I stood up and took a step toward the phone, but her face clouded and she held up a hand to warn me off. She said, "Oh? Oh, no. Oh, Michael, that's awful. I'm so sorry. How did it happen? God, I'm so sorry. Here, I'll put your father on."
She lowered the receiver and held her hand over the mouthpiece. "He wants to talk to you," she said, "but I think he wanted to tell me first, so I could tell you."
Tell me what? That his marriage was in trouble, that his child was sick- but why was he inNew York? What bad news would have sent him rushing east?
"It's Anita," she said. That's Mike and Andy's mother, my ex-wife. "She had a heart attack. She's dead."
THREE
It must have been a very grand house in its day, a country estate of fieldstone and half-timbered stucco built when Syosset was a tiny village surrounded by potato fields. Since then a ton of development houses have been thrown up where they used to grow potatoes, and few of the big old houses are still private residences. Some have been pulled down, while others survive as nursing homes or office suites.
Or funeral homes, like this one onAlbemarle Road. I drove past it the first time. I hadn't missed it, Michael's directions were good and there was a big sign on the front lawn, but I guess I must have been reluctant to arrive. I circled the block, and, halfway around, I turned left instead of right and found my way to our old house.
It looked smaller, and the lot larger, than I remembered. It was what they used to call a ranch house, and maybe they still do- three bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and kitchen, all on one floor, all on a quarter-acre suburban lot. Someone had added an enclosed breezeway connecting the house and the garage, and someone else (or the same person, for all I knew) had replaced the casement windows in front with a big picture window.