“I’ve only worn it two or three times in my life,” said my mother. “But I wore it out to lunch that time, on that blue jacket, and I think I left the pin on the lapel when I sent the jacket to the dry cleaner. I’m so annoyed about it. I thought I might have brought it up here, but it’s not with my jewelry and it’s not in my box in New York.”

“Maybe if you call the dry cleaner they’ll have it,” I said.

“No, I’m sure it’s gone,” said my mother. “I didn’t wear it much, of course. But someone else might have worn it someday. Your grandmother loved that pin.”

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.