I made a phone call to the doctor and reviewed the situation. We discussed the meds. There wasn’t much else to say. The doc’s patronizing tone had been replaced by a clipped intonation giving me the impression that he couldn’t wait to get off the phone. It occurred to me then, that perhaps I should have taken a moment and thanked him for saving my life, but fuck him. He assumed that I wanted to know all this information about my father, about myself. But I never did.

October 8, 2006

Back in Connecticut I walked in the door of my house to find that Sis had left a long message on my voice mail informing me that Dad couldn’t stand the home care worker I’d hired. While the woman collects his laundry, or dusts or washes his dishes, Dad harangues her from his armchair. He’d told my sister that “the Jamaican”(that’s what he calls her) vacuums incessantly so that she doesn’t have to listen to his carping. I almost laughed out loud. The kicker is that Sis wanted me to go back up to Stoneham. I put that on the bottom of my agenda.

I called the number in Massachusetts Jack had given me for John. A woman answered, her voice mature, hoarse with age. When I said, “It’s Richard,” ’Gitte knew me immediately, which I hadn’t expected. In fact, I had prepared an introduction for myself. (“I used to come by when you lived in Brooklyn.”) She and I had never talked much “in the day,” so now the dialogue had an odd lilt to it, as if we were both playing parts and hadn’t fully memorized our lines.

I asked after John. ’Gitte said that John had not been well, that he was in the hospital. This news caught me unprepared. I had imagined he had simply shipped his Barcalounger to his new country home and was tilted back, smoking bowls of weed there. I inquired whether his illness was cardiac-related. ’Gitte said no, but didn’t elaborate. Did I detect a lack of affection in her voice?

’Gitte invited me up to “the woods” for a visit. A three-hour drive, but why not? If this was the ’Gitte of my dreams and yearnings with whom I was speaking, and if indeed, she did remember me, then how could I not see her? What else did I have to do with my dilapidated life than to go rummaging around in my own lost fantasies?

December 25, 1977

Staying in the city. Not going home. There’s too much work to do here. I can’t leave. Katie’s Christian, but she’s not going home either. We had a wonderful Christmas Day meal at a diner in Chelsea. I don’t know how to say this. I think I love her.

December 28, 1977

Cold these days.