pause.

but, hey, you know what i’m talking about…you’re in what, sales? yeah, i thought so. you look like… well, no, i mean it in a complimentary…you just look like you could sell. things, if you wanted to…

pause.

i guess the point i’m making is that it’s a stress-filled situation i’m in, but i’m paid for it, not complaining, i just wanted to, i don’t know, lead in the right way on this. i’m not making excuses, i’m not… (BEAT) looks like i’m losing you. las vegas isn’t that far from…must be getting late. i’ll try and be…brief—things took a bit of a turn for us last year. well, i guess about two years ago, now. my wife and me, the family, you know…we lost a child, newborn, well, five months old.., just like that. just happened. (BEAT) i was off that day, a friday, i think, and deborah, that’s my wife, deb, she was out—her mother was staying with us, and they were over at safeway getting some milk—deb put the baby down, “emma” we’d named her, she put emma in our bed because that’s where she’d been sleeping the first few months…we always thought that was a good bonding thing, i’d read it somewhere, or she heard it at church or something like that…anyway, so that’s what she did. she tucks her in, and out they went. and see, i was gonna lie down with her, i really was, but i just went back into the living room for a second, watch a little wheel of fortune or some thing, you know, five minutes a week to myself, and i fell. fell off to sleep right there, there on the loveseat by the window. (BEAT) deb’s mom…emma’s grandma… found her. maybe a half hour later, she’d smothered herself under the covers, i don’t know, beneath the weight of the comforter or whatever it was. this big old maroon and gold thing we’d gotten as a wedding gift, huge—and she’d, well, she’d suffocated, that’s about as plain as you can tell it, right? the little thing…died in our bed, tangling herself in the blankets. (BEAT) the police had to come, they do for any kind of infant death, that’s what the officer said; i’d gotten a hold of myself by that time, still crying, but deb…deb was just kind of sitting there next to me, staring off, and this guy—this person—a detective, i suppose, was asking us questions, standing there and firing off this series of questions. “standard procedure,” he assured us, but still…

pause.