Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt Page B

excited by the baby on the way. Wendy is in her sixth month. She’s going to have another boy (Jessie took the news bravely). Wendy’s platelet count is low, as it was when she was pregnant with Andrew and Ryan, but it is being monitored. “No worries, Dad,” he says. They are planning to buy a bigger house. “And how are you doing—about A?” I ask. Like Ginny, he puts himself last. He says he tears up from time to time, especially when driving. The Christmas songs get to him. “But once or twice a month,” he says, “I play that phone message A left Wendy about Christmas presents for the boys, and that helps a lot. Mom has listened to it. Do you think you’d like to hear it now?” I tell him not yet.
     
    Carl relates a story about Andrew, who is about to turn six. Andrew is exacting and very hard on himself. If he errs with a single letter when writing his name, he erases the name and rewrites “Andrew” from the beginning. Or he’ll take a new sheet of paper and start from scratch. Carl assures him, “Everybody makes mistakes,” but Andrew will not accept that.
    One afternoon, he was drawing pictures and growing frustrated when he signed his name and made the letters poorly. “Everybody makes mistakes,” Carl said. “Not Eric Carle,” said Andrew, referring to the author and illustrator of one of his first books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? “Eric Carle’s drawings are perfect.”
    “By the time the books appear and we see them, the mistakes have all been corrected,” Carl said. “Everybody makes mistakes.”
    Ryan, who had been playing nearby, chimed in, “Not God. God doesn’t make mistakes.” Andrew said, “God made a mistake with Aunt Amy.”
     
    Some time has passed since I first called the NYU School of Medicine. Dean Grieco tells me that to date there is over a quarter of a million dollars in Amy’s fund, and that it is expected to yield five percent yearly. Alan and Arlene Alda, old family friends, made a munificent contribution. I know even more money is coming in, because friends have told us that their family Christmas gifts to one another were contributions to the fund. “I wish we had Amy instead,” he says.
    I ask him if our family might know something about the first scholarship recipients. The initial disbursements will occur at the end of January, 2010. He will inquire at the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, and let me know. He tells me that a reception for scholarship donors will be held at the school in the spring. Would we like to attend? We would.
     
    “Boppo, here’s a riddle,” says Jess. “A man came over on Friday, stayed two days, and went home on Friday. How is that possible?”
    “Friday is a horse,” I tell her.
    “Right,” she says. “Here’s another riddle. Three men fell off a boat into the water. Only two of them got their hair wet. How is that possible?”
    “Friday is a horse,” I tell her.
    “Right,” she says.
     
    James awakens at about 10 p.m. and calls for “Daddy.” He is not pleased at the sight of me as I enter his room and pick him up to carry him downstairs. “Daddy!” he says. I tell him Daddy is having dinner with friends, and he will be home very soon. He utters a faint “Daddy,” but does not despair. Last winter, if Harris was out at night for any reason, and James awakened and did not see him, he would cry ceaselessly until he exhausted himself. Tonight he merely mutters his displeasure, though he remains anxious. “We hear the garage?” he says, meaning that Harris enters the house from the garage after he parks the car. We look for Harris through the front window for a while, then he rests his head on my shoulder. We listen for sounds from the garage.
     
    Being without the children is harder on Ginny than it is on me, because I am more used to the effects of solitude. I may have too much time alone, but Ginny, and Harris, have too little. She and I are together in New York briefly, to go to