"What do you think is going to happen with Jack?" Theresa says, speaking of terra-infirma.
"Jack? At some point he's going to have to sell that house.
And probably a lot of that stuff they have."
"Eunice does love that house."
"I don't think Jack does, or ever did."
"Where will they go? They have so much stuff. Not to mention Pop."
"I don't know," I say, instantly picturing the movers bubble-wrapping and crating him right there in the bed, propped up with clicker and Hot Pocket in hand.
"I can't see Jack and Eunice in a rental."
"You can get a real nice condo these days. They'll do fine."
"But there's no more Battle Brothers."
"Jack will get something going again."
"Are you going to help him?"
A loud rasp of noise squelches the end of her question, and I pretend it got lost in the wires.
After a moment, she says, "Well, are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Are you going to help Jack?"
"I'm retired, remember? And I'm not rich. At least not enough to start a new business."
"You should still help," she says, with clear alarm, her emphasis actually squawking the sound. "You have to."
"Of course I will," I say. "It's just not yet clear how."
"I can tell you how, Jerry."
"Okay."
"Why don't you invite them to live with us?"
"Are you nuts?"
"We have plenty of room."
"Plenty of room? There are three bedrooms, last time I looked. Jack and Eunice would need one, the kids another, and unless Pop is willing to go back to Ivy Acres, which I doubt, then one for him. That still leaves you and Paul, and then me, the owner of the house."
"You can convert the study to another bedroom for yourself, and Paul and I can move downstairs."
"Downstairs? That's the basement!"
"Maybe Jack can build some walls. There's already a half-bath down there. Besides, we're not going to stay with you forever."
"What are you talking about?"
"You forget I'm on leave. I'm going to have to teach again."
"What about extra maternity leave?" I say. "Isn't that the law these days?"
Theresa says, "I suppose so," though without much conviction, and not because she's someone who doesn't keep up on her worker rights and benefits. There's not been much pessimism in the house, if at all, the only indication of worry and trouble being that Paul sometimes has to excuse himself from the room or take a stroll around the neighborhood, probably so his heart doesn't suddenly shatter into a thousand jagged pieces; but by the same token there hasn't been any talk whatsoever of the future, or of any future past a few days out, which I can say over the last couple months we've been together has been a pretty liberally bestowed mercy among us, and judging from the sudden panicky hollow pinging in my gut, one I haven't appreciated near deeply enough.
I say, "You should take unpaid leave and stay longer. Paul can finally finish his book. When you have the baby you can take the master bedroom. There's an old crib in the basement that I'll clean and move up for you."
"That sounds nice."
"No problem."
"But what about the others?"
"What about them?"
"Come on, Jerry."
With the light shining from behind her sunglasses I can see her eyes searching me, perhaps not so much looking for the desired answer but rather the glimmer of a character somehow more wise and generous and self-sacrificing than the one that for some fifty-nine and fifteen-sixteenths years have come to possess. Being who she is, Theresa would never have cared for the kind of father with whom she could discuss fuzzy intimacies, talk interspersed with full-on hugs and remembrances of previous challenges righteously met and overcome, all at a pitch of loving confirmation muted only by the wistful minor-key note that we couldn't always be together every moment of our lives. Then again, I don't know if she would have even wished we were that rare pair who could take turns riffing, say, on the Lacanian imbrication of contemporary family life (another few words I've learned this summer), or talk fast and loose in slick jump cuts between our favorite neo-Realist films and hip-hop marketing and the sinister global triumph of capitalism.
No doubt things could have been different between us, much different, and maybe there's no actual alternative reality that would have proven any better than what we have now, or at least that we could practically abide. We are consigned to one another, left in one another's hands whether we like it or not, and perhaps the sole thing asked of us is that we never simply let go.
Still I say, "Jack won't want to come back to the old house."
"That's not what Eunice tells me," Theresa answers. "She's ready, too. All you have to do is call."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Nope."
This confounds me, even thrills me, but still, I say, "What about Rosario? There's definitely no room for her."
"She could come three times a week, to help tidy up, until she finds another full-time job."
"Who's figured this out already?"
"Take a guess."
I look at my daughter, lightly touching her controls. I say,
"The house will be a zoo."
"We'll all have to pitch in. Including you. Including me."
"Myself I can see," I say. "But you're doing fine."
"Come on. I let Paul do everything."
"Which he's pretty damn good at, if you ask me."
"Doesn't make it right."
"It does at the moment. Besides, if he didn't work so hard, he'd go crazy."
Theresa starts to say something, though her mouth must have come too close to the headset microphone, because the reply is distorted with noise. We're quiet now, just the steady blenderizing of the 150-horsepower Lycoming engine. She's gazing off to the northwest, over toward Hartford, or Albany, where there's still clear sky overhead. To the southwest, where we're headed, it's definitely going to be a bit soupy, which is plenty alarming, and it's probably good that I've already decided to fly back on a pretty direct route, in the hope that we'd somehow cut a few minutes off the trip, a few minutes maybe proving the difference between a cloudy or clear touchdown.
The specter of not seeing the field for the landing is one I've often imagined, nosing down into the murk and trusting only the instruments, hoping for enough daylight between the mist and the field to get a comfortable sighting before the final approach, for which I have some practice but not enough to make me happy. This is no pleasing challenge for a guy like me, who likes very much to see where he's going to step next, especially when life is a Paris street, fresh piles of it everywhere.
"Pop is going to be tough. But I suppose I have to heat and cool the whole house anyway," I say, disbelieving the Real as now embodied in myself. Which must always be a sign of deep trouble. "We can try it for as long as people can stand it."