Vox(45)

I rule out the other neighbors, one by one. Too old, too religious, too weird, too careless. The last thing any of us needs is Sonia falling off a swing set or—worse, I think—coming back home reciting passages from the Pure’s manifesto. I rub sleep out of my eyes and search my brain for a solution.

It comes to me, all at once, that triple blink of my mailman’s eyes. And he’s got three girls.

While Sonia’s crunching on cereal, I outline my day. Make a doctor’s appointment, wait for the mailman, check on Olivia as soon as Evan leaves for work, get to the office and tell Lin what I found in Patrick’s office yesterday. What I’m not planning on doing: watching Julia King’s public shaming.

The program will air today, and tonight, and probably for most of the next month until there’s a new victim to parade in front of the press. They always handle it this way, usually inserting the footage into some show they know people will be watching. It’s sinister. No one is actually forced to watch, but the alternative is to keep your television off. And even then, reruns crop up when you least expect them—during cooking shows, This Old House, a documentary on zebras.

Steven pads back into the kitchen. “I don’t feel so hot. Think I’ll skip school today.”

Of course he’ll want to do that. Julia King will be the feature of the day at PBS.

“You’re not sick, Steven,” I say. “So go get your brothers up and put some clothes on.” I check the clock. “Bus is coming in an hour.”

“But, Mom—”

“Just don’t, kiddo.”

He needs to see this program, needs to be strapped down with his eyelids forced open like that son of a bitch in the Stanley Kubrick movie. Maybe, for good measure, they’ll throw in a few clips of Julia’s future life in the fields or fisheries.

The phone rings as I’m rinsing dishes. “Get that for me, please. Then wake Sam and Leo.” I turn to Sonia. “How about you go check on your daddy? You can bring him this if you’re careful.” I hand her a half-filled coffee mug, wincing a little at the stench. Never before did it occur to me how much coffee smells like shit.

“Okay!” Sonia says, and goes off, holding the mug with both hands, walking at a snail’s pace. With any luck, Patrick will get his coffee sometime in the next week.

“It’s for you,” Steven says. “It’s Babbo.”

It kills me, this pet name for his grandfather, a childish holdover from a time when my son was Sonia’s age, when he was still running around in bright red corduroy pants and a sun yellow T-shirt with the words SUPER KID! blazoned across the front. I have a clear memory now, of us in this kitchen, before the remodeling job, when the appliances were still avocado, and gold-flecked white Formica covered the countertops. I was making a batch of brownies, and Steven, rather than asking for the spoon to lick, pulled the empty batter bowl toward him, using his tiny hand as a spatula.

Why do they have to grow up so goddamned quickly?

I take the receiver. It’s my father. “Hi, Papà. How come you’re calling on the phone instead of FaceTiming?”

Whatever answer he has for this, I don’t hear it. My father is crying hoarsely, and the background noise of Italian hospital sounds filters through the phone line.

“Papà. What’s happened?” I say.

A new voice replaces his. “Professoressa McClellan?” a woman asks. Only she pronounces Patrick’s un-Italian surname as macalella, avoiding clusters and codas, turning it into something familiar to her.

“Yes.” Tea and toast begin an obnoxious roiling in my stomach. “What is it?”

It again. Everything has become one looming It.

“Your mother,” the doctor says after introducing herself. Her English is good, good enough that I don’t have to worry about medical jargon in a language I haven’t used for more than a year. “Your mother had an aneurysm. It burst early this morning.”

My tea and toast climb up farther, into my chest. “Locus?” I say.

“In her brain,” the doctor says.

“Yes. I know that. I mean, where in her brain? I have some background in neurology.”

“In the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus.”

“Left or right?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

Papers rustle over the phone. “Left hemisphere.”

I lean forward on the counter, my head pressed against the cool of the granite. “Wernicke’s area,” I whisper.

“Yes, near the area of Wernicke.” Another blast of Italian comes over the phone, drowning out the doctor’s words. “I’m sorry. I really am sorry. But I have another patient to attend to. If you can call back in a few hours, we might know more about your mother’s situation.”

She puts my father back on the line.

“Is she conscious?” I ask.

“No.”

When we disconnect, I’m left with Jackie’s words. One step at a time, Jeanie. Start small.

I don’t know how to start, big or small, but I know whatever I do next needs to be huge.

I wish Jackie were here.





THIRTY-SEVEN




Everyone except Sonia is out of the house when the mailman’s truck pulls up. He dodges puddles on the way to our mailbox, sifting through the stack of envelopes in his courier bag.