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Natalia really worried about, he wondered? Something not serious, perhaps, but the slightest worry always showed on her face.
    â€œWhat we need is a grandma taking over,” Natalia murmured, “with the patience to teach them reading and arithmetic and all that.”
    â€œA grandma living at home?” Jack laughed.
    â€œNo, I mean some—” She jumped and shook her fingers with nervous impatience as the telephone and the doorbell rang at the same time. “I’ll get this one,” she said, moving toward the telephone.
    Jack pressed the release button, left the apartment door ajar, and ran downstairs to say hello to Mrs. Vernon and thank her.
    But Amelia had been brought home by a girl of about twenty, whom Jack had never seen before, but recognized as the opposite number to Susanne.
    â€œHi,” he said, “I’m Jack Sutherland, the father of this.”
    â€œOh. How do you do? Here’s Amelia.” The girl smiled. “Everything’s okay, I think. No skinned knees to report.” This girl was English.
    â€œGood. Thanks a million.”
    The girl nodded, said, “Bye-bye, Amelia,” and was gone.
    They climbed the stairs. Amelia was chattering, and Jack hardly listened. Natalia would have said something to Amelia about her not having said thank you and good-bye to the girl who had brought her. Rudeness.
    â€œAfternoon, Mr. Hartman!” Jack said to a middle-aged man coming out the door of his apartment on the second floor. “Yes, we’re back—for a while.”
    â€œGlad to see you again. Hi, Amelia.” With a friendly smile, Mr. Hartman went down the stairs, carrying a neat plastic sack of garbage.
    Natalia was still on the telephone, leaning against the wall by a front window, smoking, murmuring. Jack at once sensed that the caller was Louis Wannfeld, and rather switched off. The conversation could go on for fifteen minutes.
    â€œHad a good time?” Jack asked Amelia.
    â€œYes. I’m thirsty.” She pretended to reel against a wall. “We had LSD—Ooh!”
    â€œTake some water,” Jack whispered, repressing a smile. “LSD, f’gosh sake!”
    â€œWe did and I feel aw-w-ful!” Cross-legged, leaning against the kitchen wall, Amelia tried her best to look bleary-eyed.
    â€œQuiet, your mom’s on the phone.” Jack drew a glass of water and handed it to her.
    â€œ. . . outrageous . . .”Natalia was saying. “No. No, I wouldn’t. Look, I’ll call you back, there’s so much—Ten minutes, maybe?—Okay.”
    â€œMom, I’ve had LSD !” Amelia spread her arms and seized her mother round the thighs.
    â€œOw!” said Natalia as the child crashed into her. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
    â€œMom—Jack—Daddy, what did the mayonnaise say to the lettuce?” asked Amelia, changing her act, because the LSD had fallen flat.
    Natalia groaned. “I don’t give a damn. These awful kids’ jokes, Jack. I get ten a day.”
    â€œI don’t know. What?” asked Jack.
    â€œClose the door, I’m dressing !” said Amelia.
    â€œOh-h-h.” Jack feigned boredom and he was bored, suddenly. Or was he merely ill at ease? He wanted to go into his workroom and draw the curtain. He looked at Natalia. “I think I’ll take a walk. You want to phone back—” He glanced at the white telephone.
    Natalia started to say something, looked at the child, then beckoned to Jack to come into the bedroom. She whispered to him with the door almost closed, the knob in her hand. “That was Louis. He thinks he’s got cancer. May as well tell you now.”
    Tell him now, Jack thought, as if it would break his heart? “Cancer? Of the what?”
    She closed the door. “Stomach. Well, he thinks so. His doctor in Philadelphia—”
    â€œIsn’t it more likely an ulcer?”
    Natalia gave one of her