Part Six: The Phone Call
He woke at some point in the deep middle of the night — two, perhaps, or three, the hour when the city below had finally given up its performance of activity and was simply itself, quiet and indifferent. He was disoriented for a moment, the unfamiliarity of the sitting room asserting itself before the explanation for his being there reasserted itself, and then he heard the voice.
Emma’s voice. From the corridor — not the corridor directly outside, but further, the hallway near the kitchen, the part of the house that was hers in the small and qualified way that domestic workers have private corners. She was on the phone. She was speaking quietly, in the way people speak when they are trying not to be overheard and have not thought about acoustics.
He stayed very still.
“I won’t be able to come home for a few days, Mama.” Her voice had a different quality than the voice she used in the house — softer, more open, the register of someone who is not performing composed competence but simply talking. “Something difficult has happened to Mr. Avery. Yes.” A pause — she was listening. “I know it’s not technically my job. But I can’t leave. Not right now, when he’s alone.”
He heard her breathe. Heard her listen.
“Mama, it doesn’t matter what I feel,” she said. The gentleness in her voice was the gentleness of someone repeating something they have said many times, a fact they have made peace with even if the peace is not complete. “I’ve always known it can’t go anywhere. I just — someone should be there. Until the nurses come. Until he has people around him.” A pause. “He doesn’t know. He won’t know. That’s fine.”
She said goodnight to her mother. The soft sound of the phone being set down. Then silence, and then the quiet movement of someone returning through the house, navigating the darkness with the familiarity of someone who has lived in a place long enough to know it in the dark.
He lay still for a long time.
