helpful—to do anything I can to help Lee and them now, but I’m unable to, I’m crazy with grief because of the whole thing, out of my gourd, my head, but in control enough to take care of Margo through all this, who as they can imagine is as distraught as anyone but sort of okay, holding it in, I don’t know when it’s going to come out in a kid’s way and if it does if I’ll be able to handle it, but so far she and I are okay, and maybe I can get the doctor closest to this to talk to him (or her) if he’s still around, but before I get off to get him I’d want to give the doctor’s name and name and phone number of the hospital so they don’t lose contact with me, for if I do lose contact with them — I could, I’m holding it in too but am underlyingly that overcome — they won’t be able to reach me since they won’t know where I am. I could be at any hospital from there to where I live, right? “Oh, if we were only home, all three of us, girls and me, dinner done, dishes washed and traveling things put away, place tidied the way I like it, neat piles, rug under the dinner table swept, getting ready for bed, maybe in bed — the kids; if I were that tired from the trip and cleaning up and things, me — for I don’t know what time it is, maybe long past their normal bedtime when tomorrow’s a school day,” I’d probably say if I’d said all the rest of what came before it. So I’d say “Hold on, the doctor’s and hospital’s name have to be here someplace,” and I’d look on the desk for personal stationery or an envelope addressed to the doctor — you do that now, look, nothing there with the doctor’s or hospital’s name on it, open the top drawer — wait a minute, the diplomas on the walls would have his name on them — but in it there’s a manila envelope with the doctor’s name and hospital address — and I’d give this information to whichever parent I was speaking to and say the phone number they can get by calling Information in this state, for it’s not on the phone — and then I’d say “Okay, stay on”—say it if I was able to—“I’m going to look for the doctor, he might be outside the door here or down the hall but in hearing distance — I’m in his cubicle in the hospital, his private room, office, calling from it, I wanted privacy for this call, and if you’re not on when I get back, don’t worry, I’ll call back soon as I can, so if you do get off, keep the line clear, or if you want to get me, ask for this doctor’s private number when you call the hospital, say ‘His cubicle,’ they’ll know…so I’m going,” though I’d probably say before I go — I’d definitely say if Lee was home and they told her or I somehow had before but she wasn’t the one I was speaking to now, “How is Lee now, what’s she doing, what are you doing to help her, how much help does she need? Maybe you should call your own doctor right after this to see what he can do for her and for you too, for advice, who can give you a psychiatrist to call and possibly come now if you don’t know of one, she might need medicine, something for sleep, I don’t see how she couldn’t, someone professional there like that with those things to help you with her and also to help the two of you,” and then after they told me I’d say “So I’m going, I’ll try to be quick,” and put the receiver down and look outside the door and if the doctor was there or down the hall I’d ask him to speak to my mother- or father-in-law and tell them what he thinks they should know about Julie and answer any questions they may have, or by now even Lee if she was there, maybe she’d want to talk to him, and if he wasn’t there and he probably wouldn’t be and there was no one from the hospital around I could ask to get him, for I now have his name down, I’d race back to the phone — before I left the room I’d have done something to make sure the door wouldn’t close and lock — and if one of my in-laws was still on the line — I don’t know what I’d say if I said hello on the phone, “anybody there?” and Lee was the one now on, though maybe by now I could say something clear and sound and also maybe she’d by now be somewhat calm—“The doctor’s not around, what more can I say, or maybe I should look for him more, how’s Lee now?” and if it was Lee there, “Lee…Lee…what more can I do for you from here, what can either of us do? We’re devastated, but we got to control ourselves somehow, for our sakes for Margo’s sake, meaning that we don’t want to destroy her by destroying ourselves, there’s no point in cracking up — not that, it isn’t a question of a point or not, but if one does, you do, I’ll take care of Margo and you, crack up if you have to and nothing can stop it, I’ll be there forever for you, I swear, though try if it’s possible to wait till I get there or you’re here or we’re together somewhere soon, please.” Anyway, that’s some of what I’d do on the phone. Not the best, no great plan, but the aim’s good. It probably is the best you can muster under the circumstances and considering your limitations and if you’re alone on the phone doing it. What’s that mean — the last? It means maybe you should, after all, have the doctor beside you while you call or have him be the one calling Lee and her parents about it with you beside him, and you think about this and you think and think and think and you think no, best it comes only from you when you’re alone. You can’t say why. You could if you really thought about it perhaps. The doctor might inhibit you somewhat to a lot. It just wouldn’t seem right in a way, saying the deepest most grievous thing possible to the person closest to you and who’d be most affected by it, with a medical professional you didn’t know till an hour ago standing next to you and in so small a room, or having someone like that say it for you to her or one of the two persons closest to her and who’d almost be as affected by it. And such a small room, barely a cubicle. Or rightly named one: desk, chair, but narrower than usual desk and chair, even the bookshelves seem narrower than usual or is that some sort of illusion because the room’s so small, and so many things hanging from hooks and pegs on the walls and door, probably because there’s so little space in the room. There was a comedian, when you were a boy, who used to say either on TV when you still watched or the Paramount Theater stage, so you would have been high school age, “Our apartment’s so small the furniture’s painted on the—” no, zero in on the phone. You ready? Yes, and you lift the receiver. “To get around we had to walk sideways once past the door.” You start to dial. Stomach nervous pains like when dialing girls thirty years ago, forty, or with your hand on the receiver ready to pick it up to dial. Girls you wanted to date but didn’t think they’d be interested even a first time. Or girls you’d dated once and wanted to again but didn’t think they would. What would you say to them on the phone? You’re stalling again and you know it but what would you say? And what digit were you on when you stopped dialing? and you put the receiver down. “Hi, my name’s Nathan Frey, you wouldn’t remember me,” this for the first date but they’ll find out you’re not that smart or sharp or with it in a way they like or you don’t come from a family with dough or go to a private high school or one of the elite public ones, or something else or they already found that out the first time you met or that you’re just not their type. You’d thought a lot about what approach to take and what might be the best weekday time to calclass="underline" around nine, after they might have their homework and house chores done, maybe had a shower or bath, were feeling clean and relieved and relaxed, sort of the start of the quiet time of night and when your mind seemed a bit sharper and line cleverer and voice lower, so you felt more confident, but not much later than nine for they could use the excuse that their parents thought it a little late for someone to call them, even a good friend, especially when the conversations tended to go on for a while, and not earlier because their folks might want to use the phone or were expecting a call. Nine-fifteen to — thirty and if you could swing it, for you didn’t want anyone interrupting you and stopping your concentration, when no one was home or wanted to use the phone. For a second date: “Hi, it’s Nathan Frey, or Nat, okay, but never Nathaniel, how you doing, what’s been happening, have a good week?” Or the first time: “We met at the Dalton dance last week…at the Jew ish Center party…coming out of RKO last Saturday, you were with a friend, I was with a pal who knew her…curly brown hair kind of unkempt, about five feet eight without shoes,” later “five feet nine…ten…almost six feet…let’s say six feet flat though not with flat feet but with shoes that were recently heeled…slim,” always slim but actually skinny, “in a blue V-neck sweater…blue windbreaker…blue button-down-collar Oxford-cloth shirt,” and if it was a dance, “three-button brown tweed jacket” for about four years, sleeves let out till the lining showed, “dark” or “light gray flannel pants,” for a while “scuffed white bucks…you mentioned Frankie Laine…Johnnie Ray…some English singer Vera Lynn and this moving wartime song she sung that’s now a big hit…Menotti’s new opera on Broadway we both said we wanted to go to, about Little Italy, lovers’ quarrel that ends with the girl getting stabbed or shot to death but sung in a language you can understand and where there are words in it like, you know, ‘bitch’ and ‘shit,’ we both heard about it and agreed better at a regula