personally (that was intentional)—‘Get out of here now, Tim,’ I just told him — he’s a great kid (but isn’t getting out. ‘Out, Tim, I said out!’), decent, sensitive, witty, gentle, polite, way-above-average intelligence and sensibility, the boy of boys and all the other standard things people say about their children. (I hate that last passage: so bourgeois.) (And that last use of ‘bourgeois’: so bourgeois.) I just wish Harry had lived (of course I also wish it for other reasons) so Timothy would never have been shoved into this stew. (Such odd word usage, a stew itself, and if I’m preternaturally anything in this letter — why did I use such an unnatural word there, a question which acts out what I was about to say? The first time to show off, the second to poke holes in myself. And why did I think I had to answer my question, which is still portraying what I was about to say and that was if I’m preternaturally anything in this letter it’s self-conscious. Meaning that I am, and not because you mean so much to me, if I can beg your pardon, because you don’t. I’m self-conscious because I feel guilty withholding his existence from you till now and also that abortion trick I did, and withholding you from Timothy too. I’ve done the absolutely wrong thing, I think, which I hope this letter will begin to correct.) A boy needs his father (this goes back to my wish that Harry had lived), and whatever Harry wasn’t to me (other than for the boys, begetting one and fathering them both, what a pointless marriage!) he (already said in the last paragraph) was always there for his sons. (So: sort of said. And John’s in sleepaway college, by the way, and indifferent that his brother is only his half brother now.) Now Timothy thinks of you often, says he’s dreamed of you, wants to go — what am I saying? — he’s gone to the local library and run a computer check on your publications in the hope there’d be a jacket or newspaper photo of you and found that you haven’t been productive the last fifteen years ago and that this seems to be only your second review in a publication that’s important enough to be on a computer readout (Timothy told me the term). If that’s so, I told him, then it could be that most of your work time goes into classroom teaching — which he immediately saw as a ‘definite plus in biodad’s favor’—or else our library hasn’t the resources it claims it has. But Gould, like facing age — oh gosh, I was about to get philosophical. What I’m saying is face it, you have at least one son who, I believe, in addition to all the other reasons he’s drawn to you (flesh and blood, a writer of at least two published reviews, etc.) secretly admires you for winning his mother over (fucking her in one night, though I told him two, and it was two, wasn’t it? Since you can’t count the first day we met; and I didn’t, of course, say ‘fuck’ to him; I think I said, stumped for the moment as to how else to put it, ‘when we were joined together as lovers’) and knocking her up that first night too (I didn’t tell him that; he just assumed). Because I think I lied — I did lie, didn’t I? — and said that was the only time we were joined together, since the next day, I told him, I drove back to Madison with John. Who knows if that admiration for you isn’t his way of getting back at his real dad — the nonbiological one — though for what, I don’t know, other than — and this would be too ironical — his treatment of me, though pummel me with pumice stones for trying to get psychological on you too. Other than that (I’m in the closing mode, I swear) if you don’t write either of us back I’ll write you again. If you don’t answer that letter (I’ll give you a few weeks with both) I’ll phone your university to make sure you’re still teaching there or not on sabbatical or leave somewhere. If you are there or on leave but not writing back (first I’ll phone your department’s secretary to make sure you’re picking up your office mail or having it sent to you and that you’re not in a foreign country where it’s rare for the mail to get through) or you write back you want nothing to do with any of this, I’ll understand, even if I can’t guarantee Timothy will; though that should be, after all I did (lying, disappearing, hitting you with this news, perhaps subconsciously inducing you to bed sixteen years ago with whatever whining and self-hurting and other unwily wiles I used to make you feel sorry enough for me to) of no concern or problem to you. You’re in the clear as people say (I can’t for the life of me, like that ‘for the life of me,’ get genuinely colloquial — maybe curtailing the adverbs and swanky verbs would help). Timothy, incidentally, is no longer in the room reading this and hasn’t been since I ordered him out that second time (I’m afraid, since Harry’s death, I’m able to get scolding, revolted and fierce). As you can see by the skipping light script in the last sentence, the pen’s running dry again. I want to leave enough ink (to be honest, this is the end of my third — all right, to be absolutely honest: fourth — bladderful) and three (since it’s a much handier if not facile number to make comparisons and analogies with and so forth) has always been enough, hasn’t it? (‘always’ meaning ‘usually’ here), if not more dramatic: on a match, three strikes and you’re out, three-time loser, Holy Trinity, is a crowd, etc., to address the envelope as well as forge a facsimile of a first-class postage stamp on the top right corner of it (naturally, not true and the end, you’ll be glad to hear, of any of my fourth-class jokemaking attempts). So thank you (why’d I say that? I suppose in my hope you’ll accept my apologies for all my wrongdoings to you) and very best, and if you do have a wife and child(ren) you’re currently living with, my humblest regards to them. (Not ‘humblest,’ but you know what I mean.)” He showed the letter to his wife and said “Something, huh? I feel like I don’t know what. Still shaking inside and like an ice pack’s been dropped through my body to my feet. I mean, before I read it I had one kid and now I’ve two. What should I do about it?” and she said “Want me to make a joke about the ice pack or just give you a straight serious answer?” and he said “Both if you want,” and she said “Well, I’d say you have an unusually — and I ought to be careful with my jokes here after what she had to say about them and also hold back on my aggressions—