In the late afternoon, she and my father and Freddy got into my parents’ car, and I got into mine, to drive back to New York. It wasn’t until I was alone in the car that I felt afraid. I turned on the radio as loud as possible and tried to bang out time to the music. I switched from classical to rock to light FM and back to classical, trying to figure out how best to block my mind. By the time I was halfway to the city, I knew that I could not go back to my apartment. I thought about going to my parents’ apartment, but that option was also intolerable. I couldn’t bear to stop at home even to collect a razor and a toothbrush, so I headed for Helen’s instead, even though I knew that she was having friends over for dinner.

I arrived just as Helen and her friends—they were all acquaintances of mine, people who had been at the party—were sitting down to dinner. When I rang the bell from downstairs, Helen guessed who it was. “Come on up,” she said.

The elevator was impossibly slow.

“So how was your weekend?” Helen asked when I got upstairs. The others all looked at me, politely expectant.

I found myself telling them about what we had had for breakfast, and then I started to talk about the jigsaw puzzle. I kept interrupting myself, as though I were several people all talking at once, and as I went on I got faster and faster and faster, as though I were several people all being played on fast-forward. “I don’t know,” I said. “It could be one month or two months or six months, but it’s not going to be forever. She’s not going to go on like this forever,” I said. I had to go on talking, in front of all these people. Helen was rubbing my shoulders as I talked, and I knew that I was being incoherent, but my voice wouldn’t stop. As some people sob uncontrollably, I talked uncontrollably. I didn’t know what I was saying. I couldn’t even hear myself.

Helen interrupted after about twenty minutes. No one else said a word. “What you’re saying is that you want her to die soon,” said Helen.

I didn’t stop. I went on and on. I said, of course, that I wanted my mother to live forever.

“She’s not going to live forever,” said Helen. “You know, it’s not going to be a relief when she dies. It’s going to be pretty awful.”

I went on talking and talking and talking. No one else said anything. I felt that I was taking up the entire room, squeezing everyone back into the silence of the walls.

“It sounds terrible,” said Helen. “It’s a terrible thing to say, but I hope, for your sake, that she dies soon.”