Oy, I’m really in a pickle. Don’t even know people I know. I hope I didn’t give it away when I spoke to them. All confused. And if I had pronounced ‘forte’ the way some people do incorrectly — the musical version — I wouldn’t be standing here like a schmo commenting about it. You know, the fort line. But tell everyone to stay as long as they want and that they won’t be disturbing me, if they ask. Incidentally, this was very nice — cathartic, in a way — and I’m glad you had it. See? Next time I say not to do something, also don’t listen to me. Oh, gosh, that almost sounded like a joke. I suppose I’m trying to sound lighthearted so you don’t worry about me. Don’t. I’m okay.” “You sure you are?” Maureen says. “Anything we can do for you?” “No. Hold down the fort. Keep things going as they are. It’s great.” His daughters look at each other. They think something’s wrong with him, he thinks. Okay. “You both look mystified. Don’t be. I swear, I’m all right. I know how to take care of myself, believe me. I took care of your mom. Now I’m going to take care of myself. I’m going to retire at the end of this academic year — I’ve recently decided this — and rest, read, work out more, maybe travel. No, I could never travel alone. Did it as a college student and then later in my late twenties when I went by bus and train through France, and was always so lonely. Just what I need right now, right? Though maybe to the shore one day to sit on a rock and look at the ocean or to some state park where there’s a mountain to look out at, but that should do it. But why am I making these stupid plans? It’s too early. It’s all come so fast. I don’t mean Mommy’s illness, but just two weeks since she passed away.” “It’s been more than a month, Daddy,” Rosalind says. “A month, then. Really. I can hardly believe it. Went by so fast when you’d think it’d be achingly slow. What was I doing the last month, that I didn’t notice? Walking around in a fog, sleeping a great deal, listening to a lot of lugubrious Bach, no doubt drinking more than usual and dozing off from it. That’ll kill time. I’m not sure I’m using that expression right. And gardening, seeing to your mother’s garden, something I didn’t like doing when she was well, but got into the groove once it was obvious she couldn’t do it herself. Making it nice and neat the way she instructed me to, as if I could still wheel her around outside so she could admire her garden and fruit trees. I can’t tell you how sad it made me to push her wheelchair from behind and only see the back of her head but sense her smile. Though here I am telling you. I’m making you sad, aren’t I?” and Rosalind says “No, you can tell us anything. It’s good you get it out.” “Is that what I’m doing? I’ll probably let the garden go, though. I don’t see myself continuing at the same pace, and I’ve no desire to keep it in the same condition as a monument to her. No monuments. I’ll snip here, there; that’s all, so it doesn’t entirely grow over and the property loses value. Maybe sell the house if you girls don’t want to assume ownership of it, and give you most of the money from it minus the capital-gains taxes, or whatever they’re called.” “If you retire,” Maureen says, “you’ll need all the money you can to live on, and where would you move to? I’d hope back to New York so we could see you more. But don’t make any important decisions for at least a year, I’ve been told to tell you.” “Who told you?” “People. Guests here.” “How come they didn’t tell me? Anyway, we’ll see. As for retirement, I should’ve done it sooner so I could’ve helped out your mother more. And I don’t need much — in fact, I like living on a little — and your mother made me promise to be generous with you girls. I’ve my retirement income and Social Security benefits and your mother and I have some savings and investments, which I’ll split in half with you or just take a third, and I seem to make a little each year off my writing, and the house is paid off. There’s also your mother’s retirement money, not much but which you kids will get all of. Maybe I’ll buy a small apartment somewhere, although I’m afraid, much as I’d love to see you more, not in New York. I was born and grew up there and went to school, college, my earliest jobs there — and then back to it for twelve more years; did everything there. Met your mother and lived with her in her apartment for a while, before we married there. We conceived you kids there, and then with Rosalind moved down here, though kept our apartment there for years, but that city now gives me the jitters. And I like the easiness of life here and no trouble in finding a parking spot and the tree and flower smells and sounds of the owl.” “What owl?” Rosalind says. “The neighborhood one out on a tree somewhere near, or else his hoots travel as if he is, which he does almost every night. Neither of you have heard him?” and they shake their heads. “You’re young; you’ve few regrets and done little that’s wrong, so you sleep soundly. Nah, that’s too pat. Your mother and I just happened to sleep badly the last two years, she worse than I. She used to nudge me in the dark — last time was about a week before her last stroke — and say ‘Do you hear the owl?’ She was so happy with it. I’d say ‘You woke me for that? Yes, I heard. Now try to sleep,’ and I’d get half an Ambien out of the container on the dresser and drop it into her mouth, only because she asked me to — I wasn’t drugging her so I could sleep — but it usually didn’t start working for a couple of hours. But I’m making plans again, aren’t I? And geese. You don’t get geese flying north or south overhead, depending which season, and their collective honks. You and your people are right,” he says to Maureen; “too soon. And if I get a simple one-bedroom condo, I think is what I’m thinking about and which’d be all I could afford, no owl or geese and probably no flower and tree smells, either, so that’s out. I’ll come up with something. Just so long as you kids get a hefty share. I doubt I can stay here with all my memories of her in it. And that expression ‘passed away’—what I used before? Another one I never say. ‘Died’ is ‘died.” Not ‘she passed away, he did, they all passed away’ or ‘on.’ On what? I never understood that wording, or maybe just not today. You can understand why. But, excuse me, I’m going to nap. Make all the noise you want, it won’t disturb me. I’m that tired, and sleep’ll clear my spaghetti head.” “Spaghetti head?” Maureen says. “I don’t know,” he says, “it just came to me. Isn’t spaghetti disordered and mixed up and roils around in water before it’s cooked? But I’ll be all right — I can see by your faces you don’t think so. Really, I’m fine. Say my goodbyes and thank anyone who asks. I didn’t see any relatives, mine or your mother’s, but I’m sure some were here.” He kisses their cheeks, goes into the bedroom and bolts the door. “Sure we can’t help you with anything, Daddy?” was the last thing one of them said. When he’s not looking at them, he often can’t tell which one’s speaking. Especially on the phone: their voices are that much alike. He thinks that’s why they always identify themselves when they call, because he made the mistake so many times. “Hi, Daddy, it’s Rosalind” or “Maureen.” What an odd thing, he thinks, looking at it; bolt on a bedroom door. It was there when they bought the house and he never thought to take it off. The previous owners, or the original ones before them, probably feared burglars would break into the house after they’d gone to bed and get into the bedroom if the door wasn’t bolted. For that — he’s had similar thoughts, though would never have gone so far as to get a bolt or latch on the door — he has a thick stick the size of a baseball bat underneath his side of the bed, which has been there for about ten years. The cleaning lady, after she vacuums under the bed, always puts it back in the same place and has never said anything to him about it. Would he use it? He would. Imagined himself several times grabbing the stick, if he thought he heard burglars in the house, and sneaking into the hallway naked with it — if the kids were home, he’d quickly put on undershorts — and jumping out at them and smashing down on their heads and hands till they couldn’t get up and their hands couldn’t hold anything and then calling the police, or yelling for Gwen to. He also has a shorter stick in the van lying alongside the driver’s door, but only since the day after the Towers were hit. Gwen was in the back bathroom that morning, the radio on, when she yelled “Martin, come in here, something terrible’s happened; turn on the TV.” He only used the bolt when he and Gwen were about to make love or a little after they’d started and the kids were home and it was daytime and he didn’t want them barging into the room. It’d be awful if one of them found them coupled, or worse. Gwen never wanted him to use the bolt. Kids will try the door, she said, find it locked and imagine much weirder things going on in there than they are. “We just have to make sure they know to knock and wait for permission to enter before opening the door.” Sometimes he quietly bolted the door — well, he always did it quietly, so the kids wouldn’t hear it, but he’s talking about the times he didn’t want Gwen to know what he was up to — when he thought if she was still in bed or washing up in the john, that he could get her to make love. He could, about half those times, and a lot of times she said something like “I was hoping you’d ask,” though more often she said “I’m really too busy right now” or “not in the mood.” But if he wants to that much, she added a number of times, and doesn’t expect but the minimum of help and participation from her and can be reasonably quick, okay. Actually, once, Maureen, or was it Rosalind? — anyway, one of them, when she was around nine or ten, came in without warning them while he was underneath Gwen and had forgotten to use the bolt, and darted out of the room and slammed the door. He didn’t see or hear anything, not even the door slamming; Gwen did. She later spoke to their daughter, saying something like “About this morning, when you came into our room when Mommy and Daddy were in bed without any covers on them? What you happened upon accidentally is an altogether voluntary physical act that adult couples occasionally do. It’s natural and healthy and normal in a marriage, and I’m not going to give you a phony-baloney explanation as to what you saw, for that would only confuse you more.” Gwen said to him “She looked at me as if I were crazy, and said ‘What are you talking about, Mommy? I wasn’t in your room this morning, or all day, so I couldn’t have seen anything you say.’ I said ‘Okay, maybe I was mistaken. I was still pretty sleepy when I thought I saw you in there, so I could have dreamt up the whole thing,’ and let it go at that. Did I say the right thing at the end?” and he said “I guess so,” and she said “With that dreaming-up-the-whole-thing excuse, she’d know it was a lie and think I was now trying to cover up something that I did feel was bad. Listen, we have to impress upon them more forcefully that we don’t bolt doors in this house but also that no one in the family can come into anyone’s room like that either. If the door’s closed, knock; knock; everyone has to knock.” He lies on his side of the bed. The cat scratches the door. He knows what will happen if he opens it. Cat will swagger in, wait till he gets back on the bed, then jump onto it and first want his head petted and then snuggle up to him. For a few days after his brother died — after his mother too — the cat stayed by his side on the bed, which made him feel better or at least comforted him somewhat. Since Gwen died, cat’s stayed mostly on one or the other of the kids’ beds or on the rocker on the porch, when before he almost always spent the night on either side of the foot of their bed. Cat resumes scratching the door. Should he let him in? No, and just have to hope he won’t start whining, which will bring back the kids. “Not now, Sleek. Go away. I want to be alone.” Cat continues scratching. “I said