Scorch,”
and she says “The one you gave me? I love it. I’m going to start reading it tomorrow.
I’ve been a little out of sorts lately to start it till now. But I show it to everyone
every time they come here and they all think it’s beautiful looking and it’s so big,
they call it a brick, everyone,” and he says “Well listen, Mom, they had a contest—I’m
saying, a gala, tonight, this foundation did, with an awards ceremony at the Plaza.
I told you but you must’ve forgot, there were five nominees and, you know, I sent
you articles about it—the
Times
, etcetera—and my book took first prize. Actually, the only prize,” and she says “That’s
wonderful, you make me proud, all my children do. Now I’m a little tired, dear, do
you mind?” and he says “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was so late—I’ll call tomorrow,
and we’ll come see you next week and go out for lunch to celebrate,” and she says
“If I’m up to it, that would be nice.” He calls his in-laws, and his mother-in-law
says “It’s been on the radio, darling, it’s wonderful,” and he says “So fast? It just
happened, or almost. And Jane’s okay, having a great time, and kids are fine, but,
just out of curiosity, how did the newscast word it?” and she says “That you won this
complicated award’s name and the book’s title—if you’d sneezed and someone quickly
said ‘God bless you,’ you would have missed it,” and in the background his father-in-law
says “Offer Robert my own congratulations and tell him a friend’s already called us
and others are probably dialing now and that tomorrow I’m going to each of the bookstores
here to see if because of this news any more copies have been sold. I’ve been watching
the shelves and so far the same number of books have been there,” and she starts to
repeat it, but he says “Thanks, I heard.” He calls the
Globe
reporter at home collect and says “First off I want you to know I tried charging
this call to my home number, but the operator said I couldn’t unless someone was there
to vouch for me,” and the reporter says “Don’t fret, man, the paper phoned me the
fantastic news, and I’m honored you even took to contacting me when you have to have
so much else to do,” and he says “You? You? The guy who made me and my publisher feel,
till this big nomination deal came along, that the book was actually published once
it came out? Come off it, we owe you tons,” and the reporter says “Thanks, much too
kind, but long as you did phone, I have twenty minutes to get the story in, which
without your call would have been sort of a dead impersonal account of your win, so
tell me how you feel,” and he says “Still gratified and astonished beyond all measure,
expectation and belief, and why? Because I was happily satisfied with just being a
nominee, and I thought any of the other writers would get it, not only because of
the high quality of their work and that they’re much better known but also because
I didn’t think mine was that much or really even good enough to be published. But
that’s what I’ve thought about all my works when I finished them and they came out,
so it’s probably, in part, what I need to feel in order to start and then continue
a new one,” and the reporter says “You proved yourself wrong with this one, bub, but
fine, you gave me exactly what I needed for the article. But on the lighter side…your
tux and new dress shoes—you didn’t feel, as you said you would, ridiculous and crippled
in them?” and he says “Everything went perfectly—I even remembered how to tie a bow
tie, and it’s still in place,” and the reporter says “Nice, nice, I like that. One
quickie, Rob, and we’re gone. Think the entire experience will change your life or
even, that word you love to hate, your lifestyle?” and he says “Certainly—and hey,
I’m getting good at this, aren’t I? which is when I should start watching out—but
certainly a prize of this magnitude would change the life of any writer who isn’t
dead, and I’ll fight it every step of the way till I’m successful at not letting this
new institutional success affect me. Because I’m not a speechmaker, prize-committee
member—that’s ‘prize-committee’ with a hyphen—organization joiner, panel or symposium
participant or a spokesman for anything, including my own work. But if the prize does
give the book a lot more sales and me, ultimately, the economic independence to do
more of what I want to and maybe even a lighter teaching load for the same pay at
my university, that’ll be just dandy, for the only change I want in the style of my
life is to find more time to read, think and write and spend more time with my family,”
and the reporter says “Couldn’t be better—consider the article your first job ad,”
and he goes back to the table, plate’s gone, desert’s there melting. “Maybe at the
hotel I’ll room-service up a sandwich or steak,” he says to his wife. “I can afford
to do that one night in my life, can’t I, even if I have to eat it in the bathroom,
and what more deserving time than tonight?” and she says “Don’t look at me to stop
you,” and he says “And champagne—not the little splits in the fridge but a whole big
fancy French bottle if that cheap hotel’s got it,” and she says “Stick with the sandwich
and maybe a good refrigerator beer.” Later there’s a reception for the nominees, judges,
officials and heavy donors, he undoes his bow tie and lets it hang, and a photographer
for a publishing trade journal says “Mind if I take you like that—it’ll look like
the fitting end to an emotionally and physically hard day,” he is asked to sign several
copies of
Scorch
that had been part of each table’s center display, along with a gardenia floating
in a bowl and a rusty tin cup of sharpened pencils and paper clips, his publisher
says “Let’s blow everything we’re going to earn with your book and go to Elaine’s
for a nightcap and snack and chats with some of their famous literary clientele or
at least a peek—you’re our entrée,” but he says they have to relieve the babysitter,
do, kids are asleep, has a sandwich sent up and has it with a couple of foreign beers,
they make love, again early next morning, around seven the phone rings, it’s the editor,
“Just got a call they want you at a TV studio for national viewing, a limo could pick
you up in half an hour, can you make it?” and he says “I’ve really nothing to wear
but a smelly dress shirt and those wrinkled corduroy pants and old sports jacket I
wore to those bookstores yesterday and the reading the other night,” and she says
“That’s the costume—don’t even splash water on your hair or brush it back till it’s
flat, we want you to completely look the part—only kidding…Mr. Terngull came with
about a dozen shirts and pairs of socks so how about one each of his, though he’s
almost twice your size?” interview with a
Times
cultural affairs reporter later that day about his origins, antecedents, influences,
aims with this book, future writing plans, feelings about his years of general obscurity
and near poverty and now sudden recognition and perhaps wealth and fame, articles
and profiles on him, book sells well, paperback, number of translations in a year,
all his out-of-print novels and story collections republished in a unified edition,
his school gives him a paid year off and tenure, and when he comes back he only has
to teach one semester a year, gives readings around the country once a month at ten
times what he got before, State Department tour through Eastern Europe and then Latin
America, is invited to a literary festival in Japan, a symposium on the arts and censorship
in Spain, is offered so much money to teach for a week at a summer writing conference
that he can’t turn it down, finishes the long short story he started before he got
the award, plot’s too melodramatic, language all wrong, has an agent now who sells
it to a major magazine, thinks maybe he’s not a short story writer anymore and should
go back to what he did best or at least won him the award, starts lots of novels,
tries writing plays, does an appreciation of a Norwegian writer he met at the Japanese
festival and whose work he thinks just so-so but whom he’s come to like and know and
places it in a prestigious literary journal, on commission writes an essay on what
it’s like to be a cellar writer, as he calls it, and after so many years down there
to suddenly come out into the light with a band playing and crowd waiting and much
confetti thrown at him and applause and then, because this isn’t his natural environment,
to feel he needs to retreat back into his hole, it takes nearly four years to finish
a short novel, which he does between travels, appearances, essays and reviews, his
new publisher thinks it inferior to
Scorch
and a bit too short to publish alone, but they’ll do it since they already paid him
a sizable advance, while going over the copyedited manuscript he changes his mind
about publishing it and returns the advance and tells the editor this novel isn’t
the right one to follow
Scorch
, which anyway maybe wasn’t as good as he and lots of other people thought, “Maybe,”
he says, “just to change things around a little, the next one should be a collection
of stories or essays,” turns the novel into a short story, and the agent sells it,
and no one he knows whose opinion he admires and trusts seems to like it, starts another
novel, pecks away at it for years, puts it down, works on something else, takes it
up, and so on, tries writing film treatments and scripts for lots of money but never
gets the hang of it, possibly because he hates the restrictions and rules of the form
and usually movies themselves, every so often reads an article about artistic prizes
and what the big ones can do to the artist, some are able to overcome this ironic
handicap and continue to grow in their work, most though repeat their old works or
just don’t produce much or at all and, if they still feel the compulsion to create,
do so in related but less demanding fields, something dries them up, sometimes their
family life breaks up, and occasionally the artist himself cracks up, psychologists
and critics and scholars are asked about this and give all sorts of reasons and interpretations,
“It’s conceivable they only had one or two important things to say and only one or
two original ways to say it, were fortunate to win the awards, and after that were
afraid to parrot or parody themselves,” “Why look at it as a negative phenomenon?
Perhaps in the prize-winning work they felt they did it all and didn’t see any point
to continue creating, or just wanted an easier avocation, since art is hard,” “It
might be they don’t think they deserve the acclaim and now feel sufficient guilt to
stifle their work,” “Fame works strangely and often unfathomably on the subconscious,
for the good or bad,” “It’s possible the individual artist fears that once he’s on
top of his craft the critics will look for things to pick at or savage in his work
that they never would have thought of touching on before, to bring him down a few
pegs, for malevolent reasons, or because they think they’re actually helping him and
he’s a big enough person now to take the assault or simply to ignore it,” he thinks
maybe they’re all right, maybe only some are, though no two seem to agree with each
other, tells his wife he wishes he could return to teaching full-time, for he just
doesn’t have enough to do the other eight months of the year, “Well,” she says, “I’m
sure it can be arranged.”
They’ve come back to the house after being away almost the entire day. Saturday, and
she’s—The kids and he, and they entered the house, he in the lead and carrying a big
canvas bag filled with vegetables and fruits, and saw—They were away, first to the
farmers’ market. Good early start, did lots of things during the day, and when they
got home, one of the kids yelling “Mom, Mom, we’re back—” She didn’t want to go. Said
she was too tired and weak, and she looked it too, so maybe it shouldn’t have been
that much of a shock when they got home and—Usually she goes with them. All four in
the car, fifteen-minute trip, every other Saturday unless the weather’s bad. He’d
wheel her around in the chair and she’d point or say she wanted to go to that particular
stand and he’d push her there, and she’d carry in her lap some of the things they
bought. The kids like the honey sticks they can find nowhere else but the Saturday
farmers’ market near where they spend a month every summer in Vermont. There’s also
an open-air bakery—three long tables together, with the sellers behind them—where
the kids like to get a croissant each, chocolate or plain, or a butterfly, though
the French owner of what they call The Patisserie, though he makes all the goods at
home, calls the pastry something else in French, but not
papillon
. They did that today. First honey sticks, which the kids finished. Then he got what
he wanted from several stalls, asked the kids if they saw anything they wanted but
pastries; they didn’t so they lined up at The Patisserie, got two chocolate croissants
and this time a walnut-raisin bread because he remembered last time they were here
she said they should get one next time—they had too much bread in the house then to
buy one—since she was sure she’d like it just by its looks. Apples, pears, cherry
tomatoes, a canteloupe, cider, lots of different vegetables, three different kinds
of greens, she likes steaming them, herbs—she gave him a list of which ones and which
she likes to dry—“And if you can manage it, pick up a few small plants at the Gardenmobile
for the side of the house, but tell the seller you want them mostly for the shade.”
At the Japanese grocer’s, a single card table, half-pound of bean sprouts, daikon,
strange kind of scallion—almost all white—and something that tastes and looks like
Chinese parsley but the grocer’s daughter—her father doesn’t speak English—said it
isn’t. Then when they got home—Then they did lots of other things elsewhere and when
they got home, each of the kids carrying a plant to show her mother and he a big bag
of produce and the filled canvas bag—In the car after the market, before he pulled
out of the lot, he said to the kids “So, where do you want to go now?” “Home,” one
said. “I want to show Momma the plant I chose.” “For pizza,” the other one said. “Yes,
pizza, pizza,” the first one said. “Too early for either,” he said. “And lunch will
be later. You had your honey sticks and there’s half a croissant each if you want,
and if you’re still hungry after that there’s pears, apples, carrots.” “I’m thirsty,”
one said, and he said “You both had different kinds of cider samples—apple, apple-raspberry—at
the fruit stand. What do you say we go to the art museum? It’s a little chilly out,
and it shouldn’t be crowded so early.” “Yes, the museum,” she said. “Great idea, Daddy.
I want to buy a Monet key ring I saw there. I’ve my own money I brought.” The other
wanted to buy one too and had money. They went to the museum, straight to the gift
shop. It’d run out of Monet key rings and also Monet crayon sharpeners, their second
choice of what they remembered from their last visit there. Everything else they wanted—a
stuffed Paddington Bear, a doll based on a book about a girl, Linnea, who goes to
Monet’s garden, a multicolored Slinky—they didn’t have enough money for, and he didn’t
want to add any to what they had, since he found the dolls and Slinky overpriced.
A traveling Monet exhibition dominated the museum—he’d thought it left—and you needed
special tickets for it. His would be expensive, theirs half-priced, and they’d seen
the show two months ago, but what the hell, he thought, the kids like to take the
audiophone tours—they didn’t last time here but had since at two other museums, both
plugged into one cassette and the youngest, it seemed, always darting the opposite
way the oldest was going and pulling her plug out—and Monet was one of his favorite
painters of any era, and tickets to the exhibition included admission to the museum.
But they were sold out. “Well, long as we’re here let’s go in anyway; maybe we’ll
discover something new and there’s always some of the permanent stuff we like.” He
bought tickets—the youngest girl’s was free—and they walked around but there wasn’t
much to see if you didn’t like, and he didn’t, American colonial and Georgian furniture,
vases, silver, an exhibit of teapots from around the world, second-rate eighteenth
and nineteenth-century European paintings and sculpture, the same room of African
and New Guinean folk art, old drawings in a cramped space, two rooms of photographs
of tiled roofs. Almost the entire Impressionist wing, which he felt was the only reason
to come here if there wasn’t a special exhibition he wanted to see, had been sent
to another museum in partial exchange for the Monets, and the rooms had been temporarily
converted to an expensive Parisian café resembling one in Monet’s time, and the room
where American contemporary art used to be had been turned, since they’d seen the
exhibit, into a Monet gift shop. “Success, that’s all, they’re making a fortune,”
he said. “We got to remember to tell Mommy about this.” “Maybe we can get the key
rings in there,” his oldest daughter said, but they weren’t allowed in without a Monet-exhibit
tag. They left the museum, but right outside it he said “No, I’m going to protest,
this is too much,” and went to the ticket counter and said he’d like passes for another
day for the money he paid to get in today, and if they don’t do that, then a refund.
“I’m telling you, I’ve never done this before, but I feel shortchanged. Outside of
the Monets, which we couldn’t get in to, this place is bare.” After some discussion
between themselves and then a phone call to someone higher up, the ticket sellers
gave him three passes. “So what are we going to do now?” he said when they got back
to the car. “Pizza,” both kids said. “Okay, it’s around lunch time,” and they went
to a pizza shop nearby, and he had coffee while they had pizza, garlic bread and,
though he didn’t want to get it for them because it’s such junk but it was the only
kind of drink for kids they had, soda. At the table he said “So what do we want to
do after this—any good suggestions?” “Let’s go home,” one said. “I want to show Mommy
the plant I chose and tell her what you said we should about the Monet shop before
we forget,” but he said it was too early. He’d made an arrangement with her. He’d
take the kids all morning and half the afternoon if she gave him half a day free tomorrow.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with them, if you want us to be out of the house,” she
said. “I can’t drive anymore, so I can’t take them anyplace. Maybe we’ll cab somewhere,
and I’ll work it like that.” “If you don’t think you can do it, or you’ll get too
tired, just give me a couple of hours in the morning. That seems to be when you’re
strongest, and anywhere you want—here, outside—and I’ll take them for the afternoon,”
but she said no, she’ll figure something out. “And you know, it’s not as if I’ll be
getting any of my important work done today. A few pages of reading, but the writing
stuff I’m already too bushed to.” Maybe by now, he thought, she isn’t tired anymore—took
a nap, got some rest—and she can get some writing in. Then she’ll really think his
giving her almost the whole day free went to something, and she’ll do her best to
give him more than two hours tomorrow, or at least those two. “Let’s go to the playground,”
he said. “Too cold,” and he said “So we’ll run around and warm up and go down the
slide and things. Come on, only a short time, and then we’ll go someplace like the
Bagel Nook for dessert, and even—I shouldn’t be doing this; don’t tell your mother;
nah, no conspiracies, so tell her if you want—but another soda, though between you,
and Soho brand this time, you know, only natural and no sugar.” “Okay,” “Yea.” They
went to the playground. He caught them at the bottom of the slide a few times, went
down with each of them once, then the two of them in front of him, sprinted around
the park the playground was in, then said he wanted to work out on the parallel bars—“Haven’t
done it in a long time and I like the feeling it gives my arms and chest after, puffs
them up, makes them feel young.” So while they climbed on the Junglegym, he went on
the bars, just swinging back and forth while he stayed stiff between the bars and
a couple of times flipping himself off and landing on his feet a foot from the bar
ends. Then they sat in the car till he wasn’t sweating anymore, and he said “Okay,
dessert,” and at the Nook he gave in and they got a soda each but the Soho brand and
a plate of cookies and he had a coffee and buttered bagel. He thought of calling her
to see how she was. “Should we call Mommy?” and they said yes and he said “Nah, now
that I think of it, she’s probably working and getting to the phone will be difficult
for her,” and the older one said “She always has her portable phone with her in her
walker basket,” and he said “Even still,” for what he didn’t want was to give her
an excuse to tell them to come home, for, even if she doesn’t get any work done, longer
he stays away, more she’ll feel she has to give him those two-hours-plus tomorrow
and maybe even doing most of the putting-the-kids-to-sleep tonight instead of him.
“So what now?” he said when they finished eating, “we still have some time left,”
and the oldest said “Let’s just go home, Daddy; we’ve been out plenty,” and the other
said “That’s right.” “Why? I’m still feeling energetic and want to stay out and do
things, and you must be feeling frisky too what with those two sodas and pizza and
you finished the cookies, I see, and they looked good and sweet,” and the younger
said “They were okay.” “Good. There are no movies you two would like,” and the older
one said “Why not?” and he said “Too violent or explicit or just plain disgusting,”
and one of them asked and he had to explain “explicit”: “Where they show adult things
kids shouldn’t see and maybe not even adults, because they are so disgusting and,
and…well a whole bunch of other words I’d have to explain, and the movies for kids
are all stupid, just plain stupid.” “Not all,” the older one said, and he said “I
meant most,” and she said “Then let’s go to the Rotunda. They have a good kids’ bookstore
there.” He didn’t want to, been there twice already this week getting things for the
house and his wife, but it was a small fairly attractive mall, fifteen minutes away,
so that would take time, and the ten to fifteen minutes back, and he could have another
coffee at one of the two food places there while they had something, or nothing—no
coffee for him and they could just look at the books in the store and maybe each could
buy one if that didn’t come to much, and he could do a little supermarket shopping
there so he wouldn’t have to do it Monday or Tuesday, so he said “Yeah, that’s a very
good suggestion; I didn’t think of it; thanks, dear.” “I thought of it too but didn’t
say it,” the younger one said, and he said “So thank you too. Maybe your sister picked
it out of your head you were thinking it so hard,” and the older one said “She’s only
saying that; it was my own.” They went to the mall, kids to the children’s bookstore
while he browsed through the adult one across the hall and bought a book his wife
had said she wanted weeks ago—a week, anyway—if he was ever near a bookstore. He had
been—this one; in fact, several times since she’d said it, or a couple of times, at
least—but he forgot: the new
Consumer Buying Guide
annual; “That or the one Consumer Reports puts out,” which the store also had, but
it was more expensive and didn’t seem to have as much. She wanted to replace their
broken-down drier and was also looking into buying a minivan, then selling the two-door
they have, because it would be more comfortable for the family and also because of
all the accessories she has to take with her when they go out: this elaborate Swedish
walker with a basket and seat; wheelchair sometimes when they go to places—museums,
theaters, zoos and parks—where she has to do a lot of getting around; eventually a
motorized cart, she suspects, which means a special lift or removable ramp. “Just
looking ahead,” she said, “not deceiving myself, and a couple of companies—Chrysler,
I know—are giving a five-hundred-dollar rebate on the lift, and I don’t know how long
that’ll last. Maybe the response will be so great, or just nothing, that they’ll cut
it off.” Older child found a book she’d always wanted, other one didn’t see anything
she liked. “Good,” he said, “you did it right; didn’t see anything you liked, you
didn’t buy. You’re not, as they say, a compulsive shopper.” Explained “compulsive”
and said all this while they walked to the supermarket inside the mall, older child
already reading her book along the way. Milk, yogurt, cheese, pasta, cabbage and beets,
because he forgot to get them at the farmers’ market and his wife wants them to make
borscht, some cleaning things, wax paper, bread for the kids, deli, seltzer in several
flavors, juice concentrate. “Can anyone think of anything we need but didn’t get?”
and the younger one said “Parakeet seeds, we’re all out,” and he said “Great; I’ll
tell Blue you reminded me, and will he ever be appreciative. Also those treat sticks
as a special treat after the bread he had to eat the last few days.” “And a light
for my night light,” the older one said, and he said “You still need that thing?”
“Yes, and Mommy said the little bulb in that little lamp by her bed went out too,
so we can get them at the same place.” Got them, paid, when he was pushing the cart
to the exit he looked at his watch. Why not give her another half-hour? More he gives,
better rested she’ll be. Probably rested plenty already and maybe only now is just
starting to work. Even if she only gets a half-hour in, it’ll be something, might
satisfy her. “Mind if we stop someplace for coffee?” he said after he got the packages
into the trunk. “I don’t want to,” the older one said. “We want to go home,” the other
one said. “Please, I’m a little tired; I could use a quick pick-me-up like a coffee.”
“You’ll get sick with all that coffee,” the older one said. “Mommy said you shouldn’t
have so much, and you get too angry with it too.” “Not angry; nervous. But just now
I need one. Sometimes an adult body does. I’m telling you, I know. And then with it,
I won’t be too sleepy to drive.” So they went to a convenience store on the way home.
He had a decaf—poured it himself when they weren’t looking, not that they’d know the
meaning of the red handle of that pot, but they might ask; they shared a fruit drink
and a packaged pound cake. “Listen, whatever I said before about no conspiracies,
this time please don’t tell Mommy about all the cake I allowed you today. She’ll kill
me.” They sat in the car in front of the store; then, to stop them from eating and
drinking so fast, which when they were done they’d want to go straight home, he decided
to start a conversation. “So, what did you both like best about today?” “It’s not
over,” the older one said. “I know, but so far.” “The pizza and soda.” “Yes,” the
younger one said. “Besides that,” and they both said the outdoor bakery at the farmers’
market. “Seriously, what else? Not just food,” and the older one said “The gift shop
at the museum even if it didn’t have my key ring.” “I liked it when you went down
the slide with us and then with me alone,” the younger one said. “Now you’re talking,”
he said. “I liked it all but maybe the slide, going down with you two together, the
most. That was like heaven, but the good heaven, where you’re alive—sliding down,
my two darling girls in my arms in front of me. And it was also scary, we went down
so fast.” “Yeah, maybe that was the best,” the older one aid. “And then the pizza
and after that the French bakery.” Then they went home. Opened the door. The older
girl did; he had two bags of groceries in his arms and was going to go back for more
once he put these down in the kitchen. The older girl screamed. The younger one, behind
him, yelled “What?” and squeezed past him and ran in, and then she screamed. He went
in with the packages; they were both already beside his wife on the floor, plants
they brought in, next to them. Her eyes were closed; are closed; blood all around
her head and arm but not coming out of the gash in her head anymore. He puts the bags
down on the dining room table near her, says “Oh no, oh God,” and yells “Go away,
go away,” and they get up and jump back and start screaming, and he gets on the floor
and says to the ceiling “What am I going to do, what am I going to do?—stop screaming,
I can’t think,” and they stop and he puts his ear to her mouth. She doesn’t seem to
be breathing. Turns her over on her back and puts his ear to her chest, to her mouth
and nose, doesn’t hear or feel anything. Feels her wrist but isn’t sure he’d feel
anything even if there is a pulse there, since he doesn’t know how to do it. He breathes
into her mouth, hard, pulls away, breathes some more, pulls away, says to the older
girl “Call Emergency, 911, tell them your mommy’s very hurt, unconscious, and to send
an emergency ambulance right away. Right away. 911 and that she might not be breathing.
Do it now, now,” and bends down and breathes into her mouth and calls her name after
he pulls away, breathes some more into her and calls her name again and again. “Oh
why did I stay away, why didn’t I come back?” he screams. Her walker’s on its side.
She must have slipped while pushing it and fallen, and the walker slid away from her
and hit something and fell over, or she just slipped and fell with it and hit her
head hard on something, not the floor, or maybe just something sharp on the floor,
because of that deep gash. Later she’ll say she doesn’t know how it happened: she
was getting out of a chair, had her hands on the walker for support, and that’s all
she remembers of it. “A towel, get a towel,” he yells to the younger girl, “and wet
it good so we can wipe Mommy’s head—maybe that’ll help her—and did you call that 911?”
he yells to the older girl and she says “Yes, they said they’re coming, they wanted
to speak to you, but I said you were blowing air into Mommy. Is she going to die?
Is she dead?” and he says “No, never, don’t think of it, go outside and wait for the
ambulance and tell them this is the house. Wave to them, make sure they see you,”
and the younger girl’s brought the towel, and he wipes his wife’s head and face with
it and breathes into her mouth, feels for her heartbeat, nothing seems to be there,
breathes into her again and listens for her breath, nothing, calls her name, shakes
her shoulders, yells “When will they come?—call them again—you,” to the younger girl,
“dial 911 and give them our name and address and say we called before and ask when
they’re coming,” and she does. The emergency team comes about ten minutes after his
older daughter first called them, and they put some machines on his wife and revive
her, and he puts his hand on her temple and feels the pulse, and they say she probably
never stopped breathing, it just must have seemed that way to him because her breathing
and heartbeat were so low or he wasn’t listening or feeling at the right places and
that his mouth-to-mouth resuscitation probably helped rather than hurt, though sometimes
it can do the reverse. She’s taken to the hospital. When she goes she’s smiling at
them and muttering something they don’t understand except for the word “outside.”
He leaves the kids with friends for a couple of hours and goes to the hospital. She’s
sleeping but not in a coma and will most likely be her old self tomorrow though with
a tremendous headache, the doctor tells him. Then he picks up the kids, goes home,
brings the rest of the bags in from the car, has to throw away a few things that spoiled,
like milk and deli meat, makes them supper and himself a drink and sits down at the
table with them.