empty — in comparison.
You’re the only person I know who understands that.
I’ve decided to re-enroll at the University of Texas. Ph.D. I suppose I’ll teach. I don’t know if that will make me happy, but I think, as I said to you, I’ll be more comfortable in academia.
Jack is moving into my apartment again next week — can you believe I’ve let it come to this when I still don’t know how I feel about him? Anyway, he’s been very nice.
I miss you, Sam. If you’d been here, my decision about Jack would’ve been much harder. But you’re there. A place I can’t even imagine. And I resent the hell out of you for it. (I don’t really mean that.)
Twoo days latrr. I*ve gotten over being angry at you. Forgife the typos but this is Jacks new machine and I’ve just got contacts. Its like putting bugs in your eyes. Anyway I dont know whatt to say to you Sam but I don’t want to quit writing yet. Meeting you was a strange thing in my life. I keep thinking about the last few days, when I hadn’t shaved my legs, how delighted you were at the way the light caught the hair on my thighs. You’re weird Sam but it turned me on, too. What do I do with you?? I can’t picture us together in a η ormal American place. I’d be doing your dishes — it’s what youd expect — and that wouldn’t work. Still, I’d like to see you on solid ground.
At the bottom of the letter she’s drawn a map of Austin, a small rectangle with rounded corners, like a piece of tissue, folded. A blue pencil line labeled Colorado River veering down to make the C in her name.
The first thing he does in his capacity as head of R&D is draw a new world map, aided by the latest satellite photography. He studies records of the moon’s orbital path, which reveal irregularities in the earth’s gravitational tug. The world is pear-shaped, not round, its “stem-end” at the north. Moreover, in the Indian Ocean there is a deep depression. He arranges the information in a computer graphic based on Fuller’s Basic-Triangle-Grid, a far less distorted model than Mercator’s. Also, using data derived from optical, radio, and laser operations, he maps the earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields.
After work, if the night is warm, he heads for the country, to sit at the stone table he has fashioned for himself in a clearing by the dome, light a kerosene lamp, and contemplate his options. Meteors arc slowly across the sky, above the soggy woods, like the boys’ rockets in the field behind his house. Often he imagines himself in an enchanted forest, leaves sparkling on the trees, streams winding like trails of smoke through scented shrubs. He is no Thoreau, he thinks. There is nothing mystical about his isolation. He is simply a restless man worried about his work (where does it lead), his desires (how can he satisfy them with the least amount of tension), middle age (is it really the wilderness it appears to be).
Pamela informs him that Otto has smashed up his car in Michigan. He’s all right but it’s his third DWI. “Daddy’s checked him into a sanitarium,” she says.
Adams is shocked and sorry.
“I can tell you disapprove. Daddy’s just trying to do the right thing.”
“The hell he is.” He notices a couple of pamphlets on her kitchen table: Breast Self-Examination and Five Facts About Mastectomies.
She sees him looking at them.
“Don’t be alarmed, Sam. I had a mammogram the other day and everything’s fine. I just happened to pick those up in the waiting room.”
“Just happened to?”
“Well, I am a high-risk case. My mother had breast cancer and so did my sister. That means my chances are very high.”
“You’ve never had any lumps?”
“No.” She turns on the TV news, very low. The children are getting ready to go with him for the weekend. “You want some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
“They’re doing preventive surgery nowadays. My doctor asked me to think about it.” “What does it involve?”
“They cut out all the tissue and replace it with silicone. It’s called a subcutaneous mastectomy, but that’s a little misleading because you don’t lose your breast. The whole point is to keep your breast.”
“You’re not considering it?”
“I am.”
“That seems pretty drastic, Pam.”
“If there’s a chance I could lose a breast someday and I can prevent it now, it seems reasonable to me to at least think about it.”
“Is this a common practice?”
“It’s getting to be.”
Adams sits at the kitchen table. “You mean healthy women are going in and having their breasts cut up …?”
“They go in from underneath so the scars don’t show.”
“That’s horrifying.”
“I probably won’t do it, but it’s good to know the option is there. Anyway, I wanted to let you know about Otto in case I have to fly up and help Daddy with the details.”
He used to think it was important to keep up with people. They plan new ways of pleasing themselves or endangering others. Their large mobile homes sweep the land, microwave ovens tingeing the edges of their dinners. They buy new pets and have children, moving on.
Why else would he stand here staring at the lines in the map of his palm? He used to think it was important. He used to think he’d live alone someplace and have severely important talks with himself.
Kenny coughs into the phone.
“Did I wake you?” Adams says.
“No, no … just, urn. Sam? Who is this? Is this Sam?”
“Hey, snap out of it, I’m talking to you.”
“Jesus, I just crashed for a second. Nine o’clock?”
“Your watch stopped. It’s ten out there.”
“What are you … did I … so how are you?”
“Just got back from Pam’s.”
“Screw her.”
“No, I don’t feel that way. Really.”
“Well …”
“Just kind of sorry.”
“What about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me about the ice, man. Were you a Popsicle?”
“It was close.”
“Dad told me.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“Last week. He scared the shit out of me. Said you’d phoned him from London about the trip, and your accident and all. He was really worried.”
“I told him I was fine.”
“It’s not you he’s worried about. He gave me the ‘old man’ routine. He didn’t say it, but he thinks I’m too fucked up to look after him when he goes around the bend, and he doesn’t know where you’re gonna be, running around the world tripping on ice and shit like that. He sent me his CD accounts and his investments. Said he couldn’t track you down.”