and finally they were gone. i looked around, and the front door slammed shut and it was empty, the house, they’d taken emma out with them, the coroner, maybe a half hour before, wrapped in a little zip-up bag, something like what i carry my pressed shirts in when i travel, i mean, i know i said i don’t like to go out on the road, i didn’t used to, anyway, but…well, just let me finish. emma was gone, and we ate dinner…we may have even ordered out that night; that probably sounds horrible, but deborah just couldn’t stand over the stove right then, so it seems like we had a pizza… yeah, one from sbarro’s, over at the mall. we had pizza, deb holding my hand under the table the whole time, all through the silence…and we went to bed right after. (BEAT) the phone woke me about 11:30. i almost had to pry deborah’s fingers off of mine to get it, but i was on by about the third, maybe the fourth ring. it was him. the police detective and very apologetic about calling so late, and the whole process and the usual stuff that you’d see on any of those cop programs on tv. we don’t watch them much—maybe the kids do, when we’re not around, but they’re not supposed to—but you know the kind i mean. he was like that… (BEAT) it’d all come out fine, he said, ruled “natural causes” after a few tests’d been run and he just wanted to let us know and if there was anything he could do he’d be glad to…i hung up without him finishing, he’d put us through enough that day. on a day like that, a day no parent should ever have to face, and to have those…people do that…so i hung up. i hung up the receiver and rolled back over to deborah, i just held her at first… putting my hand back in place and squeezing her fingers a bit. but it woke her. she woke up and we whispered to each other…talking under the sheets like two schoolchildren, about things we hadn’t mentioned in years! we were under the sheets, just them, because from that night on, deb and i could never sleep with blankets on that bed again…that’s probably odd, isn’t it? maybe not…but we couldn’t. middle of winter, kids’ll all be off on ski trips and deborah and me just huddle together under the sheets, to this day… (BEAT) anyhow, the talking must’ve gone on for hours, a few at least and then the kissing and finally …well, you’re not that drunk, you don’t need to hear it all. we did what you’d imagine you might do on a night like that, a moment when your entire universe has been changed forever. (BEAT) i don’t know, but that may have even been the night that joe was…that’s our youngest, “joseph,” yes, the bible, and i have a brother of the same name, so…but joe came almost exactly nine months later, he’s a great boy, he really is. and over time, and with the new child…life goes on. it does, and it’s strange to say that, you know, because i’d never believe it from hearing some other person say it, i mean. if i heard that i’d just never buy it, because of the loss, and you know, i’d feel everybody was just smiling and pretending to be all understanding, but they really think that you’re like some chinese family getting rid of the daughter to get a son and just crazy things’d run through my head… but then it happens to you, and it’s true. (BEAT) you just go on. you do. you thank your heavenly father for giving you strength to stand up to his trials and figure there must be a plan behind it all, a reason for so much pain and you just…go on.