Just a cut, honey, she said. We should have a doctor look at this, she said to my father.
I have to go to the doctor? I said, clutching my mother’s arm.
You don’t want to bleed all over your uniform, do you?
I don’t want to go to the doctor!
Look, look, my father said. I’ll get a bandage for my mouth, he said, pulling back his lip to reveal the gap in his teeth. We’w mawch.
I don’t want to match!
My mother pulled me close and pressed the handkerchief to the wound while I chanted that I didn’t want to go to the doctor. Not now, not ever.
Let’s get moving before we need skis, my mother said.
Right, my father said. What do we need? Boots? Boots. Do we need to take food? He went back down to his hands and knees, mumbling to himself about coats and umbrellas and gloves, bus routes, cabs.
Erwin, my mother said.
What? he said. I’m looking for her boots.
Erwin.
What? He looked back from beneath the bench. His rump was in the air and both of us were gazing at him with pity.
Oh. Oh, he said. He stood up. I should stay here, then.
It would probably be better if you stayed here, my mother said.
It’s okay, Daddy, I said.
My mother called the pediatrician, but she got the service. She called her own doctor, then her ob-gyn. Because of the storm everyone had closed up early and made for Connecticut. My father was back on the floor, cross-legged, with me in his lap, his handkerchief’s symbology flooded by a red lake.
What about Nachtman? he said.
I’m not calling Nachtman.
He did fine with this, my father said, tipping his chin at the crazed white scar traversing the webbing of his thumb, site of a self-inflicted knife wound he’d suffered trying to slice an apple for me.
He’s not even a doctor! my mother said.
He’s a doctor.
So he has a license now?
This is absurd. It’s a piece of paper. His skills didn’t evaporate when he emigrated.
His skills aren’t going anywhere near her head, my mother said. She dialed another number. She waited an eternity before someone picked up.
Jane? she said. It’s Sarah. Look, sorry. Oh really? Oh, how weird. So. No, no, it’s not about that—no rush about that. It’s— We have a little problem here. Hazel hit her head and I need someone to look at her, but— No, it’s not serious. Yes. Exactly. Probably. No, she’s sitting right here. No.
Honey, my mother said to me, do you feel like you’re going to throw up? I shook my head. Dizzy? I shook my head again. No, no, neither. Yes, bleeding. Probably. Yes, probably. She looked in my direction. My head was on my father’s shoulder, and I smiled weakly at her, resigned. That’s the problem, she said, I can’t get Foreman or anyone else and I wondered if we might stop by your place— Of course. Oh no, Jane, we’ll just go to Roosevelt, then. That’s no good. No, no, no. Are you sure? Really sure? Oh well, that might be fun. She raised her eyebrows at me. And if we need to go on to Roosevelt— Sure. Sure. Of course. I’ll see if he’s up for it. Thank you, Jane. Thank you. We’ll be up in a minute. Bye.
Vornados are having a party, my mother said after she’d hung up.
Tonight? my father said.
Right now. She said she was just about to call us.
I’m sure, my father said.
She said she’d look Hazel over and that we should all stay for the party. Erwin, they’re having a costume party, my mother said and burst out laughing.
She actually said she was just about to call us? he said.
Spur-of-the-moment. They were just about to call.
My father shook his head and laughed, and then I started laughing, looking to him, then to my mother, for some clue why.
Now you’re going to insist on coming with us, aren’t you? my mother said.
Let me get my tux, my father said.
Daddy, you’re coming, too? I said.
No, honey, said my mother. How to explain to me why it was funny? How much better it was to let me laugh alongside them, unencumbered by understanding, sounding my single note in their major key.
She actually invited me? my father said.
She did.
By name?
That asshole, I believe she said?
That’s me.
I’ll call if, you know. Anything, my mother said.
Anything at all, he said. He kissed my mother, kissed me, and slipped something into my hand. I knew what it was without looking, and he said, For good luck. It was the only time I can remember him parting with the hex nut he carried in his pocket, his talisman, a mechanical fixture whose intended use is to bind together, to stave off entropy and chaos, two forces he detected everywhere.
Part II
8.
In 1978, the tongue of land at the far eastern end of Long Island was home to the 773rd Radar Squadron of the United States Air Force, the Ronjo and Memory Motels, a trailer park out at Ditch Plains, a decent point break on the south side, and a voracious white-tailed deer population. Clusters of gray clapboard houses, battered by snow and ice in the winter, scoured by sand and sun in the summer. The red-roofed Coast Guard outpost just up the road from the Montauk Yacht Club, a ruin that played host to a few families on Sunday afternoons for lunch. The waters
