dead. You know, when I was a kid in Miss Humphrey’s camp in New Hampshire—” “I don’t want to hear that story again. Eva, he came out of the water every time with five to ten leeches on him.” “Great, you don’t want to hear it but you give away the ending. And not every time; just when the weeds were stirred up or something. Beaver Lake. Outside of Derry. I’d love to take a detour one time to see how the place has changed or stayed the same. I’m sure by the picture in my head and of the road and stuff from Derry I could find it. I even remember the cottage my mother stayed at when she came up to see us, Vera and me, for a day or so. And the toy she gave me — some pinball set — you know, where you pull a knob back and shoot the ball and it’s supposed to land in one of those semicircles or cups. And taking us to Rockingham Racetrack and the amusement park nearby, I think. And looking so beautiful and big-citylike — dressed so stylishly, and same with her hair up, compared to the locals. Though maybe that image of her comes from the photo I have somewhere of us at the amusement park, Vera and I eating ice cream cones and my mother behind us with her jacket over her shoulders. I even remember riding in the back of a car with her and maybe Vera to her cottage for the night. And that it was night, probably August, and looking outside and seeing the houses passing, and being given the pinball set and tearing it open in the car. Maybe I didn’t want to leave her for the night. I was so in love with my mother. She never struck me, rarely said anything but nice words in a low voice to us. And she must have only recently arrived that day if I was only then opening the gift. Though I suppose she could have had dinner with us at the camp and seen us swim and things like that and kept the gifts in her suitcase till we got in the car. But the leeches never bothered me in the lake. It was to your credit, even — Captain Bloodsucker they called you — the number of leeches you had on you over the next guy. And some man was always there with a lit cigarette — something good at last to say about cigarettes — and went tip tip tip and they all dropped off, one, two, three, ten. And after Walker Pond, well, hey, the Country View Drive-in again, or the Bagaduce this time for fried clams and a crabmeat or lobster roll and the best onion rings north or east or west or wherever it is of the Country View.” “I want Country View,” Eva says. “They put jimmies on your baby ice cream cones.” “You remember the jimmies and that they have baby cones too? What else?” “The cows and kittens and rabbits in cages.” “Cows in cages?” Olivia says. “Don’t, Olivia darling, she’s remembering.” “In the country, I said,” Eva says. “The kittens and rabbits and the geese that steal your hamburger buns.” “Incredible. You kids didn’t talk about it just before?” “No.” “I always thought kids her age had little year-to-year memory of things like that. What else do you remember there?” “The dirty bathroom where Mommy didn’t want to go in because it had flies all over the toilet seat and nobody flushed it.” Frog. Oh my God, Denise thinks. “Frog,” she says. “Frog?” he says. “At the Country View?” “Maybe they’re in the geese and duck pond there,” Olivia says. “We left Frog home unless someone miraculously brought him.” “I didn’t,” he says, “and I’m the only one who loads and carries things.” “None of that now. This is serious.” “I’m sorry, I wasn’t martyring myself again, I think, but he’s back home? What should we do?” “We have to go back.” “Go back? Maybe sixty miles along the way — did you check the odometer before we left? For I didn’t but meant to.” “No.” “I think we’re getting near Stratford and the Wilbur Cross,” he says. “It’s got to be more than sixty, which is a hundred-twenty-plus miles altogether. Two-and-a-half hours out of our way at least — more, since we don’t do sixty, sixty-five in the city or on the Deegan or Cross Bronx and most of the times not even on this Merritt. And the Cross Bronx — did you see it going the opposite way? It was gridlock in the making, and later it gets, worse it becomes.” “Then we’ll go Saw Mill River to Henry Hudson,” she says, “but we can’t leave him. The windows are shut, his water will dry up, he has enough food for a day, he’ll be eating his own excrement.” “He’s just a turtle.” “But he’s our turtle, our responsibility.” “Why is his name Frog if he’s a turtle?” Eva says. “Don’t ask questions like that now,” he says. “I already told her once,” Olivia says, “and you did too.” “I forget,” Eva says. “Because Daddy didn’t want any name for him, thought him too simple a pet for one. If a pet can’t answer to his name, he said—” “Don’t explain now, I said,” he says, “we’re thinking.” “Then I’ll whisper,” and she whispers into Eva’s ear “And so when I said we had to have a name, that I don’t want to just call it Turtle, he said not a long one. No double syllable — da-da, Eve-a, double, two sounds, see? So I said Frog from the Frog and Toad book I was reading you then.” “Why not Toad?” “I said stop,” he says. “Whisper,” Olivia whispers. “Because Frog was my favorite character of the two and Toad sounds ugly.” “Oh, now I know,” Eva says. “I’m sorry, Howard, I should have been the one to remember it,” Denise says, “since you were doing almost everything else. But we have to act now and that’s to go back.” “No, listen, there’s got to be another way. You don’t mind if he doesn’t spend the summer with us — just that he lives?” “Yes.” “So well call the Matlocks and have them get our key from the doorman and they can take care of him in their place for the summer. And if they go on vacation for a while — I think they said two weeks-give him to the Leventhals, and so on. We’d do that for them. We have done things like that — looked after their plants, picked their kid up at the school bus stop once. Well explain our situation, that we’re an hour and a half away already—” “The Matlocks are at work and who knows where their kids are — camp, probably, or with friends. Even if we get one of them at work, you think it fair asking them to take care of a turtle for two months — cleaning out its bowl, feeding it, worrying that it might die in the heat?” “They’ve air conditioners in every room. He’ll be fine. And we’ll say we’ll pay them for the extra electricity if it gets too hot for the turtle and the air conditioner has to be on for him when nobody’s home.” “But they should do this for two months when to get him it’ll be two-and-a-half hours out of our way at the most? Even if it comes to three-and-a-half hours, so what? If you want to do the right thing you have to pay for it sometimes.” “Yeah, I know, you’re right, but we have dinner reservations for six-thirty, I want to go to the beach with the kids for an hour before dinner and they want to too. I want to have a drink after a long trip and read the paper—” “We could always go to another restaurant there or Cape Porpoise for dinner as you said, and the rest of your entertainment you’ll have to skip this once.” ‘It’s June 30th, Friday, no less, the beginning of one of the peak vacation weeks of the summer. Suppose all of Cape Porpoise is booked tonight? We know nothing about the place except it has a couple of fish restaurants. And with dainty and dapper Kennebunkport we know all the decent restaurants will be filled around eight. Especially at eight. That’s when they finish their cocktails and want to eat after a long day in their gardens and on their patios and tennis courts and boats, and which is around the time we’d be getting there if we drove back now for the turtle.” “So well stop for dinner at a nice place on the way.” “I don’t want to get off the road except for water stops and a quick lunch till we get there.” “Then we’ll find a drive-in or diner in Kennebunkport like the Country View, bring beer and wine to it in paper bags if we have to, because I know that drinking with your dinner’s one of your main considerations—” “It is, I like it with my dinner but right now it’s not the point.” “Yay, please let’s go to one of those other Country Views,” Olivia says. “Nothing. I don’t want to hear anything from you kids, now listen to me.” “Don’t shout,” Eva says. “I already told you so.” “And I told you. Mommy and I are talking.” “You’re shouting.” “We’re discussing. Now both of you, shut up. I’m sorry, but be quiet.” “Don’t scold them,” Denise says. “They’re not doing anything. Anyway, we can’t ask the Matlocks — it’s just too long — and Frog can’t be left there and I can’t come up with any other solution but going back — We’re coming up on an exit.” “There are exits every mile or so on the Merritt and, if I remember, on the Wilbur Cross, so don’t worry.” “You’re making it worse for yourself. Further we go, less you’ll feel — there’s a sign for the Stratford theater now.” “I see it.” “Less you’ll feel like turning around.” “We have to turn around, Dada,” Olivia says. “We have to get Frog.” “I got it,” he says. “Your mother. She’d do it, wouldn’t she, take care of him — your folks?” “I think so,” Denise says. “But they’re going to one of their Polish hotels for two weeks in August and middle of July she’s spending a week with us.” “Your father can take care of him when she’s with us and we’ll worry about the Polish hotel later. Their cleaning lady — someone, one of their neighbors, or the Matlocks then. I know it’ll be a pain in the butt for them all and I’m sorry, but we’ll try to make it as easy as we can. They can give it to the Matlocks for those two weeks if their vacations don’t coincide. If they do, the Leventhals or someone, or I’m sure even my brother will drive down and take him for two weeks and maybe till the end of the summer if I really ask him and his vacation doesn’t fall in with theirs. And we’ll take care of the cab fare and everything else from our place to your mother’s and back to the Matlocks and so on. She can get the keys from the doorman. Tobley — he’s on till four today. If she can’t pick up the turtle by then, we’ll tell him to tell the doorman who succeeds him to give it to her. Or she can go up and get it herself with the spare keys, but we’ll have to call Tobley first for I’m sure he won’t give the keys to her unless we tell him.” “I don’t want her going upstairs and gathering up Frog and his bowl and food and carrying it to the cab; too exerting and heavy.” “Then Tobley or the other doorman or one of the porters will do it. I’ll tell him on the phone I’ll send him something. And till then he can keep the turtle downstairs in their little office till your mother or father comes, or go upstairs and get it when they come.” “Good, that’s what we’ll do. Stop at the next service station so we can phone everyone. You have the downstairs phone number?” “In my address book in my work bag. Or if I didn’t transfer it to the new book, which I’m almost positive I did, we can always get it through New York information under ‘Apartment Buildings,’ I think. Something like that. I did it once. Wait — oh crap. The doormen don’t have the spare set. We do, unless you took it out of the saucer on the piano and brought it down — remember?” “Remember what?” she says. “You forgot your keys — two days ago — and the doorman gave you the one spare set they have and you told me to bring it down yesterday and I forgot and last night you said for me to make sure to do it today, but you didn’t when you were leaving?” “No.” “So it’s there. Don’t the Matlocks have a spare set?” “They did but I asked for it back when I forgot my keys last week — I was upstairs when I realized it and rang their apartment and got them.” “Where’s that set now?” “In my purse probably.” “So why didn’t you use it to let yourself in the other day when you got the spare set from the doorman?” “I don’t know if I had that purse with me, but anyway, I forgot it was in it till now.” “Then I don’t know what to do.” “No, come on, we have to think of something — you’ve been great at it.” “Then this. I’ll call Tobley and have him get a spare set from management and even if it takes two days — we can tell him we’ll pay for messenger or livery service of the keys to the building — the turtle will still be alive. After all, he’s a turtle, and possibly a hibernating animal, or even if he isn’t or only hibernates in the winter — built for surviving under uncertain or changeable conditions. And everything won’t dry up or run out in a day and a half.” “But you know with management it could take three to four days. And if it gets very hot and with the windows up except for an inch in the kitchen, Frog might die.” “Turtles love hot humid weather.” “But if it gets too hot and humid in the room over a few days the oxygen in his bowl could evaporate, or whatever oxygen does — disappear — along with the water. And he’ll die that way and I don’t want the doorman — well I first don’t want Frog to die — but I don’t want the doorman to have to deal with that. It wouldn’t be fair. And suppose management can’t come up with a spare set? You know they’re totally disorganized and indifferent except for the first-of-the-month rent envelope in your box and an eviction notice if you haven’t paid in five days.” “Then break down the goddamn door, I’ll tell them.” “Fine if it’s your door, but they won’t do it for a turtle even if you say you’ll pay for it. No, that’s something where you have to slip the super some money and right on the spot and then later pay management for the door.” “So let’s stop off at a town near here and send the keys express through the post office to the doorman and then call Tobley to say it’s coming. He or one of the other doormen will get it tomorrow.” “Suppose they don’t?” she says. “There could be any number of mixups. The wrong doorman might get it and not know what to do with it — a substitute, which there often is and especially during vacation time and sometimes they even have one of the porters take over for an afternoon or day. Or maybe the doorman Tobley tells you will be on and that’s the one you address it to, might call in sick or the schedule’s been changed and Tobley doesn’t know this fellow’s off. So it just stays around waiting for him.” “Then I’ll tell Tobley to have tomorrow’s doormen look out for the express mail addressed to ‘Doorman,’ and even