Melancholy Baby

29

I called the number Karp had given me for Ike Rosen. Answering machine. I called Information. There were about seventy-five Isaac Rosens. I gave them the phone number and asked for an address. The number was unlisted. They couldn’t give me an address. I called my father.

“Can you get me the address,” I said, “if I give you the phone number?”

“Of course.”

“Wow,” I said, “even though you’re retired.”

“I’m retired, not dead,” my father said. “I’ll call you back.”

It took him five minutes. When the phone rang again, I picked it up and said, “Is this the great Phil Randall?”

“The man and the legend,” my father said. “Your man Ike Rosen lives and, I assume, works on West Ninety-second Street.”

He gave me the address.

“Same phone number?” I said.

“Yes. He’s listed as an attorney.”

“Any other phone numbers?”

“No.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Captain Daddy,” my father said.

“Yes, sir.”

After I hung up, I called Rosen again. Same answering machine. I didn’t leave a message. I couldn’t think how to rephrase, “Did you arrange to have me beaten up?” Rosie was asleep on my bed, between two pillows, so all you could see were her back feet sticking out. It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon. I went and got a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and brought it with a glass to the breakfast table. I poured some and had a sip. Everything was so quiet that I could hear my wind-up alarm clock ticking by my bed near the other end of the loft. Outside, it was raining, and I looked out my window for a time and drank my wine and watched it.

How did I know Daddy liked me best? Why wouldn’t he? His wife was a bossy nitwit. His older daughter was a snobby nitwit. He and I understood things. We knew what mattered and what didn’t. My marriage had failed. But only once. Elizabeth was on her third husband. And Daddy still loved her. And he loved my mother. In fact, the way he loved her made me think maybe love was irrational. Simply a force that happened to you, like gravity. She was so unworthy of his affection. Maybe he actually didn’t love me best. Maybe he just liked me best. And even if he did love me more than he loved my mother, what was wrong with that. I was more lovable. Why would that be such a burden. Granted, she had the advantage of sleeping with him...

Oh.

That’s why. All my life, the three Randall girls had been fighting for Phil’s affections. Sometimes it seemed as if I’d won. But what if I really won?

Sex.

There’s your heavy burden, Sonya. (I always used my real name when I talked to myself.) Everybody since Sophocles knew that was trouble. I poured some more wine. There was no wind. The rain was unhurried as it fell. And clean. So even if it was in some subconscious, symbolic way the fear that I might actually win the fight for Daddy... what did that do to Richie and me?

I stood and carried my wine glass down to the window at the other end of the loft and looked at the rain from there. I felt like crying. I was breathing hard. A few tears formed and wet my face.

“Well, Sonya,” I said out loud, “there’ll be something to talk about with Dr. Susan next time.” I felt a little guilty. I would never call her Dr. Susan to her face. Rebellion, I guess.