ance, or right after you go. But he wouldn’t mind, he’d understand, not mind that much, you might even tell him if you see him again and a few months from now send him a fifth or liter of one of the best Irish whiskeys, if you remember his name, and pour a finger of it, two fingers, practically emptying it, and shoot it down and put the bottle back in the drawer. Glass was clean when you picked it up, no sink in here so unless you wash it he’ll know you drank from it. But again, you’re almost sure he won’t mind. He’s a nice guy, you can tell by what he said and the way he smiled and all the time he gave you. What doctor do you know would do that? Maybe all of them, in this situation, if they weren’t called to another emergency, and anyway by the time he finds the glass, which could be today if he takes that bracer, you’ll be gone from here though you don’t know where yet, and you look for your hanky, no hanky, you must have used it on her in the car and left it there or thrown it away, and dry the glass with your bloody, dirty shirt — even worse than stealing his liquor, as the hanky would have been, but here he won’t know and he’ll probably, since he’ll also probably smell the whiskey on it and notice the bottle almost empty, wash the glass before using it. Framed photo on the desk of him and his wife and two sons, or you assume they are, and who else could they be? Framed photo on a bookshelf of him and this same woman and now three children, so you know they’re his. But he said two were around the same age as yours and one a bit older, which isn’t so here. Was he saying that to show something, do something? What’s the difference what it means if he was only trying to help? All facing the camera, posed in a way you never would with your family, and by a professional it seems — cloudy blue backdrop that doesn’t exist in real life except as a photographer’s prop or maybe it’s just worked into the print, but to you it looks like life after death, to them maybe it’s heaven on earth. Anyway, something else you’d never do, pay a pro to photograph you, doctor and his wife sitting on a red Victorian loveseat, three- or four-year-old girl squeezed between them with a hand on each of their closest knees, same two boys behind them and looking about three years apart but several years older than in the desk photo, so that one probably taken before the girl was born, doctor serious, wife looking giddy to almost delirious, both seemingly unaged since the earlier photo and doctor looking even younger in this one, must be the more youthful haircut and the jogging and exercise or the photographer touched them up. Do you have family photos where you’re all in them? Maybe only one, or two or three, but one you remember and is inside a plastic sheath tucked away in your billfold and which used to be pinned above your desk at home but you haven’t looked at since you stuck it in there: first time Julie was taken outside, when she was a couple of weeks old. Your mother-in-law had come down to help out and took it. On the grass in front of your apartment building then, Margo seated between your wife’s spread legs and waving a lolly, you kneeling beside them holding Julie who’s crying hysterically while everyone else is smiling. Diaper pin or rash, soiled diaper, stomach bubble or hunger, any one of those could be it, your wife used to say, but here it might only have been her first airing. So: outside air on her face and street sounds — cars, trucks, maybe birds, a dog barking, passerby shouting, motorcycle passing — and all your excited chatter at having her out. Even a plane overhead. They often flew by and sometimes it seemed pretty low. Think what the first one of those must have sounded like. Impossible. The phone, and you sit at the desk. Got to get it over with. No, that’s not the attitude. The attitude should be what? You don’t know. The attitude, my friend, the attitude! Sorry. How do you call out from here? Same as from your office: dial nine, then one, area code and phone number? The area code, you were looking for a phone book, and you go through the drawers again and look on the bookshelves but don’t find one. Some people in tight quarters keep them in corners on the floor and you look at all four of them, none’s there. Someone’s playing loud music with this thumping beat, probably in a nearby cubicle. Area code you suddenly remember and write it down along with your phone number. But you’re not dialing home, you’re calling your wife at your in-laws’, and you jot down the New York City area code. Their phone number, even after years of calling them now and then, you were never able to remember. You don’t know why. You like them and they’re easy to speak to so it isn’t that you wanted to forget the number and by forgetting it you forgot them or your difficulty in talking to them, et cetera. You even tried to find some memory device to remember it but it was such an odd assortment of numbers, the lower ones all mixed up with the higher ones and none seeming to join another, that you couldn’t come up with one. It’ll be hard calling your wife — speaking to her with what you have to say — with that music — and then dealing with everything else after it — going on. “Stop, please stop that racket,” you say, “if there’s a God in heaven, stop it now.” But you don’t want to try and find the room it’s coming from and ask that person to turn it down or off, if anyone’s there. You might lock yourself out of this room and you also don’t want to confront anyone. You want to get it over with, that’s all, done, done, and don’t want any more interferences and distractions, and then get on to the next thing and the next thing and so on till ten years from now it’s somewhat out of your mind or not in it all the time. Something like that. Just speak, when you do speak, with a finger in your free ear. Which kid did that recently? Not one but with two: Julie, in the car; no, Margo, here. Both — all kids likely — did it with both ears plugged: don’t want to hear what you’re saying when you’re remonstrating, that sort of stuff. You get up and put your ear to the walls till you find the one it’s coming from and yell “Stop it, will ya, shut the fucking music up,” banging the wall. You listen for about half a minute and no one says anything, music stays; they had to have heard you so probably nobody’s there. There’s no other way, you’ll have to get New York City Information, and it isn’t as if you’re talking to your wife yet, and you dial nine, one and the Information number there. Man says “Mr. Lewis, what city please?” and you say “Yes, thank you. Listen, this is very tough for me, Mr. Lewis, speaking. I do want a number but there’s been — please stick with me through this quick spiel — a death in my family—” and he says “I’m sorry, sir, what can I do for you, what city?” and you say “Manhattan. It was just before, a few hours, and I’m still a little crazy — a car accident — all upset about it and I have to call my wife and need her parents’ number there,” and he says “The name and address?” and you say “That I have,” and give them and he says “Hold on for your number please,” and a recorded voice gives it. The music, another piece, almost the same screeching and beat but faster, is that supposed to be relaxation, diversion, rest, something to think with or listen to on your dinner break, maybe just good for sex, but not here, though could be, on the floor, put a jacket underneath, or both on a chair, perfect place with only one key, but if not what is it then, what’s it serve? It’s so goddamn ignorant, why do people who like serious music keep it low and those who like this kind turn it up so? That true? You don’t care what the answers are, but in a hospital, in this part, where people are dying or recently dead, or maybe that’s not in this part, you walked a long way, but still, and instead of a bracer, this? What am I missing? Oh that’s a lark. Oh shit, forget it, don’t let it get to you, it’s not going to go away by your praying and raving against it, so are you ready? As I’ll ever be. What are you going to say? I’ll just see what I’ll say. Not good enough, this is the most emotionable of human instances which calls for the rarest most fastidious kind of sensitivity, equableness and self-control. Stop it, stop the words and bullshit, speak to me in plain language, I can’t stand any fanciness like that and for sure not now. Okay, so just how will you? How will I? How will you and what, yes, how? I’ll say, I’ll say, I’ll say I’m at a hospital, here, this one, I’ll give the name and state, Margo’s with me, Margo’s all right, nothing’s wrong with her, don’t worry about that, but there’s been an accident, a terrible one, so terrible, couldn’t be worse, listen, hold tight, it’s a shooting, Julie’s been shot, Julie’s shot, Julie’s dead, I’m at the hospital, Margo’s with me, she’s okay, unhurt, is anyone there with you, if anyone is, please get that person to the phone or just someone to help you. You’d break the news to her like that? So fast, right off the bat? You wouldn’t first ask if anyone’s there with her before you tell her, so that person can sort of be there to help her when you tell her or tell her himself? And also, for this is such shocking news, get into it slower and easier with this person before you say what happened? Yes, I’d do that. I’d say to my wife “Hi, dear, how are you, is anyone there with you, your folks, they around? May I speak to one of them, it’s something about something, a secret, nothing wrong, don’t worry, and one I’m sure they’ll give away the moment I get off the phone,” as if it were something like a surprise party I was planning for her, and then I’d speak to her mom or dad the way you said. I’d do it quietly, wouldn’t break the news quickly, even start off with a bit of small talk. If she said “Which one?” I’d say “Oh, I guess your dad,” since I think, though it’d be the worst thing he’s ever heard or had to deal with, he’d handle it better. Or I’d just ask for him straight off, “Let me speak to your dad, please, if he’s there,” and if he wasn’t then I’d ask for her mom. But suppose neither parent is there? Or suppose she then says, after I made that pitch, “Sure, I’m at their apartment, why wouldn’t they be here? But something’s wrong, you’re holding it back, don’t try to act like you’re not, so what is it, tell me, the kids, one of the kids, both?” She might have picked up by my voice, not what I said, that something’s wrong, very wrong, couldn’t be worse. I might only have to say one word for her to notice. Or one word before I start crying. I might start crying second I finish dialing her folks’ or be crying while I dial. Be sobbing, be bawling. I might have to hang up while I’m dialing, try to collect myself and then dial again when I feel composed enough to speak to her and then might start sobbing the moment she lifts the receiver and says hello. Or I might never get that control. I might try very hard, clench my teeth, bite the insides of my cheeks, do some mental preparation—“Now don’t cry, don’t cry, too much is riding on your staying composed”—think I have it, heart’s not beating wild, throat’s not tight, and so forth, and dial again and start crying while I’m dialing or the moment my wife picks up the phone. Or when some other person, it doesn’t have to be she, lifts the receiver. Though most times I’ve called her at her folks’ place she’s been the one to pick up the phone, maybe because she’s faster, more energetic or it’s just a habit of racing to the phone there from the time she was a kid and they don’t even bother trying to answer it while she’s there. But if her mother does answer the phone, what then? Do I ask for her husband? If she says “What’s it about, Nate, anything I can do?” which she usually does when I ask for him, what do I say? Something like “Something to do with our income tax forms last year, he told me to call him about it if I got the letter from IRS I had anticipated would be waiting for me at home, and we’re home, by the way, good trip, everybody’s safe, kids say hello, and of course after I speak to him I’ll want to speak to Lee.” But if I do get her dad, or only her mom if her dad’s not home, what then? I don’t know. No, you have to know, it’s absolutely essential. You’re priming them for your wife, right? and the call’s to be made momentarily, so you have to think now what you’ll say. I’ll say something like, I’ll say something like, I’ll say “Hi, it’s Nate, Nat, Nate, but you know that, you know my voice, but there’s something you don’t know, some very important thing to tell you, some very bad news to tell Lee too but first I have to prepare her through you, prepare you to prepare her for the absolute worst though I wish there was some way to prepare you for it too.” I might then say “It isn’t Margo, it’s Julie.” I might put it this way: “Margo’s not hurt, Julie is.” I might then add “Julie’s very hurt, in fact. Extremely. There’s been an accident. Not an accident. Listen, I’m going to go nuts with crying if I don’t tell you right away and if I do start crying I’ll never stop and you’ll never find out what it is I have to tell you and you have to, you see, for I have to tell Lee. It’s this: Julie’s dead,” I might say, “Margo isn’t. Julie’s been wiped out clean, Margo isn’t even scratched.” No, not like that, not any of it, I have to go back. Why? You’re on to it, you are, and almost over it with her folks, so go on, what else? I’ll say, or might, “Listen, Julie’s been killed, killed, by a freaking mad gun shooter from a car.” No, some other way. If I tell them that way I’m sure they’ll break down and be unable to prepare my wife for what I have to tell her, what do you say? What do I say? I say you’re right but that whatever way you tell whichever parent you tell it to, they’ll break down, how can they not? They might be strong, father stronger than the mother as you said, but no one can be that strong if they’re not the same type as the guys who killed your child. But even those guys would probably break down the same way if let’s say they heard one of their kids was just killed, even if they’d done it to someone else’s kid the same way and not long before, but we won’t go into that. Or both you and one of your wife’s parents might break down the same moment after you say it about Julie and then the other parent might get on the phone after the first one broke down or ask his or her spouse what’s wrong. And you might then have to repeat it because the one you told it to would be in no shape to repeat to the other one what you just said. So? So I’m saying you’ll now probably have two of them broken down, if you were able to tell the second what you told the first, and you still haven’t really begun to get the news to your wife. So? So stop saying “so?” for you don’t see that as a problem? I see it, my wife. Where would she be all this time? If she’s not home, that’s one thing, and it might even be easier that way, for her parents would have calmed down enough to tell her or prepare her by the time she got back. But if she’s home and in the room with them, one of her parents breaking down during the call would in a way be a way of telling her something’s very wrong. In other words, that might be all the preparation I need, through the crying and probably the hysteria of her parent or both of them, if I was able to tell the second, but not the way I want to begin telling her. What way do you want? That could be the key to how you go about telling her. I’m not sure. I don’t know. No, I’m just not sure. I’d love for her to just hear it from me in whatever way I tell it, soberly, hysterically, something in between, either of the three or some other way but no matter what way for her to then say something like “This”—soberly, unhysterically, no in-between—“is the worst news of my life, dear, the worst thing that has ever happened or could ever happen, but we have to begin dealing with it the best way we know how. And I know how it is for you now, Nat, and how hard it was to tell me, just as I know you know how it is for me and how hard it was to hear. But we can’t let it overwhelm us where we can’t function for each other and Mar