Charlie,â she said. âIâm sorry. Really sorry. Really, really, Charlieâ¦â
âShit,â I said.
âFuck,â Seana said. âFuck and double-fuck.â
âItâs my father, isnât it,â I said to the trooper.
He nodded. âIâm awfully sorry, Mister Eisner,â he said.
âI knew it,â I said. âI just knew it. âWe shouldnât have left him alone.â
âNonsense,â Seana said.
âWe shouldnât ,â I insisted. âWe shouldnât haveâeven if he wanted us to.â
âAnd weâre being punished for having done so, right?â Seana said. âPunished for our pleasures.â
âI didnât say that. I just said we shouldnât have left him alone.â
âCan it, Charlie,â she said. âHeâs gone. End-of-story, as young people say these days.â
Then she turned to Trish, who opened her arms wide for her. Seana held to Trish, let her head rest on Trishâs shoulder, and I was suddenly confused. Why was she embracing Trish when it was my father who had died? Why was she shutting me out? And if I went to her, and tried to pry her from Trishâs embraceâ¦
âIâm awfully sorry, Mister Eisner,â the trooper said again. âWe received a request from the Northampton police to try to locate you. I checked hotels and motels in the areaâwe had the license plate number of your fatherâs carâand at the Ocean House, in Port Clyde, they said youâd mentioned visiting some one in Thomaston.â
âDid heâdid he do it himself?â I asked.
âI donât have details, sir. For that youâll have to call Northampton. I have a number for youâtwo numbers, in fact.â He tore off a piece of paper from the kind of pad you use for
giving out speeding tickets, and handed it to me. âOfficer Burke. Michael Burke. He said heâd be there all morning, and that you can call him on his cell phone anytimeâthe numberâs there. He said he went to high school with you.â
I turned and saw that Trish was sitting in a chair now, sobbing away, Seana next to her, stroking Trishâs hair while Anna clung to Trishâs leg and told her not to cry. âDonât cry, Mommy,â she kept saying. âPlease donât cry, Mommy. Donât cry, Mommy Mommy Mommyâ¦â
The floor, tilted up at a forty-five degree angle, was rapidly approaching my nose, squiggles of black dots swirling in its path. I sat down, bent over so that my head was lower than my heart, and after about thirty seconds I sat up straight again.
None of us spoke for a while, which made the room much too quietâthe trooper was gone, though I hadnât noticed him leavingâso I picked up the telephone and called Michael Burke, and when I identified myself, he said he was sorry for my loss, and assured me he would take care of everything until I was back in Northampton. My father had died peacefully in his sleep, of heart failure, he saidâthat was the initial finding by the doctor, and he didnât expect it to change. When the lights in much of the house had stayed on for more than twenty-four hours, a neighbor became concerned, and rang the doorbell and banged on the door and, receiving no response, had called the police. I thanked Michael and told him we should arrive back in town by early evening.
I told Trish and Seana what Michael had told meâthat it seemed Max had died peacefully in his sleepâand I added that he would have turned seventy-three on his next birthday, but that, as Iâd often heard him say, he believed that everything past the proverbial three score and ten was considered extraâa giftâso that seventy-two wasnât a bad run.
âStill,â Seana said, âwhen youâre seventy-two, seventy-three doesnât look so good.â
We were quiet again, and after a minute
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