Tony and Susan by Austin Wright

to your motel.’
    ‘What can I do there?’
    Bobby Andes was reading from his notebook into a tape recorder. He noticed Tony Hastings. He said, ‘You can go with George. I’ll talk to you this afternoon.’
    Tony Hastings pulled the world together. He said, ‘Will my car be usable?’
    ‘Tomorrow. I want to examine it first.’
    ‘Can I have my suitcase?’
    ‘George will get it.’ Bobby Andes spoke to George: ‘Tell Max he needs his worldly goods.’
    The one Bobby Andes called George drove him back, the long trip out the terrible woods track like a gash in his mind, and fast on the country roads to his motel across from the police station.
    Afterwards, Tony Hastings remembered him only vaguely, like a blond high school football player in a policeman’s uniform. They did not speak. Tony Hastings stared at the repeating woods, two times in each direction, backdrop to dizzy thought. Afterwards he remembered the display of his thought upon the big deciduous trunks, the fallen branches, the rock outcrops with the radio police voices. The word No. He did not know what he was thinking, except that what had happened was the worst and the world was over. Nor what he was feeling, if he was feeling anything. Fatigue and lethargy. He wondered what he should do. He guessed there would be no point in going to Maine. Of course there would be no point, what was he thinking about? What would he do with August and the rest of the summer? What would he do with his car? What when the policeman left him at the motel? He wondered if his emotions required him to skip lunch, but he was hungry, whatever his emotions were, which he didn’t know anyway. He wondered where he could eat lunch and what it would be like. He wondered what to do in the afternoon, and looked forward to his interview with Bobby Andes, which would be something, anyway. Then there would be dinner to think about. After dinner, the evening.
    He knew his loss was heavy even if he didn’t feel its weight, and he ought to tell someone. Of course he should, it was his privilege as one bereaved. Bereaved. He thought of his friends and wondered who to tell, intimates who would gather around in your hour of need. He could not think of anyone who would want to gather around, yet someone should be notified. Who? Probably his sister and brother. Of course his sister and brother. He was glad he remembered his sister. He was not so sure about his brother. But when he thought what to tell her, he didn’t want to break the news, he did not want to deal with her shock, he did not want to listen to it.
    Thinking about grief made him remember the wrapped cocoons, which was which, and the memory released his tears a second time.
    He said, ‘Would it be possible for someone to call my sister and tell her? Give her my number so she can call back.’
    The look on George’s face could not understand why if Tony wanted his sister to call him, he couldn’t call her himself. But it was only his face, and he said, ‘I guess so, sure.’ He took the numbers which Tony had written on a slip from his notebook.
    He began to wonder if he had made a mistake. The possibility that, distraught as he was and expecting the worst, he had not taken sufficient care in identifying them, had jumped to his conclusion too quickly. He realized he had looked only once. Long enough only to see what he had expected to see. The possibility of error grew like a fountain. Try it on George. ‘I’m afraid I’m not absolutely sure of my identification.’
    It took George a moment to understand. ‘Yeah?’ Annoyed. Tony was embarrassed. ‘You’ll have to look again in the morgue, anyway,’ George said.
    At the motel before leaving, George said, ‘You want to cancel that call to your sister?’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘Until you’re sure?’
    Though he already knew this was a futile hope, the slightest possibility he had made a mistake, that his sister might be given false news he would later have to retract,