He turns off the light and lies back in bed. Room’s dark. He forgot to look at his watch, but it must be around midnight. Of course he could get the watch off the night table and press the light button on it to see the time, or even turn the table lamp back on, but why bother? It’s around midnight. He’s almost sure it’s around midnight. He got to sleep around nine, as he usually does, and he’s almost always able to sleep for about three hours before he has to get up to pee. Then he sleeps, usually, another three hours, and he always falls back to sleep easily, before he has to get up again to pee. Then another three hours, and this time it usually takes him a bit longer to get back to sleep, before he gets up around six to pee, and stays up. Makes the bed, washes up, and so on. New day; all that. That’s his almost unvarying routine for sleep at night, but anyway, is there a connection between the photograph and his dream? That he wanted to leave Abby, in the sense of splitting up with her — ending their marriage — though in real life he never did or ever even thought of it, though in sort of metaphorical life, if he can put it that way, she left him, her body did. . anyway, by dying. No, none of that works, or if it does, it was by accident. The boy, though — after all, he was his son in the dream, so connected to him — could be the hysterical person he was sometimes when things became overwhelming for him. Too overwhelming. The tasks, he’s saying; the obligations. Things he had to do and which nobody could do for him. Or which nobody but him could do for her, is what he’s saying. That’s the way he sometimes felt then. He would always apologize to her for his momentary hysteria. Or hysteria that lasted a minute or two and once or twice a few minutes more. Throwing a lamp against a wall. He once did that. In front of the kids and her. Glass from the two shattered light bulbs all over the place and the lampshade destroyed. She always accepted his apology, and sometimes said he should apologize to the kids too, which he did, though not without her saying almost every time after the first few — it’s true; he acted that way a lot the last ten years or so of her life — that he’s always immediately apologizing for his awful behavior, and she once called it “despicable” and another time “absolutely loony.” “But all right,” she said a couple of times, “and I mean this. Maybe it’s good in some way that you get out your hysteria, which is mostly your anger at me for getting sick and being a drain on you, we both know that. At least it’s quick.” And that she looked so healthy in the dream and was coming home the next day? Why wasn’t it that she was coming home that day? She seemed ready. Rosy, healthy, sitting off the bed, swinging her legs. Well, it’s never explained, and it was a dream. What he would have wanted, of course, in or out of the dream. Her healthy and home, if not that day then the next, but sooner the better. So another dream of wishful thinking? What else could it be of? And that he came up with a way to stop their son’s hysteria? That he used his brains for practical purposes, as he said, and not just for his writing, and was effective? He made Abby happy by doing it. The last few years of her life he did everything he could to make her happy. Made her smile and sometimes laugh with his remarks and jokes and just made her feel good, or a bit better about herself. That true? That’s true. In the dream she definitely felt good that he’d helped her out. Left her with an unhysterical son. He forgot to write in the dream notebook that at the end of the dream, when he went back into her hospital room with their son, he — the boy — screamed “Mommy,” and ran up to her and hugged with both arms one of her swinging legs — the right, not that it makes any difference which one — and kept his arms around it, hugging tight, her leg against his cheek, wouldn’t let go even when she tried to pry his arms loose, and this made her point to what their son was doing and smile. But again, what to make of it? Well, she was happy. That’s always a nice thing to see in his dreams. But here, happy because of what reason? She was over her pneumonia, for one thing, or whatever she came into the hospital for, and very soon was going home. Happy with her family too, probably. Happy that she could smile and laugh and sit off the bed and swing her legs. And if he was the boy in a way, as he said before, then he didn’t want to let go and stop hugging her and everything that could mean. Who can say? Also again, where was he going when he left the room? He said he was late, but for what? Said he had to go as if there was nothing that could stop him except her suddenly becoming very sick again, showing the same signs of pneumonia she showed when she got it all those times. Disorientation, barely recognizing him, talking jibberish — external signs. The first time he saw them all at once he had no clue what they meant or what was causing them. So: probably home to write. Can’t think of anything else he’d leave her for. He frequently got frustrated, but would never show it to her, when he couldn’t find any time to write while she was in the hospital. And her stays there lasted two to three weeks, and with rehabilitation after, sometimes a month and a half. He spent his entire day with her and was too rushed in the morning to write before he left for the hospital and too tired when he got home at night. Got there at eight when visiting hours started. Helped her with her breakfast, once she was eating real food again and not being fed through tubes. Kept her company all day. Read to her and listened to music with her and watched a movie or PBS program with her, or part of one, on the television in her room, and didn’t leave the hospital till visiting hours were over at eight that night. So now he’s almost sure he was leaving her in his dream to write at home. That’s what he vaguely remembers thinking in the dream. And as he said, or thinks he did — said to himself — he’d be back later for several hours. And at the end of the visiting hours he’d take their son home with him and the next morning he and the boy would come to the hospital to take her home. Or he’d leave the boy with someone the next morning and take her home alone and then get their son. Anyway, though he forgets what it was but thinks he touched on it, there was a connection between the dream and photograph, right? It’s been so long since he thought of it, but seems so.
Two Parts
Let’s see, how do I start this? With my father or with Lotte? My father. It’s already formed more in my head, so it’ll be easier getting into. I told Abby I’d been thinking about something the last two days and I’d like to talk to her about it and see what she thinks. “Sure, go ahead,” she said. “First help me turn off the computer.” “Why do you need help?” and she said “I don’t. Not yet, anyway. I don’t know why I said it.” She played with the mouse for a few seconds and the computer screen went dark. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.” “It’s something to do when I was around ten,” I said. “I don’t think younger. That would make my father around fifty-one. I must have said something to him that made him mad. Nobody else seemed to be in the apartment. It must have been a Sunday or federal holiday or important Jewish holiday, because my father was always at work every day but Sunday and those holidays. I don’t think he was ever sick once and didn’t go to work. In his whole life, until he got very sick. . I’ve told you, struggled to get to work and made it every day, till he couldn’t anymore and was forced to retire. Wheelchair. Operations. Complications. Everything very quick. Am I being unclear here? I’m not telling it in the right order and I’m mixing up things,” and she said “You’re fine.” “What I’m saying, with so many kids in the family and my mother and the woman who helped her five days a week and whom we had for years — the housekeeper — not around, I don’t know where everybody else could have been. And he never hit me with his hand, when he was really angry with me over something. Not once that I can remember. Just a rolled-up newspaper. And always the