I paused and held the phone out so Ethan could yell, “O’clock!”
“And then we went to breakfast and Ethan was good and the waitress gave us three…”
“Pickles!” Ethan said.
“Wow,” Mindy said. “Can I have one?”
“Yes! Ma’am!” Ethan said.
“Hey, Mindy,” Stinky Bear said, “me and your father watched a brilliant clip of you last night.”
“Which one? They’re all brilliant.”
“The one of you wetting your pants. You should be very, very proud. I’m sure all your fellow Princeton alums are very proud too!”
“My whole purpose in life is to make everyone proud, Stinky Bear. That’s the reason I get up in the morning.”
“You don’t have to make everyone proud, Mindy, just your dad.”
“Hey, Stinky, how’s Red Bear’s drinking going?”
“Wonderful, baby! Thanks for asking!”
“And how’s my dad’s drinking going?”
I sat up high. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked this in my John Nichols voice.
“Pretty early for Stinky Bear and Princeton jokes.”
“It’s not that early. Besides, I do lots of matinees. And I haven’t had a drink today.”
“I hope not. It’s ten thirty.”
“I only have two drinks a day.”
“I’ve seen the size of your drinks, Dad. They’re like Big Gulps.”
Ethan grabbed the phone. “What. Eat. Today?” he asked.
“I had a bagel, Ethan. What did you eat today?”
“Pickle. Poo. Poo.”
“Sounds like Dad is feeding you right!”
I grabbed the phone back from Ethan. He reached over and tried to pinch me.
“Don’t pinch me,” I said firmly. “Don’t. Hey, listen,” I said to Mindy. “When are you getting there?”
Mindy didn’t say anything.
“Mindy? Hello?”
“I don’t think I’m going, Dad.”
“Me. Talk!” Ethan yelled. He lunged for the phone.
I jumped off the bed and quickly walked over to the window. “Please don’t start that again, Mindy. Please. We’re a family. She’s your sister. You only have one. Please. Come on.”
“She doesn’t care if I go or not.”
“That is not true. She cares, believe me. She cares. Please let me hear you say you’re coming. Let me hear you say it.”
“You’re coming,” Mindy said.
“Mindy?”
“I’m coming,” she said quietly.
“Thank you. Because I don’t need any more problems.” Right after I said that, I regretted it. This had been a common refrain in our house, a phrase I had seemingly uttered every day of my life since Ethan was born. “Thank you for being cooperative,” I said.
“Cooperative,” Mindy muttered.
“Me. Talk!”
“You said you’d be there tomorrow. They’re expecting you tomorrow.”
“God.”
Ethan got out of bed and made another run at the phone. “I gotta go. Say good-bye to him. He’s standing right here. Say good-bye. I need to go.”
I held the phone close to Ethan’s ear and heard Mindy say, “Bye, Ethan.”
“Bye! Mindy!” He jumped up and down.
“Wait? Dad?”
“What?”
“Why are your driving? You can’t spend all day with him alone. No one can.”
“I have him all the time at home.”
“You have him for maybe two, three hours. Not all day. I said I would come out there and drive with you. Or you should have taken someone. One of the cousins. Or Aunty or Uncle Sal.”
“Uncle Sal. Right. I can take less of Uncle Sal than I can of Ethan.”
“Uncle Sal is great.”
“Right. He’s perfect. I keep forgetting that.”
Ethan made yet another attempt at the phone, so I moved closer to the window. “Listen, I have to go. He’s about to fall apart. We’ll talk later.”
“Bye, Daddy-o.”
I closed the phone and when I did, Ethan pinched me on the arm. Hard.
*
After Grandpa Bear had a massive heart attack training for Dancing with the Bears; and after Stinky Bear successfully revived him by frantically pounding on his chest (“Hang on, Grandpa, you hang on now!”); and after Red Bear attended her very first AA meeting (“Hello, my name is Red Bear, and I’m an alcoholic”—other two bears: “Hello, Red Bear!”); and after we went swimming in the completely empty and kind-of-cold hotel pool where I reenacted several famous catches in sports history with an orange Nerf football (Dwight Clark, Willie Mays, Santonio Holmes); and after we went back to the very same Waffle House for lunch where the very same waitress served us but, for reasons known only to her, failed to acknowledge this fact until I casually brought it to her attention; and after we went for a nostalgic drive through campus, during which I pointed out various places of historical and academic interest (“I kissed a girl there once; I threw up there once”); we drove over to the State Farm Center, which used to be called Assembly Hall when I played there.