tists settled on the next best thing for me, married a vet who specializes in farm animal teeth and gums and help him run his practice, because of all the different treatments and operations I had when I was a girl I couldn’t have any children that weren’t stillborn, I’m a doting aunt to several of Ted’s nieces and nephews and less so, since I never saw them as much, to Jerry’s kids and now even their kids, do you finally believe me or do you want to phone Jerry or Mom for proof? — you once complained that my painting by numbers was for morons and bought me a real paint set and canvases I felt too unequal to to ever use, you once took me to Janine’s Christian Science practitioner because you thought as long as nothing else was working maybe that would, you once, because of the red-and-black plaid flannel shirt I took from your drawer and wore—,” “What made you come see me now?” “Why put it off longer? why not have done it sooner? one time I was all set to fly in to tell you when I got a bad flu and then changed my mind, what you don’t know will hurt you? what you do know might kill you? why bring up old bilge or why not work it out before you’re dead? for you might get hit by a falling brick tomorrow like I heard happens in the city or one in some punk’s hand and then I’d always be sorry we didn’t talk of it, or I could find I’ve had another kind of cancer for years and go in three days flat, so who knows? reasons for doing can be just as good for not, Ted said do and don’t, Jerry said don’t and do, Mom said ‘What’s best for you, what’s best for you both,’ Dad said to clam it since knowing you’d been duped for so long might give you even more reason for doing me in, Alex never said since he was drowned or his ship blew up or something before I told anyone, but now you say he’s kicking, good, I want to reunion with him too, for one thing to explain why I stole his ship fare from his drawer which stopped his round-the-world trip for half a year which I guess ended up with him getting on a different one coming home that now never went down or did but without him — I liked having him around, didn’t want to see him go or me be the last child at home, but mind if I use your bathroom? — tiny bladders run in our family — remember Mom dashing in from the street and leaving a pee line on the floor?” and he points the way, says “What am I saying, I mean doing, for it’s not as if I see you every day? — oh Jesus, Vera, this is more than I can say, both of you back the same day,” kisses her hands, says “I feel so bad what I put you though starting from that time in your room, I also want you to meet Denise and our girls, they’re going to love having a blood sister-in-law and aunt from me — Denise is an only child and all of what would have been her relatives right down to the last second cousin were murdered or worked or frozen or starved to death during World War II, and also please, whatever you do, don’t tell my kids what I did to you — no threats but I will feel rotten if they find out,” and puts his arms around her and kisses her head, she says “You still retract like you used to because of the ugly scar down my back — for my sake try to get used to it if you’re going to hug me,” and he says “I always thought I did it in a way where you didn’t notice, I’m sorry, and go to the bathroom, you’re jumping around as if you have to,” and she goes in, shuts the door, turns the faucet on, “Just like Mom,” he says, “with the water going, so nobody will hear,” “You say something?” “The faucet — Mom — I don’t think I spoke about this with anyone in the family — used to even turn it on to teach us how to pee in the bowl — she thought the sound of it, which still gives me the urge to go if I’m in the john or at the kitchen sink and the water’s on,” phone rings, “It’s Dad,” he says, “has to be, the triumveral — which lots of people must have already coined — return, or march,” and picks up the phone and says hello, “Will you accept a collect call from Simon Tetch?” a woman says, “Sure, put him on, I won’t even ask how he’s there, since I saw him right before my eyes die — no going-out-of-the-room-at-the-last-moment on my part — and then a day later get buried, and his body I saw at the funeral,” “Howard,” a voice like his father’s says, “how’s my boy, and good to hear you, and how I got back I’ll level with you straight off — I wasn’t dead or faking, just some look- and feelalike coma that even had the doctors and morticians fooled, and then I pushed and crawled out of the box and above ground like I’ve pushed and crawled out of every spot I’ve been in, whole and better and a lot smarter and tougher from it and ending up standing on two feet but this time in need of a little cleaning,” “And this was when — yesterday or the day before after almost twenty years — how was the food down there?” “It was some time ago — you figure it out, you’re the one who was always making with the plots and angles and complications, and you probably still are, if I know you, only because you couldn’t turn up anything better to do — but I’m here and that should be enough,” “You know, reasons have to satisfy me logically, plausibly—,” “Oh plausibly, with your flossy words, well I got them too: abomination, ridicule,” “All I’m saying is your explanation doesn’t quite make it, but I’m glad you called,” “Good, since my life’s much easier when you’re not being a wise guy, and listen, I’m sorry for the reverse charges, which shouldn’t stand you much as I’ll be brief, but I’m at a booth and had no change on me,” “No problem, glad it didn’t stop you from calling, and let’s face it, Dad — do you think I can say this? — you were never one much for making calls from pay phones if you first couldn’t tell the operator you lost your coin in the slot or got the wrong number, or even from the one at home, so maybe it is you on the phone,” “Why you being so sarcastic? and it was you who was always the big sport with our phone — calling pals in California — that homely stringbean and her kid you once lived with out there — but you never picked up the tab for it, never even asked to see the phone bill,” “I used to leave a couple bucks by the phone if I made a long-distance call and with a note saying for my California call at such and such a time, and I called from home because I was living there then, helping Mom take care of you, which was a promise I made her and OK, I wanted to do it too, and if I went out to call it would have cost me twice as much because of I don’t know what implausible justifications the phone company gave — operator assistance for a while, but when I could dial direct from a pay phone if I put in the right change after a recorded voice told me how much?” “You never understood even with the local calls that it’s extra charges after the first three minutes, and that piled up into big phone bills, but did you put money down for those?” “So the phone bill was a few extra bucks a month because of me, so what? — you knew you were never going to see your last buck and you had a free nurse’s aide in me minus my room and board,” “I wasn’t made of money is what I’m saying,” “And I’m saying you had enough dough stashed away to take care of the little extra a month on the phone bills, and I’ll pay you back everything you still think I owe you for those calls, with interest and interest on the interest, for I’ve money, a regular job, not a tremendous salary but enough to get you back every last red cent of it,” “Forget it, it’s over and done with and I don’t want to be petty, but you used to make me mad with that business and other things — my liquor, for instance, swilling it like a dozen drunken Irishmen at a wake but did you once bring a bottle home?” “Sure I did, probably more than I drank, booze for Mom, booze for me, wine, cordials, beer, soda when I was drinking brandy and soda,” “When, if you didn’t keep it in your room? — you never brought and you drank too much and the best stuff I had too, the scotch and my one bottle of rare Crown Royal I was saving for special occasions, and then you watered the bottles, don’t tell me, ruining the liquor for me when I was finally able to have my one shot a month,” “While you’re at it why not bring up the refrigerator—,” “Just tell me first, did you water my Crown Royal?” “Yeah, I don’t know, I might have watered a bottle or two of something — it was late and I was probably exhausted but couldn’t sleep or just keyed up from having taken care of you and needed a drink — one of your big fecal spills, for instance, which I’m not blaming you for — and I’d run out of my own booze and Mom’s was empty too and I thought you might be checking the bottle level the next day, but if I took an inch of it it was a lot,” “Three or four inches, if I remember, and not because I measured and checked it but because of its taste, but what about the refrigerator you started mentioning before — how you used to stand in front of the open door all day?” “That too, but I was thinking about your complaints of how much I ate,” “You nearly ate us out of house and home, but you were fidgety from taking care of me maybe, which led to all your overeating, so like you I shouldn’t blame you there, but with the open door you acted as if we had lots of stock in Con Ed — you also acted as if the refrigerator bulb and the food spoiling inside were replaceable for free,” “Then you should have got a see-through refrigerator door, for how else could I have seen what was inside?” “You could have come to it the way I did, with an idea what you wanted to eat and what was inside,” “Mom was constantly buying different foods, so I didn’t know what was inside,” “And you were constantly eating but I don’t think buying it,” “You wanted me to set aside a special little section of the refrigerator for myself with just the food I bought?” “I wanted you, since you weren’t shelling out for your own upkeep outside, to contribute something to the house — food, alcohol or money — for no matter how little you earned with your sub work at school you always still could have given in a small cut,” “What about how much you were saving on nursing care with me and Mom?” “Listen, with my own mother — my father I couldn’t do it for because he just keeled over one day and died — but with her when she was sick I paid for round-the-clock nurses in the hospital and then a live-in one for her at home till she died,” “You were such a good son — that’s what you liked to stress — and what lousy sons we were, or just me,” “Not lousy, you just always thought you knew better than me so never did anything I asked, and you also never chipped in a dime to the house,” “You became a dentist early and made much more than I,” “I was paying half my parents’ living costs when I was working two jobs while going to dental school, but it could be I had more incentive than you kids, coming from a background where we had almost nothing,” “You went into everything else, why not my Gentile girlfriends next?” “I’ll go into them — which ones? — you had so many, one uglier and skinnier than the next, and you lived with some, you brought them to the house for dinner so we had to entertain them no less, one Kraut you even had stay a week and don’t let’s forget again that especially ugly stringbean one and her kid you lived with at the house for a few months,” “A couple of weeks — we were supposed to for a few months, while she went to some accelerated interior design school, but it was obviously upsetting you and in turn Mom and us, so we moved out, and I did ask your permission first — you forget that or just don’t want to remember — I called from California and wrote and in both the call and your letter back you said though you don’t entirely approve of the arrangement, you gave your permission,” “I never gave anything, your mother must have even though I told her not to,” “And that Kraut for a week was a Dane I met there whose parents put me up for a while, and she was a friend, that’s all — we had similar interests in art and literature and looking at cathedrals and so on — and we slept in different rooms in her home and ours,” “Oh, you were shtupping her, don’t tell me — you thought you had a shlong ten feet long that had to be used every night or it would become standard size — well then you should have used it in your own home — I hated all your Gentile girlfriends, there was never anything to them, no looks or brains, with probably tight anti-Semites for parents if they had any money — you were throwing yourself away on them just to get laid,” “You liked them well enough when they were around, and they were always pleasant to you, much more than you rated, seeing what you thought of them — Janine, for example — she made you laugh, held your hand when she talked to you sometimes, treated you with plenty of respect, and if you thought she was ugly and skinny then you have less of an eye for beauty than I ever thought, for weren’t you always boasting you married one? or maybe you only started keeping your glasses filthy when I met her,” “I forget this Janine, most of them looked like the next one, maybe there was an exception some place, but rich, beautiful and Jewish is what I’m saying I wanted for you and you should have too and could have got, for if they have everything a Gentile girl does but also’s Jewish, what’s so wrong with it? — fewer problems, for one thing, because you’re mostly from the same background so understand each other from the beginning, and Jewish girls are as sexy as any — more so most times — maybe it’s in the religion or what’s not in it or what they learn at home — to give a man who gives them a good life everything he wants — and you had the looks, height and brains to get one but you never took advantage of it — then you lost your hair like me — I told you you would — but not like me you didn’t have any money to make up for it, and you were drinking too much and not taking care of yourself in other ways — clothes, even though I said if you were interested in a Jewish girl I’d buy you an entire wardrobe to date her — your beard sometimes, other times a mustache — nobody even knew who you were because of these quick-change acts with your face — and your old sneakers, no socks with them sometimes, you were getting to look like a street rummy with all of this, so then why would they want you?” “I still had a youthful face — it’s genetic, from Mom’s side — and I didn’t shrink or lose as much hair as you at a comparable age or my brains, but I didn’t happen to meet a Jewish girl I liked then, maybe just circumstance,” “You didn’t meet them because you didn’t want to have anything to do with them — they were Jewish, so not as good as far as you were concerned — no small features, stick legs, no invisible nose or breasts — Jewish was trafe for some smart-aleck reason — you only wanted Gentile because they were different from what the rest of our families had and you could shove them into my face because you knew I hated it — consider yourself lucky one didn’t foul you up for good by getting a baby from you and making you pay through the nose for it,” “How do you know one didn’t?” “First of all you had no money for payments to her if she did,” “I’m only talking about the baby part,” “That’s just what they’d do — out of marriage, even when living with their own husbands but from someone else, and right after she screwed with you she’d screw with him and then with both of them smoking a cigarette after she’d tell him she’s pregnant by you and he’d come with a gun after your head, but don’t even insinuate to me you and one woman did, I don’t want to hear it not even as a joke, because if it’s true then you’re finished in my eyes and because of your cavalier attitude to it, in the world’s,” “No, I’m sorry, it never happened, probably I was lucky, and now I’m married and have two wonderful girls and my wife couldn’t be nicer, and she’s Jewish, what do you know? though it had nothing to do with it — I just, well, met her, and she turned out to be that — in fact when I first saw her I thought she wasn’t,