The Fourth Hand

he again sets forth on his travels.

“It’s a boy’s book,” Sarah said.

Mice might enjoy it, too, Patrick guessed.

They were mutually disinclined to have sex; yet if one of them had been determined to make love, they would have. But Wallingford preferred to be read to, like a little boy, and Sarah Williams was feeling more motherly (at the moment) than sexual. Furthermore, how many naked adults—strangers in a darkened hotel room in the middle of the day—were reading E. B. White aloud? Even Wallingford would have admitted to a fondness for the uniqueness of the situation. It was surely more unique than having sex.

“Please don’t stop,” Wallingford told Ms. Williams, in the same way he might have spoken to someone who was making love to him. “Please keep reading. If you start Charlotte’s Web, I’ll finish it. I’ll read the ending to you.”

Sarah had shifted slightly in the bed, so that Patrick’s penis now brushed the backs of her thighs; the stump of his left forearm grazed her buttocks. It might have crossed her mind to consider which was which, notwithstanding the size factor, but that thought would have led them both into an altogether more ordinary experience.

When the phone call came from Mary, it interrupted that scene in Charlotte’s Web when Charlotte (the spider) is preparing Wilbur (the pig) for her imminent death.

“After all, what’s a life, anyway?” Charlotte asks. “We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies.”

Just then the phone rang. Wallingford increased his grip on one of Sarah’s breasts. Sarah indicated her irritation with the call by picking up the receiver and asking sharply, “Who is it?”

“Who is this ? Just who are you ?” Mary cried into the phone. She spoke loudly enough for Patrick to hear her—he groaned.

“Tell her you’re my mother,” Wallingford whispered in Sarah’s ear. (He was briefly ashamed to remember that the last time he’d used this line, his mother was still alive.)

“I’m Patrick Wallingford’s mother, dear,” Sarah Williams said into the phone.

“Who are you ?” The familiar “dear” made Wallingford think of Evelyn Arbuthnot again.

Mary hung up.

Ms. Williams went on reading from the penultimate chapter of Charlotte’s Web, which concludes, “No one was with her when she died.”

Sobbing, Sarah handed the book to Patrick. He’d promised to read her the last chapter, about Wilbur the pig, “And so Wilbur came home to his beloved manure pile…” the story of which Wallingford reported without emotion, as if it were the news. (It was better than the news, but that was another story.) When Patrick finished, they dozed until it was dark outside; only half awake, Wallingford turned off the light on the night table so that it was dark inside the hotel room, too. He lay still. Sarah Williams was holding him, her breasts pressing into his shoulder blades. The firm but soft bulge of her stomach fitted the curve at the small of his back; one of her arms encircled his waist. With her hand, she gripped his penis a little more tightly than was comfortable. Even so, he fell asleep.

Probably they would have slept through the night. On the other hand, they might have woken up just before dawn and made intense love in the semidarkness, possibly because they both knew they would never see each other again. But it hardly matters what they would have done, because the phone rang again. This time Wallingford answered it. He knew who it was; even asleep, he’d been expecting the call. He’d told Mary the story of how and when his mother had died. Patrick was surprised how long it had taken Mary to remember it.

“She’s dead. Your mother’s dead ! You told me yourself! She died when you were in college!”

“That’s right, Mary.”

“You’re in love with someone!” Mary was wailing. Naturally Sarah could hear her.

“That’s right,” Wallingford answered. Patrick saw no reason to explain to Mary that it wasn’t Sarah Williams he was in love with. Mary had hit on him for too long.

“It’s that same young woman, isn’t it?” Sarah asked. The sound of Sarah’s voice, whether or not Mary actually heard what she said, was enough to set Mary off again.

“She sounds old enough to be your mother!” Mary shrieked.

“Mary, please—”

“That dick Fred is looking for you, Pat. Everyone’s looking for you! You’re not supposed to go off for a weekend without leaving a number! You’re not supposed to be unreachable ! Are you trying to get fired or what?”

That was the first time Wallingford thought about trying to get fired; in the dark hotel room, the idea glowed as brightly as the digital alarm clock on the night table.

“You do know what’s happened, don’t you?” Mary asked. “Or have you been fucking so much that you’ve somehow managed to miss the news?”

“I have not been fucking.” Patrick knew it was a provocative thing to say. After all, Mary was a journalist. That Wallingford had been fucking a woman in a hotel room all weekend was a fairly obvious conclusion to come to; like most journalists, Mary had learned to draw her own fairly obvious conclusions quickly.

“You don’t expect me to believe you, do you?” she asked.

“I’m beginning not to care if you believe me, Mary.”

“That dick Fred—”

“Please tell him I’ll be back tomorrow, Mary.”

“You are trying to get fired, aren’t you?” Mary said. Once again, she hung up first. For the second time, Wallingford considered the idea of trying to get fired—he didn’t know why it seemed to be such a glow-in-the-dark idea.

“You didn’t tell me you were married or something,” Sarah Williams said. He could tell she was not in the bed; he could hear her, but only dimly see her, getting dressed in the dark room.

“I’m not married or anything,” Patrick said.

“She’s just a particularly possessive girlfriend, I suppose.”

“She’s not a girlfriend. We’ve never had sex. We’re not involved in that way,”

Wallingford declared.

“Don’t expect me to believe that,” Sarah said. (Journalists aren’t the only people who draw their own fairly obvious conclusions quickly.)

“I’ve really enjoyed being with you,” Patrick told her, trying to change the subject; he was also being sincere. But he could hear her sigh; even in the dark, he could tell she was doubting him.

“If I decide to have the abortion, maybe you’ll be kind enough to go with me,”

Sarah Williams ventured. “It would mean coming back here a week from today.”

Perhaps she meant to give him more time to think about it, but Wallingford was thinking of the likelihood of his being recognized—LION GUY ESCORTS

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN TO ABORTION MILL, or a headline to that effect.

“I just hate the idea of doing it alone, but I guess it doesn’t sound like a fun date,”

Sarah continued.

“Of course I’ll go with you,” he told her, but she’d noticed his hesitation. “If you want me to.” He immediately hated how this sounded. Of course she wanted him to! She’d asked him, hadn’t she? “Yes, definitely, I’ll go with you,” Patrick said, but he was only making it worse.

“No, that’s all right. You don’t even know me,” Sarah said.

“I want to go with you,” Patrick lied, but she was over it now.

“You didn’t tell me you were in love with someone,” she accused him.

“It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t love me.” Wallingford knew that Sarah Williams wouldn’t believe that, either.

She had finished dressing. He thought she was groping for the door. He turned on the light on the night table; it momentarily blinded him, but he was nonetheless aware of Sarah turning her face away from the light. She left