When the phone rang, we’d also been talking about moving my grandmother from River Bend to Manchester, where my mom could have seen her every day. But my grandmother had lost track of actual time; if you saw her every day or once a month, Mildred Brewster wouldn’t have noticed the difference. “We’re going to move her to Manchester, eventually,” my mother had kept saying.

Could you see cows or golfers out the windows of the old folks’ home in Manchester? I’d asked Molly.

“There are Republicans in the old folks’ home in Manchester, Kid,” the trail groomer had told me.

“There are Republicans everywhere, Molly,” my mom had said.

“This is Adam Brewster—my grandmother is Mildred Brewster,” I said into the phone, while my mother cried. Since my grandmother had arrived at River Bend, the voyage of the Pequod marked the passing of the only time Nana knew. She knew it was a long voyage; she knew how it ended; she knew only Ishmael would escape.

My grandmother had “passed away” in her sleep, or she’d fallen asleep when she was reading and had died in her sleep. This was what one of the older nurses at River Bend told me on the phone. “Her door was open, of course,” the older nurse said, with a lingering disapproval, “and when Emmanuelle checked on her, your grandmother had passed away with that big book.” I could still detect the disapproval, as if Moby-Dick had done it. I wanted to know which scene.

“Is Emmanuelle okay?” I asked the nurse.

“Stop thinking about Emmanuelle, sweetie!” my mother called from the futon in the TV room, between sobs. On the phone, I heard the nurse sigh; her sigh should have prepared me for her misunderstanding my question.

“As far as we know, Emmanuelle has been behaving herself,” the older nurse said stiffly. I listened to the disapproving nurse a little longer; there were “the usual arrangements” to be made. My mom was crying more softly; I could hear Molly’s voice, but not what the snowcat operator was saying. I spoke as quietly as I could into the phone.

“Please tell Emmanuelle I’m sorry she was the one who found her,” I said. Had she found Nana’s thumb between the pages?

“Forget Emmanuelle—she’s a stripper, sweetie!” my mother screamed from the TV room.

“Emmanuelle was upset, so we sent her home—she’ll get over it,” the disapproving nurse abruptly told me.

“Emmanuelle is just a kid, Ray,” I heard Molly say.