Free My Life Among the Apes by Cary Fagan

after our third child was old enough for Lizette to go back to work part-time did the true panic attacks begin. She had to take a medical leave and endure hours of fitfully successful therapy before the proper dosage of a new drug began to help. Medication has made life more tolerable for her, although I became the one who took our boys to hockey practice and attended our daughter’s piano recitals.
    I still find myself frustrated and angry that we cannot go on holidays, or to the theatre, or to a dinner party. Two years ago I conceived the idea of visiting France for my fiftieth birthday, but of course we could not go. I fantasize about going on my own (and having an affair with a beautiful woman), but along with the fantasy comes guilt and shame, which results in my treating Lizette with an excessive delicacy that annoys her.
    FOR MY SCIENCE PRESENTATION THE year I was eleven, I chose Jane Goodall’s research on primate behaviour. I stood before the class and talked about how as a young girl she had written down her observations of birds and animals around her home, then as a young woman how she had become secretary to the famous paleontologist Louis Leakey, who was looking for someone to study chimpanzees in the wild. I spoke of her findings: how chimps slept in nests that they made by bending branches down with their feet, how grooming was an important form of social interaction. I passed around photographs.
    Two photographs I kept to myself. One was Jane Goodall washing her hair. The other was a close-up of her in profile looking into the face of a chimp. Her own eyes blue, her lips slightly parted. That night in bed, I imagined writing to Jane Goodall and telling her of my admiration for her work. At the same time, I modestly pointed out something that she had missed but that I noticed from the photographs, an observation about the way chimpanzees communicate with gestures. I sent the letter to her care of the offices of the National Geographic Society and in a short time I received a telegram which the delivery man read while my family stood by the door and listened.
    BRILLIANT OBSERVATION STOP HAVE UNFILLED ASSISTANT POSITION STARTING IMMEDIATELY STOP YOU ARE URGENTLY NEEDED STOP PLANE TICKET ARRIVING TOMORROW STOP JANE GOODALL
    My parents and my brothers stared at me in stunned amazement. Finally my dad said, “Well, son, you better get packing.”
    I EMAIL A REPORT ABOUT the missing passcard to Hoffstedder. Our newest and youngest teller, Kate Sulimani, accidentally took it home. Her boyfriend hid it as a prank and when Kate found out and demanded it back, he couldn’t find it. They think it ended up in the recycled trash but as its destruction can’t be proven I have taken the precaution of recalling all the passcards and ordering replacements with new codes.
    Hoffstedder’s reply is two words: “Fire her.” I write back, explaining that this is Kate Sulimani’s first job out of community college, that staff members have occasionally forgotten to leave their passcards, and that she understands the gravity of her error.
    He writes back again. “I said fire her.”
    I have no choice but to call her into my office. She leaves in tears. When I come out to get a coffee, the other tellers will not look at me.
    Before Christmas two months ago, Kate Sulimani drew my name. At the party she gave me a tie. You have to look very closely at the pattern to see that it is made up of little Homer Simpsons. I happen to be wearing that tie today.
    I bring my coffee back to my desk and look for something to put it down on. I find the scrap of newspaper that I ripped out of the
Globe
a few days ago, the notice that Jane Goodall is coming to give a talk. She is on a fundraising mission for a group that wants to build a retirement sanctuary for old research chimps. Tickets are fifty dollars.
    AT HOME I LISTEN TO a phone message from our older son. He isn’t coming home from school this weekend after all. I put the phone down