Far From the Sea

Thursday

His father’s room was empty.

He went immediately to the nurses’ station.

“Where’s my father?” he asked.

She was a nurse he had never seen before. Little redheaded thing sipping at a Coca-Cola.

“His name, please?” she said.

“Morris Weber.”

“I think he went up to surgery,” she said.

“What do you mean? This morning, do you mean?”

“Yes, sir. He was scheduled for nine o’clock surgery,” she said. She was consulting a clipboard now.

“Dr. Kaplan said this afternoon.”

“He went up at nine,” the nurse said.

“Is he still there?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Well, how do I find out?”

“If you’ll wait outside, sir, I’ll notify you as soon as I have any word.”

“Would he be in the Recovery Room yet?”

“You couldn’t go there in any event, sir.”

“Would you try to find out, please?”

“Yes, sir. If you’ll wait outside, sir...”

“Thank you,” he said.

The waiting room was empty of visitors. The television set was on. There were two pink ladies behind the desk. Both of them in their seventies, David guessed. He took a seat on one of the leatherette couches and lit a cigarette. He wondered where they all disappeared to during visiting hours, this waiting-room family of his. Through the door at the end of the hall and then into all the little warrens that sheltered their sick and dying. He did not know which visitor belonged to which patient. The patients in there were anonymous. It suddenly occurred to him that his father was anonymous, too. Except to David. And perhaps to him as well.

“Excuse me,” one of the pink ladies said. “Do you have a patient in Intensive Care, sir?”

“I do,” David said.

“His name, please?”

“Morris Weber,” David said.

She consulted a clipboard and said to the other pink lady, “You have to check their names on the sheet here. Otherwise, people try to come in who don’t have patients here.”

David wondered who might possibly want to go in if he didn’t have a patient here.

“I copy them from the sheet onto a separate piece of paper,” the woman said to the other pink lady. “I copy them in alphabetical order. It makes it easier to check up on them.” She was training the other lady, David realized. On-the-job training. She turned to David. “Are you a relative of Mr. Weber?” she asked.

“His son,” David said.

“You have to check if they’re relatives or not,” she said to the other woman. “Only relatives are allowed to visit.”

Where does that leave Bessie? David wondered.

“You can go in now if you like,” the woman said to him.

“He’s in surgery,” David said.

The woman nodded. She turned to the trainee. “Sometimes they try to go in before the hour. You just keep your eye on the clock. They’re not supposed to go in until eleven, two, four, and seven o’clock — sharp! Not a minute before. When the ten minutes are up, you go in and get them out. Otherwise, they’ll try to stay all day.”

“Ten minutes each time,” the trainee said. Her eyes were glued to the television screen. She seemed more interested in the soap than in the other woman’s instructions.

Bessie appeared in the doorway.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, “the bus was late.”

“Excuse me,” the bossy pink lady said, “do you have a patient in Intensive Care?”

“Yes, Morris Weber,” Bessie said.

“Are you a relative?”

“I’m his sister,” Bessie said. “My name is Bessie Goldblum.”

She had learned the rules, David thought. Smart lady, Bessie.

“You can go in now,” the pink lady said by rote.

“He’s in surgery,” David said.

“What do you mean?” Bessie said. “They took him down this morning? I thought it was this afternoon.”

“They make their own rules,” David said.

“The doctors know what’s best for the patients,” the bossy pink lady said, reprimanding him.

“I’m sure,” David said.

“What’s wrong with your father?” she asked.

“Everything,” he said. He did not want to get into a long conversation with her about his father. Or about anything, for that matter.

“If he’s in surgery, there’s no sense waiting,” the pink lady said. “Visiting time is up in three minutes. He won’t recognize you, anyway.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait,” David said.

“Suit yourself,” she said. She turned to the trainee. Officious damn biddy, David thought. “Let me show you how to make the coffee,” she said. “You make the coffee first thing in the morning, when you come in. If you’re here in the afternoon, you have to clean the pot, and empty the grinds, and lock up the coffee maker in the cabinet before you go. That’s after the four o’clock visit. At four-ten — sharp! If you don’t lock it up, they steal it.”

David wondered who “they” were. The visitors? The patients? The hospital staff? He visualized a huge band of coffee-maker thieves operating right here out of St. Mary’s.

“The key to the cabinet is in an envelope in the top drawer of the desk here,” she said. “Be sure to put it back in the envelope after you’ve locked up, and then take it downstairs to Mrs. Thorpe in the Volunteer Section and give it to her before you leave the hospital.”

“Do I lock the door, too?”

“What door?”

“Here to the waiting room.”

“No, that stays open all the time. They come in after we leave, you know. For the seven o’clock visit. We leave at four.”

“Four-ten, you mean,” the trainee said.

Touché, David thought.

“Mr. Weber?”

His appearance startled David. He was wearing a green surgical gown and cap. A green surgical mask dangled loose around his neck. It was as though, quite suddenly, David was privileged to see him wearing the garments of his trade. In that moment, Kaplan became a surgeon, and not someone mouthing unfathomables about mysterious infections. He got to his feet at once and joined him in the corridor. Bessie, inexplicably, sat just where she was, unmoving, her head bent, her hands clasped in her lap as if in prayer.

“How is he?” David asked.

“Fine, they’re closing him up now,” Kaplan said. There was that same sorrowful tone in his voice, that same grieving expression on his face.

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing,” Kaplan said, and shook his head. “Clean as a whistle.”

David looked at him. Please don’t tell me it’s all very baffling, he thought.

“It’s all very baffling,” Kaplan said.

“So what now?”

“Now we see,” Kaplan said.

“Now he dies,” David said.

“Not necessarily. He may fight back. There’s always the chance that his will to live will overcome whatever is causing his problem.”

“When can I see him?”

“He won’t be back down for a while yet.”

“Shall I wait for the two o’clock visit?”

“Four would be better. In fact, Mr. Weber, why don’t you take the day off? Relax, get some rest. If you can come tonight at seven, that would be fine.”

“What if...?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him. Seven will be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“You’ll keep me informed, won’t you? If anything should...”

“Yes, of course,” Kaplan said.

He wondered if he should shake hands with the doctor. Kaplan nodded briefly and walked off. David went to where Bessie was sitting, her head still bent, her hands clasped in her lap.

“Did you hear?” he said.

“I heard. So they found nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“So what was the use?” She shook her head. “He wants us to come back at seven?”

“That’s what he said.”

“I’ll come back at seven,” she said, and sighed. “Where are you going now, the hotel?”

“I thought the apartment first. He wants me to look for his Ten-Forty.”

“His what?”

“His tax declaration. He’s not sure he paid his income tax.”

“His mind wanders,” Bessie said. “He forgets what he paid, what he didn’t pay.” She paused. “If you’re going to the building, pick up the mail, too. He gets a lot of letters, there’s a whole stack of mail there.”

“Okay, I will. Do you have the keys? He said you have his keys.”

“He gave me all what he had in his pockets,” Bessie said. She unclasped her handbag. “There are four keys altogether,” she said. “The little one is for the mailbox, but the mailman is holding all his stuff in the room they have there in the building, where he sorts the mail. The other keys, there’s two locks on the door and also a chain you have to open with a key. That’s the smallest key, the chain key. You can fit your hand in after you open the other two locks, and then you can get at the lock on the chain. It just falls down when you open the lock.”

“Thank you,” he said, and put the keys in his pocket.

He fumbled with the keys for several moments, trying to learn which key fit which of the door locks. He finally managed to get both locks open and then to unlock the chain lock. The chain dropped out of its holding bracket the moment he turned the key, just as Bessie had promised. He swung the door open.

His father had been living in this apartment for more than three years now. David had never come down to Miami Beach because his father made semi-annual visits to New York, and he’d felt no need to see him more often than that. He called him every other Sunday morning, ascertained that he was in good health and keeping busy, and that was that. He had never been inside this apartment, and he was totally unprepared for what he found here now.

A long narrow corridor leading to the living room was stacked with cardboard cartons on its left side, barely allowing passage between the boxes and the closets on the right. In the living room, a table covered with a soiled cloth was stacked high with envelopes, some of them sealed, some of them opened. Scattered on the tabletop were marking pens, sheets of paper with figures and dates on them, scissors, masking tape, cellophane tape, a magnifying glass, ashtrays brimming with cigar butts. There were more cartons in a haphazard circle around the table. Two facing sofas in the living room were stacked with narrow boxes some twelve inches square. A television set was piled high with shoe boxes, old TV Guides, and newspapers. A sweater, a shirt, a pair of undershorts, and an old hat were resting on the seat of a chair drawn up close to the television set.

The apartment was stiflingly hot.

David took a deep breath, went to the window air conditioner and turned it on. From where he stood at the window, he could see into the kitchen. Pots and pans, dirty dishes, cups and glasses were piled in the sink and on the drain-board. A stepladder was leaning against the kitchen door that opened onto the outside hallway. Even from here, David could see that the only locks on the door were the push-button one on the knob and a chain hanging at eye level. His father had barricaded his front door but had neglected to take the same precaution with his kitchen door.

He had to begin looking for the duplicate copy of the tax form.

His father had said, “In the bedroom someplace. One of the drawers there.”

He walked out of the living room, toward the entrance door, and then turned left into the corridor there. More cartons were stacked along either wall, making passage almost impossible. He looked into the bathroom on his right. A sign on the partially open door, hand-lettered by his father, read THIS IS IT! A sign over the toilet-paper roll, again hand-lettered, read FREE! Bottles of medicine, tubes of toothpaste and ointment cluttered the counter around the sink. There were soiled towels on the floor. An enema bag hung on a wire hanger from the sliding doors that enclosed the bathtub. One of the doors was open. Stacked in the bathtub, almost to the ceiling, were more of the twelve-inch-square boxes he had seen on both sofas. His plates, David thought. His plate collection.

He went into the bedroom.

A pair of twin beds faced a big dresser with a mirror over it. Photographs of people David didn’t know lined the mirror. A smaller dresser was beside the bed closest to the door, near the closet. A third and yet smaller dresser stood against the wall between the closet door and the entrance door to the bedroom. Each of the dresser tops was covered with stacks of newspapers and magazines. On top of another television set, on a trolley near the windows, there were more stacks of TV Guides. One of the beds, presumably the one his father did not sleep in, was piled high with cartons, envelopes, manila folders, and dirty clothes. At least a dozen pairs of shoes were scattered all over the bedroom floor. Pictures clipped from magazines and newspapers were Scotch-taped to every inch of wall space.

David stood dumbfounded in the middle of the room.

He was closest to the big dresser, so he tried that one first. The top drawer was full of his father’s socks, handkerchiefs, undershorts, and undershirts. The second drawer contained his shirts and sweaters. David opened the third drawer. It was full of bank statements still in their envelopes and rubber-banded together. Under each rubber band was a hand-lettered slip of paper identifying the year in which his father had received the statements. Even at a glance, David saw that some of the statements went back ten years. Didn’t he ever throw anything away? The bottom drawer of the dresser contained bills and receipts for all the businesses his father had opened and closed, evidence of his failures, each marked with the name of the business and the years through which it had struggled for survival. I’m looking at the history of his life, David thought, and suddenly felt like an intruder.

He was here to find a duplicate tax form.

He went to the dresser near the twin bed stacked high with cartons. The top drawer of the dresser was stuffed with postage-free return envelopes and postage-free cards torn from magazines, each marked with a date. Are these valuable? David wondered. Is there anyone on earth who collects postage-free envelopes and cards except my father? The second and third drawers contained cigar boxes. He opened one of the boxes. It was full of cigar bands. He opened another box. More cigar bands. Did people collect cigar bands? He supposed they did. He supposed people collected anything, including other people. When he was a boy, his father used to unwrap a cigar and then slip the band onto David’s ring finger. He opened another box. It was stacked with gum wrappers, matchbook covers, and bottle tops. Another box contained canceled postage stamps. Another was brimming with pennies. Another had baseball trading cards in it. Yet another was full of dice. Red dice, ivory dice, green dice, a single die on a key chain, another huge one with rounded corners. And dominoes. Three dominoes. In a box he recognized as having contained the cigars he’d sent from Dunhill’s last Father’s Day, David found yet more cigar bands and, buried under the heap, a passbook for the United First Federal Bank. He slid the passbook out of its plastic holder and opened it. The name on the account was MORRIS L. WEBER ITF/DAVID WEBER AND MOLLY WEBER. His father had withdrawn $600 in March, probably for his trip north, leaving a balance on that day of $1075.62.

The discovery of the passbook in a cigar box which could easily have been overlooked in a clutter of similar cigar boxes containing canceled postage stamps, gum wrappers, matchbook covers, bottle tops, baseball trading cards, cigar bands, dice, and three goddamn dominoes made David suddenly angry. How could his father have been so careless? He put the passbook back in the cigar box and closed the drawer. Still annoyed, he turned to the last of the bedroom dressers, the smallest one. Let me find the damn tax form, he thought. Let me get out of here. He opened the top drawer.

Photographs.

Photographs heaped haphazardly in no particular chronological order. A brown eight-by-ten picture in a professional photographer’s studio folder, his Uncle Max’s wedding day. Dashing Uncle Max beaming at the camera, his dark-haired, dark-eyed Rachel by his side smiling. David’s mother and father on their left, the matron of honor and the best man. He closed the folder. There were pictures of his mother and father standing in front of the Eiffel Tower on the European trip David’s trust fund had made possible. There were pictures of his mother when she was pregnant with David. There were pictures of David as a young boy in a sailor suit sitting on the running board of Uncle Max’s Studebaker. There were pictures of David in Army uniform. There was a picture of David in the dining room of his New York apartment, carving a Thanksgiving Day turkey while the rest of the family sat around the table. There was a picture — ah, Jesus — of David with his infant son in his arms, David’s inherited famous Weber nose flattened against his son’s plump cheek as he planted a kiss, Stephen grinning at the—

He closed the drawer.

He turned away from the dresser for a moment.

He took a deep breath.

I don’t want to be here, he thought. Not yet.

I don’t want to be rummaging through my father’s life this way. The tax form, he thought. Death and taxes. Sighing, he turned to the dresser again. The middle drawer was stacked with letters. In one corner of the drawer, near the back, he found a bundle of envelopes tied with string. Handwritten on a sheet of paper and slipped under the string were the words PRIVATE! HANDS OFF! He was tempted to break the string and read the letters. He did not. His father wasn’t dead yet. Searching through the drawer for the tax form — wasn’t it possible he’d put it with the rest of his correspondence? — he found an envelope with his own handwriting on it. The handwriting read: To Mom, with love, David. He opened the envelope, expecting to find an old birthday card in it, something he had presented to his mother years ago, accompanying a small gift perhaps. There was a letter in the envelope. He unfolded the letter and recognized his mother’s small, neat handwriting. He began reading.

He folded the letter again. The edges of it were brown, the ink was fading. He did not want to read it. He did not want to know anything more about his father. But he slipped the letter into his jacket pocket. And then decided to put it back in the drawer with the other letters. But left it where it was in his pocket.

The bottom drawer of the dresser was full of greeting cards his father had undoubtedly bought from a mail-order house. Birthday cards, Easter and Christmas cards for his gentile friends, Chanukah cards, get-well cards, St. Valentine’s Day cards, anniversary cards, graduation cards, even St. Patrick’s Day cards. There was a clipboard in the drawer, a lined yellow pad attached to it. On the pad were listed the names and birth dates of his father’s relatives and friends. He had kept a list over the past ten years of anyone he’d ever sent a birthday card to. David scanned the list. He found his own name and his birth date beside it. According to his father’s check marks, he had received a card from him like clockwork every August for the past ten years. He looked for Molly’s name. He looked for his Uncle Max’s. Both had routinely received cards from his father.

There was another clipboard in the drawer, resting on a pile of what appeared to be cards his father had received over the years. Lettered in his father’s hand across the top of a sheet of paper was the word CHANUKAH. Beneath the word, lettered neatly onto another line, were the words CARDS SENT. Below that was a list of names with dates beside them. On the opposite side of the page, his father had lettered CARDS RCVD, and below that was another list of names and dates. The word DELINQUENTS was hand-lettered close to the bottom of the page. There were a dozen or more names under this word, those friends or relatives who hadn’t sent him a card for the holidays. David’s name was on that list. Delinquents, he thought.

He found the tax form tucked into a sheaf of rubber-banded envelopes containing discount coupons for supermarket items. Great place to file a tax form, he thought. Terrific, Pop. A Xerox copy of the check his father had made out was stapled to the form. His father had indeed paid the amount due the United States Government on April 15, right on the dot. David slipped the form back into the accountant’s envelope and then put the envelope into the pocket containing his mother’s letter. Again, he debated returning her letter to its place in the middle drawer of the dresser. But it was still in his pocket when he turned off the air conditioner and left the apartment, carefully locking all three locks behind him.

He felt as if he’d been released from prison, pardoned by the governor at the eleventh hour. He was back at the hotel by a quarter to one, the whole day ahead of him (until seven o’clock, at least), no rigid timetable demanding that he return to the hospital. His father had come through the operation alive, his father was safe for the time being; he had only to call Molly, and then he was free till seven o’clock.

“Hello?” she said.

“Molly, it’s me,” he said.

“Tell me,” she said.

“They operated on him this morning. He’s all right, but they didn’t find anything. They still don’t know what the problem is.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Not yet. I’ll be going back to the hospital at seven.”

“What will you do until then?” she asked.

“Have a good lunch,” he said, “take a long walk on the beach, swim awhile, sun awhile, relax.”

“Good,” she said.

Floating on his back in the tepid water just off the hotel, the afternoon sun beating down on his chest and his belly and his legs, he felt his first pang of guilt. What if his father never came out of the anesthesia? What if his father died while he was here enjoying the sun and the sea? No, he thought, he’ll live. He’ll be there when I get there at seven o’clock, the anesthesia will have worn off completely by then, he’ll recognize me, he’ll be alive. Who was it who’d said — someone, some kid in Korea, a nineteen-year-old like himself, freezing his ass off and fighting a war he neither understood nor trusted — who had it been? The real danger is living, he’d said, and David had thought it enormously profound at the time. Nineteen years old, what the hell, everything sounded profound. When you got to be twenty-nine, and then thirty-nine—

“Hello there!” she called. “David! Is that you?”

He recognized her voice, the English cadences, the youthful timbre. He lowered his legs, treading water, and looked toward the shore. She was wearing the same minuscule black bikini he’d seen her wearing on Tuesday, when he’d watched her taking her solitary early-morning walk on the beach. Her hands were on her hips.

“Is it safe out there?” she shouted.

“Safe? What do you mean?”

“Are there sharks?”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“I’m afraid of sharks!” she shouted.

“No, I don’t think you need be.”

“Wait for me,” she said, and went back to where she had spread a towel on the sand. He saw her taking off her watch. He wondered what time it was; he had left his own watch in the room. She walked down to the water’s edge, hesitated a moment, and took a tentative step forward.

“I’m terrified,” she said.

“No, don’t be.”

She came slowly into the water, her hands raised as if in defense, hovering near the full breasts in the scanty bikini top, fingers fluttering. A faint sea breeze caught her long blond hair, blowing it across her face. She brushed it back with her hand, took another step into the water.

“It’s very warm, isn’t it?” she called. She sounded surprised.

“Lovely,” he said.

When she was in the water to her waist, she took a deep breath, hesitated, and then made a clean dive. He waited. She surfaced some three feet from where he was treading water and immediately looked out past him, scanning the surface. “What’s that?” she said, alarmed.

He turned to look.

“Coconut shell,” he said.

“Not a fin?”

“No.”

“I’d hate to get eaten by a shark,” she said. “Let’s move in where we can touch bottom. Sharks don’t like shallow water, do they?”

They swam in closer to the shore and stood together hip-deep in the shallow water. The water moved gently against his belly. She made tiny circles on the water with her hands. Her hands moved restlessly on the water.

“When do you go back to London?” he asked.

“London?”

“I thought you lived in London. Didn’t you say...?”

“No, no. Oxford.”

“Ah,” he said.

“Do you know Oxford?”

“I’ve never been there.”

“It’s quite lovely.”

“Where is it? On the coast someplace? Near Birmingham?”

“Birmingham? Birmingham’s almost in the exact center of England!”

“What am I thinking of then?”

“Well, I really couldn’t say. There are quite a few coastal cities, you know. We’re an island, you know. Do you really not know where Oxford is?”

“I really don’t.”

“That’s like asking where... I don’t know... New Haven is.”

“Do you know where New Haven is?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” he said, smiling, “but I honestly do not know where Oxford is.”

“It’s north and west of London,” she said.

“But not on the coast.”

“Not on any of the coasts. It’s inland, actually. Some fifty or sixty miles from Southampton.” She paused. Her hands made idle circles on the water. “I suppose an American wouldn’t consider that very far.”

“Not very. Where’s Southampton?”

“You’re joking!”

“Where is it?”

“On the Channel. It’s an enormous port, do you really not know where it is?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“You’re teasing me, I know you are.”

“I’m not.”

“Then your ignorance is shameful,” she said, and they both laughed.

“In any case, when are you going back?”

“Saturday, Sunday, as soon as I’ve finished here. And you?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Of course not. It all depends, I suppose, on...”

“Yes.”

“Let’s swim out a ways now, shall we?” she said. “I feel much more secure now.”

They swam out into the deeper water, side by side. She had a strong, clean stroke; he found it difficult to keep up with her. He thought of his father in the hospital, and then put it out of his mind. He put everything out of his mind. There was only the sea now, and the sun overhead, and the girl swimming by his side. The sea glistened everywhere around them; the sun was strong overhead. All that gold, the diamonds, the diamonds. They swam out very deep. When at last they stopped to rest, treading water, they were both out of breath.

“That was marvelous,” she said.

They were very far from the shore.

“We still have to get back,” David said.

“Oh, we will,” she said. “Not yet, though. Let’s rest a bit. Let’s lie on our backs, and float, and drift, and rest.”

They floated free on their backs in the water. They bobbed on the surface, legs akimbo, arms spread. Their hands almost touched.

“If this were Marbella,” she said, “I’d have my top off in a wink.”

He said nothing.

They floated. The sun beat down on them.

“Do I dare here in America?” she asked.

Without waiting for an answer, she righted herself in the water and reached behind her to unclasp the bikini top. She floated on her back beside him again, the black top in one hand, trailing on the water. He did not turn to look at her.

“I hope sharks don’t like English breasts,” she said, and laughed. Her laughter splintered on the sunlit air, drifted. The water murmured around them. They floated.

“Delicious,” she said.

They drifted.

“Here in the sea,” she said, “it could be Spain, couldn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Or anywhere, actually. France, Italy...” Her voice drifted.

They floated.

“Have you ever been to Italy?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

She was silent for a moment.

Then she said, “Are you married, David?”

He hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “Are you?”

“I used to be.”

“Divorced?”

“Yes. Why did you hesitate?” she asked. “Were you about to lie?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then why did you hesitate?”

“I guess... well, I’m not used to this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Meeting a young girl...”

“Young? Why, thank you.”

“You are,” he said.

“Twenty-nine,” she said.

“When a man’s fifty, twenty-nine seems...”

“Are you fifty?”

“I’ll be fifty in August.”

“That’s still forty-nine.”

“Well.”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“It feels like fifty.”

“Anyway, do go on, please. About meeting a young girl, please don’t leave out the young part.”

“And... talking this way... sharing an afternoon this way...”

His voice trailed.

“How long have you been married?” she asked.

“Almost twenty-two years.”

“That’s quite a long time.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any children?”

He hesitated again.

“No,” he said.

They floated in the sea, he and Molly. The sun was strong overhead.

“This is the only way to live,” she said.

“Who needs money?” he said.

It was three o’clock in East Hampton. In Connecticut, his son was just getting off the train at the Darien station. Three p.m., his friend later said. That was when Stephen had arrived. His friend was waiting for him in the Jaguar that later killed him.

“We’ve never done it in the ocean,” Molly said. “Do you realize that?”

“Shrivels up in the water,” David said.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

“They’d see us,” David said.

“We’ll charge admission,” Molly said, and laughed.

“Make a fortune,” David said.

All the television newscasters had warned their viewers to keep away from Lower Manhattan today. Biggest celebration in the history of the city. Two hundredth anniversary of American independence. The crush would be unbelievable. They had decided to trust the dire forecasts. At first they thought they might stay in the apartment part of the day, away from the crowd. Mix some drinks, watch the festivities on television. But David’s partner called early in the morning, inviting them out to the Island, one of his famous last-minute invitations. Big fireworks display tonight, he’d promised. Parties all over town. Stephen was packing to leave for Connecticut, to visit with a schoolmate there. He would not be back till late Monday sometime. They had not known he would never be back. They accepted the invitation.

They floated, they drifted.

“Do you know who loves you?” Molly said.

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“Three guesses. If you guess wrong, I’ll wave my magic wand and turn you into a toad.”

“Sophia Loren,” he said.

“Wrong.”

“Jane Fonda.”

“One more guess.”

“Alice Reardon.”

“Who’s that?”

“Girl I knew in the third grade. Irish girl.”

“I’m your Irish girl,” Molly said.

“My Yiddishe Shiksa.”

“Where’s that thing?” she said, reaching for him.

“Come on, hey!”

“Where’s my magic wand?”

Her hand groped for the front of his swimming trunks. He was aware of the people on the beach. He could hear the murmur of voices hanging on the air, floating, drifting. Somewhere there was the echo of a scratchy phonograph record on a windup machine. A single cloud drifted overhead. He could feel moist sea wind on his face. Laughing, he swam away from her. She swam after him. He splashed water at her. She splashed water back. He wiped his face. Laughing, he was ready to splash her again when he realized she was no longer giving chase. She treaded water some five feet away from him. Her hand broke the surface.

“Interested, baby?” she asked with a lewd wink, and waved her bikini bottom at him.

“Put that back on,” he said.

“Free show, free show!” she yelled to the beach.

“Molly, come on!” he said, glancing over his shoulder toward the beach.

“Race you back,” she said, the bikini bottom still in her hand. She broke into a fast crawl. He swam after her. He caught her. He pulled her to him.

“Put on your pants,” he said.

“Take yours off,” she said.

She moved closer to him in the circle of his arms.

“Let’s fuck in the water,” she said.

He was already hard.

“Save it for later,” he said.

“Promise?”

“Solemn oath.”

“Who loves you?” she said.

“You love me,” he said.

She kissed him.

“You’re supposed to say something in return,” she said.

“I love you, Molly. I love you to death.”

She put on the bikini bottom.

“We’ll do it in the tub later,” she said.

“Let’s go do it in the tub now,” he said.

“Can’t. Big party at four o’clock.”

“How am I supposed to walk out on the beach with this thing?” he asked.

“Your own fault,” she said. “I could have taken care of it in a minute.”

“They’ll arrest me for indecent exposure. I’ll be disbarred.”

“Just let it shrivel, darling,” she said airily, and began swimming back toward the beach.

The round of parties started at four o’clock. At about that time, according to Stephen’s friend, the kids were sitting around drinking beer, smoking a little pot, bullshitting the afternoon away. There was supposed to be a parade in town later in the day. The kids all planned to go to it. And fireworks that night. There would be fireworks all over America tonight.

Molly looked stunning. She wore a white backless dress and a white scarf across her forehead and tied at the back of her head. Her blond hair cascaded from it. He called her Nurse Regen.

“That scarf makes you look like an old-fashioned nurse,” he said.

“I am an old-fashioned nurse,” she said.

“Florence Nightingale,” he said.

“You can be my patient later,” she said.

“I’m getting impatient,” he said.

“Thank you, Morris Weber,” she said.

There was the usual East Hampton crowd at all of the parties. Writers, artists, actors, television people, movie people, and all the lawyers who represented them.

“Lawyers are boring,” Molly whispered.

“I’m a lawyer,” he whispered back.

“You’re a very special lawyer,” she said. “If I’m any judge.”

“Thank you, Morris Weber,” he said.

The fireworks started shortly after dark. They realized later that Stephen must have been getting behind the wheel of the car at about that time. Molly ooohed and ahhhed as the fireworks erupted against the black sky. He held her hand. She squeezed his hand each time there was another explosion, another flash of color against the black. The Jaguar had been a birthday present to Stephen’s friend. His friend would be a graduating senior next semester. He was seventeen years old. Stephen was fifteen. He would have been a sophomore in the fall. If he’d gone back to school. His friend had allowed him to take the Jaguar for a spin. Stephen did not have a driver’s license. On the phone later, the state trooper would mention that Stephen did not have a driver’s license. Exoneration for the state of Connecticut. The fireworks exploded against the blackness. Everyone ooohed and ahhhed.

The call did not come until almost ten-thirty. There was another party in progress, this one at David’s partner’s beach house. It was David’s partner who called him to the phone.

“Mr. Weber?” the voice on the other end said.

“Is it Stephen?” Molly called from across the room. They had given him the number here before he’d left for Connecticut.

“This is Mr. Weber,” David said.

“Is it Stephen?” Molly called again.

“This is Trooper Harrington of the Connecticut State Police,” the voice said. “We’ve been trying to get you at home, Mr. Weber, we only just now found the slip of paper in your son’s wallet.”

“Slip of paper?” David said.

“With this number on it. Am I talking to Mr. Weber?”

“This is Mr. Weber. My son’s wallet?”

“Mr. Weber, I’m sorry to have to tell you this...”

“No,” David said.

“What is it?” Molly said. She was standing by his side now.

“Mr. Weber,” the trooper said, “your son’s been in a car accident. Mr. Weber, I’m sorry, but your son is dead, sir. He was driving without a license, sir, his car ran into...”

“No,” David said. “He’s not dead.”

Molly screamed.

Outside the house, the ocean crashed in against the shore.

“You’re not falling asleep, are you?” Hillary asked.

“No, no,” he said.

“Good way to drown,” she said. “Are you ready to go back in? The sun seems to be deserting us.”

“Whenever you are,” he said.

“I’d best put this on,” she said.

Treading water, she cupped her breasts into the flimsy bra top. Her nipples were puckered. Her breasts were spattered with freckles.

“Do they suit you?” she asked, and smiled.

They swam back toward the beach together.

“Morrie, it’s me!” Sidney shouted. “Your cousin Sidney! Do you recognize me, Morrie? If you recognize me, blink your eyes once. If you don’t recognize me, blink your eyes twice.”

His father’s eyes looked glazed. He lay flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling. His eyes drifted, floated.

“Morrie? Can you hear me?”

“Lower your voice,” David said.

“I don’t think he can hear me. Morrie, if you can hear me, blink your eyes once.”

There was a tube in his father’s mouth, a thicker one than all the others. A strip of adhesive tape held it in place, partially covering his chin and his lips. There was moisture inside the tube. The tube looked clouded over on the inside. His father’s eyes kept floating, drifting.

“Morrie, can you blink? If you can hear me, blink once,” Sidney said. David wanted to strangle him. “Morrie?”

His father blinked his eyes.

“See?” Sidney said triumphantly. “He can hear me. Morrie, if you know who I am, blink your eyes again.”

“He knows who you are,” Bessie said. She was standing beside the bed, holding his father’s hand between both her own. “Never mind blinking, Morris. Just rest,” she said.

“How will I know if he knows I’m here?” Sidney said.

“We’ll tell him later,” David said.

“What good will that do?” Sidney said. “If he doesn’t know I was really here?”

He was looking for Brownie points, the son of a bitch!

“Are you in any pain, Pop?” David asked. “I know you can’t talk with that tube in your mouth, but if you can just...”

His father slowly shook his head.

“No pain?”

His father shook his head again.

“Good,” David said.

His father’s floating brown eyes shifted, came to rest on David’s face, seemed to focus there questioningly.

“The operation’s over and done with,” David said.

His father’s eyes stayed on his face, waiting, questioning.

“They found what they were looking for, Pop,” he said. “The cause of the infection. They got it, Pop. It’s all gone now.”

Bessie looked at him.

“There’s nothing to stop you from getting well now,” David said.

His eyes met Bessie’s. Bessie turned away. She leaned over the bed, close to his father’s ear.

“That’s right, Morris,” she said. “They found it, and now you’ll get better.”

His father nodded.

“What did they find?” Sidney whispered. David shot him a look. “Well, what?” Sidney asked.

“Pop,” David said, “we want you to rest now, do you understand? We’ll come back tomorrow morning, okay?” He looked up at the wall clock. “It’s almost a quarter past seven, Pop, we have to go now. We’ll be back at eleven in the morning. Okay, Pop?”

His father slowly raised his hand from the sheet. His eyes focused on his hand. He extended his forefinger. He made a downward slash on the air with his forefinger.

“What’s that, Pop?”

He made the motion again.

“I don’t understand, Pop.”

Again a single stroke on the air.

“Are you trying to spell something?”

His father nodded.

“Is that a letter?”

His father nodded.

“Do it again.”

His father’s shaking finger made the downward stroke again.

“I?” David said.

“He’s trying to say ‘I love you,’ ” Bessie said.

His father shook his head.

“Is it the letter T?” David asked.

His father nodded. He made another downward stroke, a loop, a tail.

“R?” David said. “I, R?”

His father nodded. His finger trailed serpentinely on the air, shaking.

“S,” David said. “I, R, S. Oh, the tax form. I found it, Pop, it was in one of the bedroom drawers, just where you said it was. You don’t have to worry, you paid it when it was due.”

His father nodded. He closed his eyes. Bessie went to the bed. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she said.

“You rest now,” David said.

Bessie leaned over the bed.

“Sleep well, Morris,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

“I was here, Morrie,” Sidney said. “I’ll see you Tuesday. So long, Morrie.”

David went to the bed and kissed his father on the forehead. He still felt damp and hot. He turned away from the bed. Bessie and Sidney had already gone out into the corridor. He stopped at the nurses’ station. The Cuban nurse was on duty this evening.

“How’s his temperature?” he asked her.

She looked at his chart. “A hun’red an’ one,” she said. “But tha’s rectal, it’s not so high.”

“Everything else okay? His heart? Is his heart okay?”

“Yes, fine,” she said. “Please don’ worry, Mr. Weber, we takin’ good care of him.”

“I know that,” David said. “Thank you.”

Bessie and Sidney were waiting just outside the door to the unit.

“What was it they found?” Sidney asked at once.

“A small abscess,” David lied. “They drained it. He’ll be fine now.”

Sidney looked at him.

“He doesn’t look like he’ll be fine,” he said.

“He’s still groggy,” David said.

“But he looks lousy. I never seen him look so terrible. Even after the first operation, he looked better than he does now, am I right, Bessie? I picked you up that day, you remember? Drove all the way from Lauderdale, stopped at the house to pick you up, drove you here, we were here right after the operation. He was groggy then, too, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he does now, this was before I started having all the trouble with my buggy, he looked much better than he does now. You want my opinion, Davey, I’d ask the doctor to amplify on what he told you, find out just what it was they discovered in there, putting an eighty-two-year-old man under the knife for the second time in a month, he’s no spring chicken, your dad. I’d find out just why they went in, and just what they discovered in there, what it was they did in there. I’d ask for amplification, Davey, you know what I mean?”

“I’ll do that, Sidney,” David said. “When I talk to the doctor later.”

“I’d do it now,” Sidney said. “I’d go right in the waiting room and use the phone on the desk there and call the doctor and find out whether they got everything they went in for. Otherwise, they’ll want to go in again in two, three weeks, there’s only so much shock the human body can take, he’s eighty-two years old, you know, that’s not a spring chicken. Even when Lillian, your cousin Lillian, went in to have her plumbing fixed, it was a tremendous shock to the body, simple little thing like a D and C, am I right? She’s only forty-eight years old, never been sick a day in her life, still it was very upsetting to the entire system. Your dad looks terrible, Davey, I never seen him look so bad, I don’t even think he knows I was here today, you know that? He didn’t blink his eyes when I told him to, when I asked him if he recognized his own cousin who takes him wherever he wants to go in a car that’s falling apart already, I don’t think he knew it was Sidney there talking to him. Well, you tell him I was here, willya? Convince him I was here. I don’t think he realizes it, I mean it. I don’t have to be in Miami on Thursdays, you know, I only came to see your dad, I don’t think he even knows I was here. Well, listen, I’m not asking for a medal. Just tell him I was here, okay? Tell him I’ll be back on Tuesday, will you still be here on Tuesday? When are you going home?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, it all depends, I guess, don’t it? I’d stay here as long as possible, Davey, you never know.”

“Yeah,” David said.

“So that’s it,” Sidney said, “I gotta get back to Lauderdale, there’s a leak in my swimming pool, the guy says he can fix it for six hundred bucks, how do you like that? I’m gonna drain the damn thing myself, patch it up myself, who needs him? Six hundred bucks? What does he think I am, the Chase Manhattan? I can fix it myself, the hell with him. Well, I’ll see you, Davey, let’s hope he makes it through the night, huh, the way he looked in there.” Sidney shook his head. “I’d drop you off, Bessie, but I gotta go in the opposite direction, pick up some Venetian blinds Lillian ordered, your cousin Lillian, Davey. So I’ll see you, okay?”

He limped away, up the corridor, and turned the bend out of sight.

“What do you think?” Bessie said.

“I don’t know.”

“You think it was right to lie to your father?”

“I think so. If I’d told him they found nothing...”

“I guess you’re right,” Bessie said. She thought this over for a moment. “I guess so. If he thinks he’s getting better, maybe he will get better.”

“Yes,” David said.

“So,” Bessie said, and sighed. “Did you pick up his mail? When you were at the building?”

“Damn it, I forgot,” David said.

“You forgot the mail,” she said, “I keep forgetting the scissors. Don’t worry about it, I’ll stop by the building tomorrow morning. He might want to see his mail before he...”

She let the sentence trail.

“Just the first-class stuff,” David said. “If it isn’t any bother.”

“It’s no bother,” Bessie said. “I do the best what I can.” She sighed deeply. “I’ll pick up the mail. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and hesitated. “You’re getting enough to eat?” she asked.

“What?” he said.

“Because... it wouldn’t be much... but if you want me to cook something for you...”

“No, that’s all right, thanks,” he said at once.

“I could make you something,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said, “I’ll be okay.”

She shrugged, as though she’d been expecting him to refuse her invitation and was not terribly surprised or disappointed now that he had. He thought, Hey, come on, I hardly know you, lady. I mean, go cook his meals, okay? Whoever he may think you are, you’re not my mother.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll meet you by the Emergency Room, ten-thirty tomorrow. I know you like the Main, but I like the Emergency.”

“Yes, fine,” he said.

“Good night,” she said, and sighed again.

“Good night, Bessie,” he said.

He sat alone in the disco bar, drinking.

He had already drunk two martinis. He was on his third martini. The bartender came up to him. The lights over the dance floor flashed and beeped. Beep, beep, beep. Like the little lights on the machines all around his father’s bed.

“How you doing here?” the bartender asked.

“Fine,” David said. Fine and dandy, he thought.

“You all alone down here in Miami?” the bartender said.

“All alone,” David said.

That wasn’t quite true. He had his father. But that was the same as being all alone, wasn’t it? Hell with it, he thought. I’m not under oath here.

“You interested in somebody?” the bartender asked.

“I’m interested in everybody,” David said. That was true. He was an interested observer of the entire world, officer of the court, minion of the law.

“You want somebody?” the bartender asked.

“I want another martini,” David said.

“Beefeater martini, two olives,” the bartender said, and walked away.

Do I want somebody? David thought. Yes, I want somebody. Who do I want? Whom, excuse me. My mother, he thought. I want my mother. Your mother is dead, somebody said. His father. The somebody was his father, at two o’clock in the morning. On the telephone. It always came on the goddamn telephone. Your mother is dead, his father said.

The bartender put the fresh drink before him.

“Seriously,” he said, “you interested in somebody?”

David looked at him.

“Black, white, Chinese, you name it,” the bartender said.

“Golden,” David said.

“What?” the bartender said.

“Labrador retriever,” David said.

“I’m serious,” the bartender said.

“Am I to believe, sir,” David said, “that you are offering me a lady of the night?”

“What?” the bartender said.

“A hooker?” David said.

“These ain’t hookers,” the bartender said.

“Then what are they?”

“Women who will offer you their comfort.”

“In that event, I’ll take two of them,” David said. “I need all the comfort I can get.”

“Two would be easy,” the bartender said.

“Then make it three.”

“Three would cost you,” the bartender said.

“How much would it cost me? Do you know how much it costs to go to the hospital four times a day? Eleven, two, four, and seven?”

“What’s those figures? Is that what it costs?”

“Those are the hours.”

“This would cost by the hour,” the bartender said, nodding.

“Terrific,” David said. “I charge by the hour, too.”

“You really want a couple of girls?”

“Three, I said.”

“You think you can handle three?”

“No.”

“So how many you want?”

“How many colors you got?”

“Colors?” ”

“I want a rainbow.”

“Why you going to the hospital four times a day? You sick?”

“Very,” David said.

“What’ve you got?”

“Terminal shittiness.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s what you get when you’re fifty,” David said.

“I’m fifty, and I ain’t got it,” the bartender said.

“Lucky you,” David said, and sipped at his drink.

“Seriously, you want two black girls?” the bartender asked.

“I want an Indian girl,” David said.

“Indian girls are a little difficult down here,” the bartender said. “I can get you a Cuban, some of them got Indian blood.”

“I want a pure-blooded Indian. American Indian. Mohican,” David said. “I want the last of the Mohicans.”

“You want a Chinese girl?” the bartender said.

“I want a Hindu.”

“Be serious, okay? You want a girl, or don’t you?”

“I already got a girl,” David said.

“So where is she?”

Who the hell knows? David thought.

“Twenty bucks for the agency fee,” the bartender said. “The rest is between you and the girl.”

“What agency?” David asked.

“Me,” the bartender said.

“You’re some agency,” David said.

“White, black, Chinese, Cuban, you name it.”

“Between me and the girl, huh?”

“Strictly.”

“How much between me and the girl?”

“It usually runs a hundred an hour.”

“That’s almost what I charge,” David said.

“That’s the going rate.”

“That’s the coming rate, you mean.”

“What? Oh, yeah,” the bartender said, and grinned. “So what do you say?”

“I say my father’s dying.”

“What?”

“Send three girls to my father’s room at St. Mary’s. Tell him they’re a present from his son.”

“What?”

“Who doesn’t love him,” David said.

“What?” the bartender said.

“Never mind,” David said.

The bartender shrugged and walked off.

Two o’clock in the morning, David thought. The telephone doesn’t ring at two o’clock in the morning unless somebody’s dead. He couldn’t think of anybody who might be dead. He hoped it was his father.

Hey, wait a minute, he thought.

Hey, shit, I didn’t think that, did I?

Did I?

Your mother is dead, his father told him.

Flat out.

Your mother is dead.

A heart attack. Sixty-nine years old, perfect health, she dies of a heart attack in the middle of the night; his father calls at 2:00 a.m., your mother is dead, bingo.

David said, “I’ll be right there.”

“It can wait till morning,” his father said.

Well, everything can wait till morning, David thought. Your mother dies, it can wait till morning, right? Probably wished she would die, the bastard, so he could—

Well, wait a minute, you don’t know if that’s true.

Your Honor, I beg the Court’s indulgence. Hearsay...

Sustained.

It was true, David thought.

Shit, it had to be true. He left home, didn’t he? Well, she kicked him out, he thought.

I don’t want to think about it, he thought.

He sipped at his martini. The bartender was watching him. He ambled over to David just as he was finishing the drink.

“You want another one of these? Or you want a girl instead?”

“Neither,” David said.

He added a tip to the check, signed it, and walked out of the bar and up the long curving marble steps that led to the ornate lobby. Hillary Watkins was sitting in one of the brocaded chairs. Elementary, my dear Watkins, he thought.

“Ah, there you are,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

He could not recall having asked her to wait for him. Married men were not supposed to ask young, long-legged English girls alone in a deserted town to wait for them.

“How are you?” she said.

“Fine,” he said.

“Have you had dinner yet?”

“No.”

“Neither have I. Why don’t we eat together? I’m ravenously hungry, it’s almost nine o’clock.”

“No, thanks, not tonight. Thank you.”

“Tomorrow night then?”

She was watching him closely. Her long legs were crossed. She was wearing a white dress. A sprig of flowers was in her hair. She looked like a bride. A young bride.

“Well, I don’t know what tomorrow will be,” he said.

“Tomorrow will be Friday,” she said.

“I suppose it will,” he said. He felt suddenly very weary.

“It might do you good to forget your troubles for a while,” she said.

“It might indeed.” What troubles? he thought. My father is dying is the only trouble I’ve got.

“Let’s make it definite for tomorrow night, shall we?”

He said nothing.

“Or would you rather ring me up when you get back from the hospital? What time do you normally get back from the hospital?”

“Seven-thirty,” he said.

“Ring me,” she said. “I’m in room seventeen-twelve.” Her green-eyed gaze would not leave his face. “Will you ring me?”

“I’ll see what happens tomorrow,” he said.

“Or later tonight, perhaps. If you find you’re hungry.”

He looked at her.

“I have no other plans,” she said. “I’ll be in my room.”

“Well, thanks,” he said.

How is you father? she asked.

“So-so,” he said.

“I’m awfully sorry.”

“Yes, well,” he said, and shrugged.

“I lied to you,” she said suddenly. “I’m not twenty-nine. I’m thirty. I was thirty last month. I simply can’t bring myself to admit it.”

I lied to you, too, he thought.

He said nothing.

“Well, good night,” she said, and uncrossed her legs and rose. “I suppose I’ll order something from room service. I’m sure they’re still serving, wouldn’t you think?”

“I would guess so.”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “You’re sure you won’t join me?”

“I don’t think so, thanks.”

“Well, good night again,” she said. “If you should want to talk or anything...”

“Yes, thank you.”

“It’s seventeen-twelve.”

“Seventeen-twelve,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Good night, David.”

“Good night, Hillary.”

He watched her as she walked to the elevators. He went to the front desk and asked for his key. The clerk asked him if he still planned to check out tomorrow.

“Is that what I told you?” David said.

“Yes, sir, when you registered.”

“Better extend it a few more days. I’m not sure what...” He paused. “My father’s very sick, you see. He’s in the hospital here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Shall we extend your stay till Sunday then?”

“Yes, Sunday, please,” David said.

“We’ll do that, sir. Good night, sir.”

“Good night,” David said.

The elevator stopped on the twelfth floor; it always stopped on the twelfth floor. The fifteenth-floor corridor was empty; it was always empty. He wondered when the South American contingent would arrive. Never, he thought. He went to his room and fumbled with the key in the lock and finally got the door open. The room was neither too hot nor too cool, would wonders never? He undressed down to his undershorts and then went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He looked at himself in the mirror.

“You’re a damn fool, Counselor,” he said to the mirror.

He snapped off the bathroom light and went back into the bedroom. He drew the drapes. He took off his undershorts and got into bed and pulled the covers up over him. He lay looking up at the ceiling. He could find faces in the rough plaster surface of the ceiling. He kept staring at the ceiling.

His mother had found the receipt in the back of his father’s top dresser drawer, what they used to call his chifferobe. It was in a Phillies cigar box that also contained four cellophane-wrapped cigars. His mother had thought the box was empty; she periodically went through his dresser to clear out the clutter. If the box had been empty, she would have thrown it out. She opened the box and discovered the four cigars and the receipt. There was a jeweler’s name on the receipt. Samalson Brothers on Jerome Avenue, where his father had just opened another new business. The address on the receipt was right next door to his father’s shop. The receipt listed a pair of diamond earrings at four hundred and twenty-five dollars plus tax. The receipt was marked “Paid In Full.” A signature was scrawled at the bottom of the receipt. She thought it read Ezra Samalson, but she couldn’t be sure. She looked for a date on the receipt. In the upper right-hand corner, she found the numerals 6/12/53.

What was in June this year? she wondered.

A birthday? An anniversary? Certainly not hers. Her birthday was in April, and her anniversary was in January. So what was in June? Why had her husband bought a pair of diamond earrings for four hundred and twenty-five dollars plus tax on June the twelfth? Was he holding them as a surprise for her? Holding them till next January, when they would be celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary? Holding them till next April, when she would be forty-six years old? That was a long time to be holding a present; this was still only August. But if he was planning a surprise, then where were the earrings? The receipt was in the cigar box, but where were the earrings?

She searched through the top dresser drawer, and then through all the drawers in the dresser. She found no earrings. She went into the spare room where he kept all his boxes and cartons full of junk, and she searched through each of them and could find no earrings. She even searched the medicine cabinet where he kept his shaving stuff. She could not find the diamond earrings he had paid so much money for in June. So where were the earrings? Where should a pair of diamond earrings be? she thought. On a woman’s ears, she thought. Morrie has another woman, she thought.

She told David about the receipt when he got home that day. He had been out shopping for new clothes. None of his old clothes fit him; he had gained fifteen pounds in the Army. He was still wearing his Army suntans. She told him the minute he came into the apartment. She showed him the receipt. Four hundred and twenty-five dollars. That’s a lot of money, David thought. He did not yet understand why his mother was showing him the receipt.

“So where are they, these earrings?” his mother said. “Do I have them? Then who has them?”

David’s grandmother was dead by then; she had died when he was overseas. His widowed Aunt Anna was an old lady, and, besides, his father had never really liked her and certainly would not have spent four hundred and twenty-five dollars on her. His Uncle Max had married a woman named Rachel Simon when David was twelve years old. They lived in New Jersey now, where his Uncle Max owned a successful delicatessen. David’s mother described his Aunt Rachel as “stuck up,” and they hardly ever saw them anymore. Besides, would his father have spent so much money on a sister-in-law? For what reason?

“It’s a woman,” his mother said.

“Maybe cousin Rebecca,” David said. “Or Shirley.”

“Rebecca lives in California, he hasn’t seen her in five years. Shirley just got divorced, God knows where she is. It’s not your cousins,” his mother said, “it’s a woman.”

“Well, you don’t really know that,” David said. He could not believe this about his father. His father? Buying a pair of diamond earrings for a woman who was not David’s mother? No, he could not believe it.

She confronted her husband when he got home from the store that night.

She showed him the receipt, just the way she had shown it to David. She demanded to know what he had done with the earrings he’d bought in June. He kept changing his story.

First he said, “What earrings? Where’d you get that piece of paper? I never saw it before in my life.”

She told him she’d found it in his cigar box, in his dresser drawer.

He said, “Somebody must’ve put it there.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Somebody who wants to cause trouble.”

“Who’s in the house but you, me, and David?”

“People come in all the time,” he said. “Friends, people.”

“Do these people go in your dresser drawer? In your cigar box?”

“Who knows where people go?” he said.

“Morrie,” she said, “it was you who put that receipt in your cigar box.”

“What are you, a fingerprint expert?” he asked, and laughed. “Sherlock Holmes, we got here,” he said to David.

“Who’d you give those earrings to?” she wanted to know.

He remembered then that he had bought the earrings for a friend of his who used to work for him when he had Weber’s Army & Navy Surplus Supply Outlet, right after World War II. A man named David (Listening, David thought it odd that his father had chosen his name for his mysterious bygone friend) who knew he could get a break for him at the jewelry store right next door.

“Some break,” his father said. “I could break his head for all the trouble he’s causing me.”

He smiled.

David’s mother was not smiling. David’s mother had her arms folded across her chest. David’s mother’s eyes were flashing lightning bolts.

“David who?” she asked. “This friend of yours.”

“Schwartz.”

“I don’t remember anybody named David Schwartz.”

“The one who used to work for me when I had the Army-Navy store.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“He called me up, asked me if I could get a break for him on a pair of diamond earrings. He knows I’m in business, he knows I have connections.”

“So you laid out the money for him.”

“Sure, he’s an old friend. He used to work for me, Esther!”

“You laid out all that money.”

“What was it, a lousy four hundred bucks, something like that?”

“You know what it was,” David’s mother said.

“Something like that,” his father said, and shrugged.

“Did he pay you back?”

“Certainly, he paid me back.”

“When?”

“Last month sometime, who remembers? Just before he left for Chicago,” his father added, and David suddenly knew he was lying.

“Oh, he went to Chicago,” his mother said.

“He moved to Chicago.”

“So he’s not here, right? To call and ask about these earrings you bought for him.”

“He’s not here, right.”

“Where is he in Chicago?”

“Who knows? I haven’t heard from him since he moved.”

“You’re a lying bastard,” his mother said. It was the first time in his life David had ever heard her use profanity. “Get out of my house.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Go live with this woman you give diamond earrings to.”

“What woman? Esther, please, you don’t really think I bought earrings for some woman, do you? Can you really believe that?”

David’s mother looked him dead in the eye.

“Yes,” she said.

He left that same night. He hadn’t seen his brother Max in maybe three, four years, but he drove to New Jersey and asked him if he could stay with him for a few days. He also cleaned out the joint savings account he shared with David’s mother, withdrew $2,400 from it the very next day, leaving a balance of $121.32. He was gone for almost two weeks before David wrote his anonymous letter. The anonymous letter was in David’s own hand, but he signed it “A worried friend.” He addressed the letter to his father at Uncle Max’s delicatessen in New Jersey. The letter read:

He never knew whether his father received the letter or not; he certainly never mentioned it to David. But he did come home several weeks later, the day after David began his first semester at N.Y.U., in fact. He was driving a new car. A 1954 Chevrolet. He had traded in the old Chrysler and had added to its resale value almost all the money he’d withdrawn from the joint savings account. He was smoking a big cigar when he pulled up and honked the horn. David went to the window; he somehow knew the person downstairs honking the horn was his father. And there he was, smoking a big cigar and opening the door of a brand-new car, and looking like Rockefeller himself in a new tropical suit and a new snap-brim Panama hat that entirely hid his baldness. His mustache looked very trim and very black. David’s mother joined him at the window. His father was standing outside the new car now, his hand on the shiny black fender. He looked up at David’s mother. “Hello, kiddo,” he called up to her. “I’m back.”

Just as if nothing had happened.

David’s mother never forgot those earrings, though, or the mysterious lady who had occasioned their purchase. Her whole life long, she made little digs about the incident.

“Morrie should open a jewelry store, he’s such a diamond expert.”

Or: “Morrie has a good friend in Chicago, right, Morrie?”

Or, more pointedly: “Morrie cheats. But only at poker, of course.”

David wondered for a long time whether his anonymous letter was what had caused his father to come home. He sometimes felt that his father started becoming a pain in the ass right then, in September of 1953, when in his magnanimity he decided to return to his forlorn family and exact from them the proper measure of repentance for having falsely accused him. David wondered about that a lot, too — had his father been falsely accused? Or was there indeed a mysterious lady someplace, wearing his father’s four-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar diamond earrings? His lie had seemed such a clumsy one; surely a man as clever as he could have come up with something a bit easier to swallow. (“You don’t expect me to swallow that, do you?”) On the other hand, would he have lied so blantantly if he really had purchased those earrings for another woman? Maybe she hadn’t existed at all. Maybe there really was a friend named David Schwartz who had moved to Chicago. Who the hell knew?

Eventually, David stopped thinking about his father’s alleged infidelity. He preferred not thinking about it. He thought about it again, years later, when his mother died. He thought about it when his father was choosing a coffin, and again when he sold his mother’s fur coats — but that was another story. Now, after four years of not thinking about it, he was thinking about it once again. He was thinking about it because of the words he’d read in his mother’s letter this morning. I honestly was giving you a fair chance but I guess you did not want it as you are still lying to me. The letter was still in his jacket pocket, in the closet across the room. He wondered if he should read the rest of the letter.

No, the hell with it, he thought.

Who the hell cares?

He was suddenly ravenously hungry. He looked at his watch. Almost ten already; my, how the time does fly when you’re having a good time. He wondered if room service was still serving. He picked up the phone and dialed twenty-two for the front desk.

“Is room service still serving?” he asked.

“No, sir,” the desk clerk said. “Seven a.m. to nine-thirty p.m., sir.”

He put the receiver back on the cradle. Miami Beach in the off-season, he thought. He wondered if there were any crumbs left on Hillary Watkins’ dinner tray. He was tempted to dial 1712 and ask her if there were any leftovers he might have. Is there anything left on your tray? he would ask. What are you wearing? he would ask. He wondered what young, long-legged, full-breasted English girls wore to bed at night. T-shirt and knickers? Did they still call them knickers? Surely they didn’t call bikini panties knickers? He was tempted to call her and ask her what she called her panties.

He wished he had another drink.

He lifted the phone receiver and dialed 1712.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hillary? It’s David.”

“Well, hello,” she said.

“What are you wearing?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“What are you...?”

“Yes, I thought I heard you. Why do you want to know?”

“Do you still call them knickers?”

“Well, I suppose if I were wearing any, I might call them that, yes. Although, actually...”

“What are you wearing?”

“Nothing at all,” she said. “And you?”

“Why don’t you...?”

He cut himself short.

“Yes?” she said. “Why don’t I what?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Good night, Hillary,” he said.

“Did you want to talk about something?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, all right then,” she said. “Good night.”

There was a click on the line.

He went to the drapes and closed them. He went back to the bed. Lied to me about being thirty, he thought. Jesus.

Well, he’d lied to her, too. Tiny little white lie. Shy, self-effacing David Weber averting his soulful brown eyes and boyishly muttering, “Well, I’m not used to this sort of thing. Meeting a young girl... and... talking this way... sharing an afternoon this way...”

Bullshit.

A lie.

Tiny white lie.

Not so tiny.

Well, Your Honor, one might reasonably argue that if 80 percent of all married men have experienced at least one extramarital relationship, then half a dozen or so over the course of almost twenty-two years of marriage might not be considered excessive. Half a dozen, more or less, relatively innocuous liaisons with women who’d meant nothing at all to the defendant, Your Honor, save for the momentary satisfaction they offered. Women who will offer you their comfort, Your Honor, as a learned bartender associate once remarked, see Weber v. Martini, merely accommodating women who were willing to offer comfort and solace and tea and sympathy and perfectly good blow jobs after Molly had retired from that profession, so to speak. Well, who could blame her? We were both under considerable strain afterward, we were both — listen, let’s not get on that again. But you see, Your Honor, it’s sometimes difficult to apportion guilt is all I’m trying to say, especially under circumstances as stressful as those were, the death of an only—

Forget it, he thought.

Pick up the phone, he thought. Call the English girl again. Ask her if she’s blond down there, ask her if she owns a quivering, quaking quim, ask her if my father will die tonight, like all the others.

The British once ruled an empire.

Maybe she’ll have some answers.

He turned off the bedside lamp and fell into a troubled sleep.