He went back to the telephone.
He dialed New York again.
The answering machine again.
I’m sorry, we can’t come to the phone just now. Will you leave a message when you hear the beep?
So go to hell, he thought, and slammed down the receiver. The phone rang almost at once. He picked up the receiver again.
“Hello?” he said.
“David, it’s me. Hillary. Are you all right?”
“So-so,” he said, and thought of his father waggling his hand at the male nurse.
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
“No, don’t be.”
“I just wanted you to know I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“I’ll be here,” she said, and hung up.
He put the receiver back on the cradle. It was nice to know that Hillary would be there if he needed her. Poor honest mixed-up Hillary with her married lover in Marbella, poor Hillary on the rebound and trying to find, in an alien land in an off-season, between the sheets with a total stranger, whatever it was she thought she’d lost. Poor Hillary, he thought, poor all of us. I’m drunk, he thought, and I’d like to get even drunker. I’d like to go downstairs to the bar, and pick up two martinis and carry them up to room 1712 to share with Hillary Watkins, who has offered me comfort. Women who will offer you their comfort, he thought. Weber v. Martini. I’ve been accepting the comfort of all the Hillarys in the world for the past five years, so what difference will it make tonight?
Molly, where are you? he thought. You’re the one I need!
He picked up the receiver. He dialed New York again.
“Hello?”
Thank God, he thought.
“Molly,” he said, “it’s David. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I just got in this minute. What is it?”
“He’s dead.”
Silence.
Will all you men whose mothers are still living...
“Molly?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“He died at a little past eight. Ten past eight.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“We’ll have to make arrangements,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I’ll have to find out how to ship the body up. He has a funeral plot in the Bronx. Next to my mother’s.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose there are people who do that sort of thing.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to call all the relatives, too.”
“Yes.”
“Arrange for a service, a funeral home, all of it. Will we have to sit shiva? I suppose he would have wanted that.”
“Yes.”
“Molly, are you just going to keep saying ‘yes’?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Can’t we please talk about this?”
She said nothing.
“Molly,” he said, “my father just died. Can’t you please say something?”
“I’m not good at this,” she said.
“I know that. But Molly...”
“I’m not good at it.”
“Molly...”
“I loved him, too,” she said. “I have to hang up now. I can’t talk anymore, I really can’t. I have to go now.”
There was a click on the line. She was gone.
Well, he thought, she’s been gone for a long time now, so how is this night different from all other nights? He thought of Hillary in room 1712. I’ll be here. He went to the dresser where he had left his father’s ring. He picked up the ring. He tried it on his pinky. It slipped onto his finger easily. It fit perfectly. Like father, like son, he thought. Ike and Mike, we look alike. He spread his fingers wide and admired the ring. He turned his hand this way and that. The gold gleamed, the diamond glistened. Like father, like son, he thought again. He went to the telephone. I would like to accept whatever comfort you have to offer, he would say. The way his father had been accepting the comfort of strangers for the better part of his life.
He picked up the receiver.
I am asking you please to sit down and ask yourself if you must continue this lying and cheating...
He reached for the dial.
You said last night that what you do is none of my business...
He dialed the numeral one.
Oh please I’m asking you in God’s name, if this is what you really want from life...
He dialed the numeral seven.
So please I beg of you please...
He dialed another one, and then a two.
Answer this and tell me what it is you want...
“Hello?” Hillary said.
He said nothing.
“Hello?”
He still said nothing. The receiver was trembling in his hand.
“Is that you, David?”
He put the receiver back on the cradle.
Yes, he thought, it’s me. David.
I’m not him.
I never was him.
And suddenly he burst into tears.
He stood in the empty bedroom, facing the window with its outside glow, and listened to the sound of the sea and remembered all those stained-glass summers, floating in the circle of his father’s arms, the smooth shining sea. All so simple then. All that gold, the diamonds, the diamonds. The gentle swell of the ocean. All so smooth and soft and simple. It doesn’t stay simple, he thought. It gets complicated, he thought. The real danger is living. His father had stopped facing that danger a long, long time ago. David’s mother had been right; his entire life had been a hobby.
He looked at the ring again.
He took it off his finger. It came off as easily as it had gone on.
“Good-bye, Pop,” he said aloud, and burst into fresh tears.
He wept bitterly for a long time, and then he dried his eyes and sighed heavily and went to the telephone. He let the phone ring at least a dozen times. At last, she picked up on the other end.
“Hello?” she said. Her voice sounded mechanical, like her own answering machine.
“Molly,” he said, “please don’t hang up. We have to talk.”
“What about, David?”
“Everything, Molly.”
“Haven’t we said everything a hundred times? A thousand times?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“What’s left to...?”
“Stephen,” he said.
“No,” she said.
“We have to.”
“We don’t have to.”
“Molly, if we’re going to survive...”
“We’re surviving.”
“We’re not. Molly, listen to me. Please listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“After the accident...”
“I don’t want to hear about the accident.”
“We changed, Molly. I’m not blaming you, Molly, we both...”
“My son died!” she said fiercely.
“My son died, too,” he said quietly.
“I’m going to hang up,” she said.
“No, don’t! Please don’t, Molly!”
There was a long silence.
“I can’t talk about this,” she said. “You know I can’t.”
“Try, Molly. Please, for the love of God...”
“I still hurt too much,” she said. It was the first time she had ever uttered these words to him.
“I hurt, too,” he said.
“I miss him too much,” she said.
“I miss him with all my heart.”
“Then don’t... please let’s not talk about...” She could not say the name. “I can’t talk about it,” she said. “Please let me go, David. Let me get off the phone.”