Richard changes the subject. "The other day, I saw a squirrel that had just been hit by a car; it wasn't dead, it was lying there, kicking frantically."
"Did you roll over it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did you drive your car over it and put it out of its misery?"
"No; why?"
"Well, wouldn't you want someone to do that to you if you were on the side of the road — to put you out of your misery?"
"No," he says, horrified; it would never occur to him. "No," he says again, making it perfectly clear. "Talk to me, hold my hand, but don't run me over."
The doctor returns, checks her blood pressure, pronounces her good to go. "Take Tylenol, keep it elevated, and if you run a temperature above a hundred and two, call me."
Promptly at six, Ben arrives. He sees the ice pack, the gauze bandage around his mother's leg. "What happened?"
"Feral Chihuahuas," she says.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she says. "All cleaned up, vaccinated."
"You're sure you're OK?" he asks again.
"Yes," she says. "And you? How's the job?"
"Uh, let's just say I'm not going to be the next superagent."
"Everything is an experience," Richard says.
The three have not been in a room together since Ben's Bar Mitzvah, and then they were with a hundred other people. Richard half wishes someone would appear, a facilitator or someone who could fix it so it all made sense.
They are there — each entirely separate — like characters on a stage, blocked for dramatic effect, the two men standing, the woman seated on the sofa — with everything between them.
"So — what now?" Ben asks.
"My assistant made a reservation at Orso," she says.
"You're supposed to keep your leg up," Richard says.
"Well, there are three of us at a table for four; that's what the extra chair is for."
Ben keeps looking back and forth between them, moving his head, shifting.
"Are you looking for something in particular?" Richard asks Ben.
Ben leads them into the bedroom and has the three of them sit on the edge of the bed facing a large mirror — Ben in the middle.
"Do you see it?" Ben asks.
"Not sure what I'm looking for," Richard says.
"The mattress is hard," she says. "It must be new."
"My face," Ben says. "Look at my face. The hairline is yours," he says to his father. "And my eyes, my eyes are exactly the same as yours," he says to his mother. "And my chin…"
"That's your grandfather's chin," Richard says.
"You can see where it all comes from, who it belongs to."
And so they sit, the three of them looking into the mirror, looking at Ben, looking at themselves. They sit, and then there is a shudder, the lights dim and then brighten, and a few seconds later the room goes dark, the air stops.
The emergency lights click on — the room fills with a stale orange glow.
"What do you think it is?" she asks.
"It's been hot," Richard says. "We've had high electrical demand."
Ben goes to the window. "The good news is — the lights are on out there." He points twenty floors down.
"We should go to dinner," she says. "Even if we just go somewhere nearby, it's stifling to just sit here."
"If there's no power, there's no elevator, and you have rabies," Richard says.
"I forgot."
He wants to turn on the TV, wants to see what happened, wants pictures, information, instantaneous everything. Richard picks up the phone, dialing 0.
"It's not us personally, it is this side of the street," the man at the front desk says. "It is the grid, the grid has gone bad."
"Any idea when the power will go back on?" Richard asks.
"When the grid is good," he says. "Meanwhile, I can send something up to you, a bottle of white wine, some pasta — we still have gas and are boiling water on the stove."
Security guards with flashlights go up and down the hall, knocking on the doors, counting how many people are in-house and passing out flashlights. "Please stay in your rooms until lights are restored. If you have to leave, use the fire stairs at the far end of the hall and take your flashlight. The fire stairs are staffed and secure."
"Why don't I go down and pick something up?" Ben says. "I can take the stairs. What do you want — pizza, sushi, Chinese?"
"Do you have a menu?" she asks. "It's hard to order without a menu."
"Think of what you like and then name it," Richard says.
"Ginger shrimp," she says, "and if they don't have that, some other spicy shrimp, just not in tomato sauce."
"And?"
"Steamed vegetables with chicken, the sauce on the side," she says. "Brown rice, and some spare ribs."
"And you?" Ben asks his father.
"Oh, steamed vegetable dumplings, and maybe, if they have it, soft-shelled crabs."
"You're still eating soft-shelled crabs from Chinese restaurants?" she asks.
"Yes, why?"
"That's what you ate twenty years ago."
"I still like it," he says, giving Ben a wad of cash.
"And some Tylenol," she says. "Can you get me some Tylenol?"
"He's a good kid," she says when he's gone. "He's great."
They are alone. Self-conscious, he goes to the window. He stands at the glass, looking out; it is not a luminous city, but, like all American cities, it glows in the dark. There are enormous billboards like beacons that light automatically at dusk, drawing all eyes to movie-star faces forty feet tall. "Coming Soon." "Opens Friday."
He steps away from the window and looks at her. "You seem agitated."
"It's been a strange day."
"Breathe," he says.
"What?"
He goes to her, puts one of her hands on her chest, the other on her belly. "Close your eyes and breathe into this hand, fill your back, your belly; then slowly let the air out; and when you are ready, breathe in again."
"I must have a fever," she says.
There is a knock at the door; a red-faced porter hands Richard a bottle of wine — "From the concierge. I carried it against my heart, I hope I did not make it too hot." The hallway is humming, the emergency lights, the red "Exit" signs, all of it seeming to stir the swirling pattern on the carpet. Richard gives the man twenty dollars.
Ben returns with two huge shopping bags of food and a bunch of outdoor candles he bought at the ninety-nine-cent store. They spread the food out on the coffee table. The candles are lit; Richard pours a glass of wine for everyone.
"A feast," she says, propping her leg up on the sofa.
"An indoor picnic," Richard says, bringing a pillow for under her leg.
The room is filled with a warm, buttery glow.
"This is delicious; where is it from?" she asks.
"If you saw the place you wouldn't be happy," Ben says.
"Is that what it's called?"
"No, but I figured it was OK — it had a Health Department A' rating and there were a lot of people in there eating."
She takes a couple of Tylenol, washing them down with the wine. Richard refills their glasses, and slowly the whole family gets stoned from the lack of light, of air, the MSG, the wine.
And although there is a great and likely unbridgeable divide between the three of them, there is also a sense they are together, there for each other as much as they can bear to be, and though it might not be the fullness that one wants, and though it might not be enough, it is something, it is more than nothing.
"DO YOU EVER think about how things might have been different, how my life might have been if you didn't get divorced?" Ben asks no one in particular.
"Did we ever actually get divorced?" Richard asks his ex-wife.
"What are you talking about?" She sits up, splashing wine.