Free Ending by Hilma Wolitzer Page B

of the man sitting next to me. I yawned again, and my thoughts became sleepy and disjointed. Back again. Home. Jay. Then I felt myself going under too, into sleep.
    The whole journey was made in that sleep and in the bus station in New York again, I went to a telephone booth and called the hospital. The floor nurse said that there were no major changes, that Jay had had a fairly comfortable day. He read a book, she reported. He ate some lunch. Then she connected the call to Jay’s room and I heard his voice. “Hello, Sandy?” His voice entered me. Could I say that? Your voice enters me.
    He wanted to know about my cold, about the children. “Fine, fine,” I said. Your voice enters me.
    I told him that I would come to see him as soon as the sniffles were gone. I actually used the word, as professionally cheery as a nurse. Then we blew kisses to one another that fell to their death somewhere in the trunk lines and I hung up.
    Back in Isabel’s apartment I was surprised to see her ex-husband, Eddie, sitting on the sofa, smoking a pipe. It wasn’t Sunday and yet he was there, looking tranquil and domestic, with his younger daughter, Janice, on his lap and Harry nestled close to his side.
    In the kitchen Isabel was busy, oven-flushed and happy. It was Janice’s birthday and her father had come for the celebration dinner. Paul was wearing a paper birthday hat with a green feather on it. He took my hand and led me to inspect the cake on display next to the refrigerator.
    I began to set the table and Eddie came in from the living room, his face lost in the veil of smoke from his pipe. He leaned in the doorway and watched me. “So Jay is having a hard time,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    Eddie’s pipe made sounds like faulty plumbing and he sucked and sucked at it, as if he were trying to draw out new ideas. “Tough break,” he said at last. “Tough break.”
    I placed a basket of candy at every place setting, and a noisemaker and a party hat. My hands trembled as I put the silverware down. I wondered how he felt on this celebration of his daughter’s birth. Did he remember the original day and his first sight of her in the world?
    “So you’re at the hospital all the time?”
    “Yes.” Was it to be an incantation of my days?
    “I hate hospitals,” Eddie said. “The smell.”
    “It brings out anxieties,” I said.
    “No, it’s the smell. I’ve always been sensitive to odors.”
    “You get used to it.”
    “Is Jay in pain?”
    “Sometimes. His back. He’s weak, fatigued.”
    Eddie sighed and tapped out the now dead ashes from his pipe. “Tough break,” he said again.
    Then Izzy and the children came in bearing steaming bowls of meat and vegetables and potatoes. We sat down and let the conversation fall to the children, who were elated by the presence of their father at the table. Even Harry and Paul seemed to rejoice. And Eddie was in complete charge, king for a day, carving meat and giving masculine admonitions to all to eat everything and grow strong. He included us in his benevolent gaze as it circled the table. Yet another wife and children. Was there nothing that Eddie couldn’t take on? And Izzy, caught in the brilliance of his smile, was radiant and intoxicated. I watched as she put choice food on his plate and passed it back to him in remembered ceremony.
    The children blew the noisemakers at each other in earsplitting blasts, and they ate candy recklessly, before they finished their dinner. Then Isabel went to bring in the cake and the oldest child shut the lights. The candles sputtered and cast a pale glow. Janice leaned forward, shut her eyes, and made her wish.
    I looked across the table at Eddie and saw that his face was ineffably sad, that he grieved in his own way for the ruins and the losses of decision and chance.
    Then Janice blew fiercely at the tiny flames of the candles until they were all extinguished and we sang to her.

16
    I NSOMNIA AGAIN AND WHY not? The worst fantasy of all had become