He took a phone call from Billy.
‘Staying the night at Maria’s, okay?’
‘But it’s a school night.’
‘We’re going to study. It’s cool, Dad.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Jack. ‘It’s not, technically, cool at all.’
Maria was on the pill now, so at least there wasn’t that to worry about. At least Billy had said she was on the pill. Something about her Catholicism had been part of that sentence, but Jack hadn’t really listened. Now he could hear Maria giggling and some record playing in the background. Elvis Costello singing about an aim that was true. Well, to hell with Billy. But still, he suddenly wished he would come home. And next year, no kids would live at home. He’d yearned for that day, and yet now he dreaded it.
‘Pick me up tomorrow after school, Dad? Got football practice till six.’
‘Okay. Goodnight.’
Jack went back to his editing. Secretly he thought what the writers did, and what he did too, was a kind of magic. It made him smile. A man took his thoughts and emotions, and without opening his mouth, transferred them via black scribbles on paper into the minds and hearts of people he’d never meet. Strangers. A silent miracle every time, but everyone was so used to it, the miracle was unnoticed. Aside from perceptive people like himself, of course. Now and then, he appreciated the miracle of writing.
Jack and Milly ate dinner in silence. Scrambled eggs on toast. Not-hot eggs on soggy bread.
Nine pm. Time for the news and a brandy. They settled in their usual places and watched the news. At a commercial, he turned the volume off and said, looking at the television screen:
‘You remember when Glenn Miller disappeared?’
‘Jack, what are you talking about? Glenn Miller was killed.’
‘No one knows that, Milly.’
‘Well, he’s dead. Died years ago.’
‘Well, I wasn’t saying he was alive now. I was just asking…’
‘Of course I remember when he died,’ she said with contempt. ‘You think I’m stupid?’
Oh, his heart was so heavy. It was so unfair. He sighed, and she heard it and turned to him with her old dispelling smile. Melted things a little.
‘Sorry, honey. What about Glenn Miller?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on. You brought it up.’
‘It’s nothing, forget I mentioned it. It’s just, I was thinking. It was pretty damn sad, wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose. I was only a…a sophomore in high school, I think.’
‘Did you cry?’
‘Yes, I think I probably did. All the girls cried.’
‘Yeah. Same at my school.’
‘Did you cry, Jack?’ she asked with a laugh in her voice.
‘What do you think?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know. I didn’t know you then. Maybe you were soft when you were eighteen.’
‘I did not cry.’
‘Of course not.’
Jack stood up and poured himself another large brandy.
He said from the kitchen: ‘But that doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t broken.’
‘What? I can’t hear you.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Hey, didn’t your dad die that same year? When you were a senior?’
‘About six months earlier, when I was a junior.’
‘Terrible.’
Milly watched the TV a few minutes, then said: ‘Must have been tough on your mom. First her daughter jumps ship, then her husband dies, then you head off to war.’
‘Huh. Yeah, I suppose. Never thought about it, to tell the truth.’
