“Is there anything else I can do for the moment?” he asked them.Howard shook his head.Ann stared at Dr. Francis as if unable to comprehend his words.The doctor walked them to the hospital’s front door.People were entering and leaving the hospital.It was eleven o’clock in the morning.Ann was aware of how slowly, almost reluctantly, she moved her feet.It seemed to her that Dr. Francis was making them leave when she felt they should stay, when it would be more the right thing to do to stay.She gazed out into the parking lot and then turned around and looked back at the front of the hospital.She began shaking her head.“No, no,” she said.“I can’t leave him here, no.”She heard herself say that and thought how unfair it was that the only words that came out were the sort of words used on TV shows where people were stunned by violent or sudden deaths.She wanted her words to be her own.“No,” she said, and for some reason the memory of the Negro woman’s head lolling on the woman’s shoulder came to her .“No,” she said again.“I’ll be talking to you later in the day,” the doctor was saying to Howard.“There are still some things that have to be done, things that have to be cleared up to our satisfaction.Some things that need explaining.”“An autopsy,” Howard said.Dr. Francis nodded.“I understand,” Howard said.Then he said, “Oh, Jesus.No, I don’t understand, doctor.I can’t, I can’t.I just can’t.”Dr. Francis put his arm around Howard’s shoulders.“I’m sorry.God, how I’m sorry.”He let go of Howard’s shoulders and held out his hand.Howard looked at the hand, and then he took it.Dr. Francis put his arms around Ann once more.He seemed full of some goodness she didn’t understand.She let her head rest on his shoulder, but her eyes stayed open.She kept looking at the hospital.As they drove out of the parking lot, she looked back at the hospital.At home, she sat on the sofa with her hands in her coat pockets.Howard closed the doorto the child’s room.He got the coffee-maker going and then he found an empty box.Hehad thought to pick up some of the child’s things that were scattered around the living room.But instead he sat down beside her on the sofa, pushed the box to one side, and leanedforward, arms between his knees.He began to weep.She pulled his head over into her lapand patted his shoulder.“He’s gone,” she said.She kept patting his shoulder.Over his sobs,she could hear the coffee-maker hissing in the kitchen.“There, there,” she said tenderly.“Howard, he’s gone.He’s gone and now we’ll have to get used to that.To being alone.”In a little while, Howard got up and began moving aimlessly around the room with the box, not putting anything into it, but collecting some things together on the floor at one end of the sofa.She continued to sit with her hands in her coat pockets.Howard put the box down and brought coffee into the living room.Later, Ann made calls to relatives.After each call had been placed and the party had answered, Ann would blurt out a few words and cry for a minute.Then she would quietly explain, in a measured voice, what had happened and tell them about arrangements.Howard took the box out to the garage, where he saw the child’s bicycle.He dropped the box and sat down on the pavement beside the bicycle.He took hold of the bicycle awkwardly so that it leaned against his chest.He held it, the rubber pedal sticking into his chest.He gave the wheel a turn.Ann hung up the telephone after talking to her sister.She was looking up another number when the telephone rang.She picked it up on the first ring.“Hello,” she said, and she heard something in the background, a humming noise.“Hello!” she said.“For God’s sake,” she said.“Who is this?What is it you want?”Your Scotty, I got him ready for you,” the man’s voice said.“Did you forget him?”“You evil bastard!” she shouted into the receiver.“How can you do this, you evil son ofa ? ”“Scotty,” the man said.“Have you forgotten about Scotty?”Then the man hung up on her.Howard heard the shouting and came in to find her with her head on her arms over the table, weeping.He picked up the receiver and listened to the dial tone.Much later, just before midnight, after they had dealt with many things, the telephone rang again.“You answer it,” she said.“Howard, it’s him, I know.”They were sitting at the kitchen table with coffee in front of them.Howard had a small glass of whiskey beside his cup.He answered on the third ring.“Hello,” he said.“Who is this?Hello!Hello!”The line went dead.“He hung up,” Howard said.“Whoever it was.”“It was him,” she said.“That bastard.I’d like to kill him,” she said.“I’d like to shoot him and watch him kick,” she said.“Ann, my God,” he said.“Could you hear anything?” she said.“In the background?A noise, machinery, something humming?”“Nothing, really.Nothing like that,” he said.“
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