please,” followed by whatever he was asking her to do, or was she just looking his way but lost in some thought that had nothing to do with him? She got that way lots and he always loved looking at her when she did. Time she was sitting on the couch, book she’d been reading on her lap, legs under her, fingers pulling at her bottom lip and letting it spring back, eyes off somewhere contemplatively. Must have been the book she was thinking of, or — she did this — she’d heard a bird or some other sound from outside and was wondering about it, listening for it again, something, but picture of her sitting there stayed with him, including the light — it was night — this time from the floor lamp, slit across her face. Time she was on the merry-go-round at her school fair and he called out “Julie, Julie, Daddy here, give me a look” every time she came around where he was behind the railing separating him from the ride, for he wanted to wave and take a picture, but she kept looking straight ahead, big smile, perfect for a picture but not at him though he should have snapped it but he was waiting for her to look his way for a full-face shot till it was too late and the ride had stopped — imagining she was on a real horse? Exhilaration of the whole thing — tinny calliope music, breeze on her face and through her loose hair, other kids’ squeals, different sounds from the fair melding and changing around her as she rode? As he lifted her off the horse he said “What were you thinking of when you were riding round and round?” and she said “Something,” and he said “But what?” and she said “I’m not sure, maybe nothing, why’s it important?” and he said “It isn’t, just thought I’d ask, but your face — staring out and looking so happy and smiling into space,” and she said “What’s the matter with that?” and he said “Nothing, it was beautiful, let’s forget it.” Time she snuck quietly up to him at home with fluorescent pink-framed sunglasses and headphones on, attached cassette player in her hands, tapped his back, after he jumped and turned to her and said “Oh my goodness, look at you,” she did a quick dance to the music he faintly heard from the phones, and smiled — knowing the joke? Knowing he knew? What? Pleased he liked it and that she’d also startled him but where he didn’t get mad over it and it in fact made him laugh? But how’d she know he’d appreciate it or did she only guess or was trying it out if he would? He knew she’d like him doing this so he said “Hey, yeah, cool, babe,” and held his hand open for her to give him five, which she did and he said “Looks great; Elvis, right?” and she said “Who else could it be?” and he said “But Elvis Barry Schwartz, no?” and she said “Oh really, Daddy,” and he said “But how’d you know who he was?” and she said “On TV, and Margo told me about him and has this tape,” and he said “You know, and don’t tell anybody because I can be shot for saying this, but I always thought he was way overrated, in fact that he was practically talentless and gruesome, and I grew up when he was thriving and alive, but who am I, right? — and his movies, phooey,” and she said “Well I like him and so does Margo and all her friends,” and took the phones, cassette player and sunglasses off and set them aside — he’d later have to say “Could you bring these Elvis relics back to their rightful places?” but she ignored him so he did it which she proba bly thought he would, for they all knew how compulsive he was at trying to keep the house neat and clean. Time she was reclining on the couch in her pajamas and he’d come back from a run that had ended up at a couple of stores — had to be a Sunday or national holiday for them all to be home, since it was within a half-year of when she died and there was no lazing around early Saturdays then, the kids had to be at swimming lessons by 8:50 and it was a twenty-minute drive there — and tapped her knee, she was up, he saw before, looking dreamily at the ceiling or again maybe through it, and said “I got you a chocolate croissant and Margo a plain one, freshly baked from Natural Pastry,” and she stared at him, said nothing, he’d expected a big grateful smile and thanks, for a chocolate croissant was maybe the best thing she liked for breakfast, but got a mysterious little enigmatic one. What’s she thinking of? he thought. And years later: Do I know any more than before what she might have been thinking of that morning or what her face was trying to say? Waved his hand in front of her eyes to make sure she was looking at him and she continued to stare and smile that way and he said “Everything okay, you have a good night?” and she nodded when he thought she’d say what she usually did, “Sure, why?” “And your dreams,” he might have said, for this was how he usually pursued things when she was very quiet or irritable after she awoke, “no bad ones or anything in them you want to tell me?” and if he said that and she didn’t want to answer, she probably just shook her head. So? So most of those times when he thought of what she might be thinking, she was smiling one way or another. So? So there were other times not smiling. Time she said in the car when he was driving them to school “Would you be very sad if I died?” That was months before she did. “Why, you expecting to kick the bucket soon?” quickly looking around and seeing she was serious about it, so “No, that’s the wrong thing to say. ‘No jokes now, Daddy,’ right? and you’d be right, because this is serious subject matter you’re talking now, very serious. So of course I’d be sad, deeply sad. So deeply sad that it’s probably beyond the deep. It’s into something I don’t know what it is. Total feeling-death, like. Meaning where I don’t feel anything. I’m a zombie, walking around like one or not even walking but comatose. Paralyzed, on my back, can’t get up, can’t eat or drink, can only think about my zombiehood, or not even do that. Can only feel what I don’t know I can, or not even that. No, I can’t feel anything, as I said, and all that’s not a definition of being comatose, but something like it. A person who’s nothing anymore, who can’t react or respond to anything. Who doesn’t know he’s alive so might as well be dead himself, though shouldn’t be because they often come out of it. Listen, do you know what a coma is, either of you?” and they both said yes and he said “Well that’s what it is, comatose — a coma, but in this case in sadness or what that beyond-the-deep sadness brings you to. I don’t know, I really can’t think straight today. But don’t think such terrible thoughts as would I be sad or not of what you said, because it’s never going to come to anything like that. Though why’d you ask, if I can ask — I’m curious?” and she said “I had a dream last night you died and I didn’t show any sadness to it. No, it was Margo who died and you didn’t show it,” and Margo said “Oh thanks a lot, that’s special. It must mean you want me to be dead so you can have Daddy all to yourself,” and she said “No it doesn’t, does it, Daddy?” and he said “It doesn’t have to, Margo, really. Who knows what she was thinking of in the dream, but we’ll forget it, okay? I shouldn’t have continued the discussion. I don’t mind talking about most subjects with you if they’re appropriate for your age — on your level, you know. Where they can be dealt with and aren’t disturbing, but not that subject even if you think you can handle it. You aren’t going to die — she isn’t — neither of you. Who was I talking to? — I was talking to Margo, but I mean this to you both. It’s in fact so far away it’s going to seem like forever. And maybe it will be forever, for by the time you’re my age, they — scientists — may have discovered something to keep people alive for as long as anyone wants to stay alive that way,” and Julie said “But that means you’d die if it’s so far away, and I’d hate that. It’s too sad, you or Mommy,” and he said “Well, we’re healthy, aren’t we? Exercise, we eat the right foods, keep a slim stomach, don’t drink much, at least Mommy doesn’t if at all — beer here, beer a week later — and I’ve come down a lot the last couple of years too, maybe one shot every other night’s the extent of my heavier booze, and only to relax me. Vitamins, and we don’t smoke and I never have, sufficient sleep, things like that. Have a good attitude or good enough, I think, especially Mommy, who never lets the nuisance things annoy her as they sometimes do me. And I’ve never really been sick yet with anything worse than a bad flu a few hundred times — exaggerating; Mommy once had her appendix out but that’s all, other than for a mole or beauty mark she tore on her back and which had to be removed. Ooh, I’m sorry. So, I might live, and Mommy for certain, and also because she’s eight years younger than I, long enough to take advantage of this live-forever-if-you-want drug or discovery too.” “Good, we’ll all live forever together,” Julie said and he said “No, you and Margo will have to get out of the house after a while — we’d want you to, you would too, to do things, have homes of your own. But there’ll always be room for you with us, always, I promise. But you gotta give me some peace sometime, sweethearts, you gotta. Only kidding,” when he looked in the rearview and then quickly around and did see her face, “stay with us forever. We’d love for you to, me no more than Mommy, I mean ‘no less,’ meaning a whole lot, I mean it,” and he drove. Time when she was seated beside him in the car and the street they were on was blocked by a tree that had fallen across it, firemen in helmets cutting it apart with power saws, crowds in this normally quiet neighborhood where maybe the most you see when you drive is another car and occasionally someone jogging or walking a dog or two women together pushing strollers, local TV remote team, policemen, one pointing angrily at him to turn around as if, like his father used to say, “What’re you, a dumbbell, it’s right in front of your face,” and she asked what happened and he said “What you see — did you see it? This huge tree must have lost its roots or gotten hollow inside by termites or some other thing, a tree disease, without anyone knowing it till this happened, and fallen,” and after about a minute, when he was looking for another side street to get to the avenue he wanted, she said “What if someone put me in front of that tree and I ran away?” and he said “You mean what would I do with the guy who put you there, for of course I’d be deliriously happy you ran away,” and she said yes and he said “And put you there before the tree fell, right? for you got to know when to use ‘had’ in a sentence or to put in helpful phrases like ‘before the tree fell,’ and when not to,” and she said “What would you do though?” and he said “I’d try to catch him and then hold him for the police,” and she said “That’s what I thought you’d say,” and looked front and continued to be serious awhile, he was glancing back and forth at her, trying to figure out why she’d asked that and did she mean he should have said something else? and what was on her mind now, when she said “What if a tree fell on a house — it would make the rain come in but would it kill somebody inside?” and he said “It would make a big hole in the roof and if it was a direct hit, meaning right through the center and someone was directly underneath, and the house was only one story, yes, it could kill someone inside,” and she said “What if it’s a brick house?” and he said “But the roof wouldn’t be brick; at best it’d be made of slate which is probably just a little stronger than the shingles we have on our roof, so again, direct hit and only one story? — maybe somebody would get killed, but the brick walls might stop the tree from going all the way to the floor where the person is,” and she said “If the person is lying under a table would it help any if it wasn’t a brick house?” and he said “Maybe by a tiny amount. But a tree falling down would be gaining speed fast, even if it was slightly stopped by the roof, so I think a direct hit on the table in a one-story house would still kill him,” and she said “We have two stories, right?” and he said “Two and a crawl space, so we’re much safer from a tree falling than a one-story person is if we’re on the first floor,” and she said “And if we were in the basement?” and he said “If we’re in our basement and a tree falls, nothing would happen to us except maybe a little soundproof ceiling tile breaking on our heads and making our hair dusty,” and she said “Would we be dead if the tree fell on our car?” and he said “A tree that size? Did you see how big and round it was? Six of my arms couldn’t have got around it, and it stretched across the entire street into the house-across-the-street’s front yard. And it looked like an oak, a very heavy tree — I got a quick look at its leaves, tree must have been at least a hundred years old — so yes, I think we would, even with a steel or whatever metal’s used for the car roof instead of a house’s shingle or slate, much as I hate the thought of anything like that for you. I also think I’m wrong about a slate roof being even a bit stronger than our shingle,” and she said “What if we’re in the front seat and the tree falls in the back?” and he was about to say “This isn’t a city bus, know what I mean?” but looked at her, she didn’t seem scared, was serious, just wanted to know his answer and he said “Then I think we’d be saved, though maybe bounced out of our seats but probably onto someone’s cushioned front lawn,” and she said “No, we’d still be in our seats buckled in, but I think we’d be out of the way of the tree, so saved too,” and he said “So we agree, good,” and wondered “What brings all of this stuff up?” but didn’t want to ask because didn’t want to continue it, and she took from that little well in the door to hold things like change or a pen or just to hold on to or whatever it’s for, two figures Margo had made for her out of pipe cleaners, or made for herself and Julie had taken from the house before she left, and started walking them together up opposite arms till they met on her chest and then held them high and said “This one’s Millicent, other’s Magnificent, say hello,” and he said “Hello, girls, how’s it going? nice names, twins I suppose,” and she said “No, they’re different colors,” and he said “Oh,” and drove. Time they were in the Aquarium on line for the second floor, kids up front, he several people behind and they were standing by the escalator entrance just looking at the ground and he wondered why they were staying there with so many people behind them wanting to get on. Maybe looking at the flat steps sliding out of the opening and slowly popping up, and after a while when there was a long line behind him he said “Girls, what’re you doing? stop fooling, people want to get on,” and Margo scowled at him, Julie was hidden behind some people now, a man near them said to him “There’s a lady here trying to get her stroller on, it’s not them,” and he said “Sorry, thought it was my girls, sorry,” and the man cocked an eyebrow and faced front and the woman and man behind her holding the front of the stroller with the kid in it and the girls and the man from before got on, and when he got off the escalator and looked for his kids he saw the woman un-snapping her boy from the stroller and he said “Excuse me, you must have been bent over taking care of him when I yelled and I didn’t see you, so I thought it was my girls holding up the line,” she didn’t say anything, shook her head as if he was terrible in some way — way he treated his girls, way he just shouted out like that without knowing what was going on, that he was lying and had seen her but used the girls-excuse as a way to get her to get the stroller on the escalator faster and which might have turned it over and hurt her child — more people are hurt on escalators, he once read, than in proportion — in ratio — how do you say it? — to people hurt on any other moving conveyance including cars — and he said “Anyway, I