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an idiot,” the old man answered. “Of course. Then I’ll come out there.”
    â€œI need you in New York. I need you to make the arrangements for Danny’s—Danny’s funeral.”
    There was silence for a moment at the other end. Then, “I’ll call Harry Weber. He took care of your mother’s funeral. He’ll take care of everything.”
    Jack rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “Yes, Harry’s fine.”
    After Jack hung up, he lay on the bed with Mutt leaning against his arm. He didn’t close his eyes, he didn’t try to go to sleep. He simply lay there looking at the whiteness of the ceiling. A minute passed. He called Lois and told her.
    â€œChrist, Jack,” she said softly. “I’m coming over.”
    Then there was only the silence. Jack thought, So this is what it feels like without Danny, while he lay there doing nothing; and a moment later he thought he’d better walk down the hall and see if Danny was getting ready for school, and he sat up quickly, his body alert, ready to move, all reflexes, like the frog in the biology experiment that’s nothing but nervous system. In that same moment, on that same reflex, he dropped back and lay very still.
    He thought: So this is what it feels like without Danny. He thought: He’s still alive in this house.
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    Jack arranged a few rolls on a plate for when Lois came over, a platter with butter and cheese, and put it on the table with the pitcher of cream and the sugar bowl. He brewed a fresh pot of coffee. He still couldn’t bring himself to wash Danny’s breakfast dishes, but he rinsed his own coffee cup and put it on the drainboard.
    Outside the kitchen window sunlight was breaking through the branches of the trees. Birds were making their racket deep in the field and out by the stream. The morning paper hit the front door.
    It’s tomorrow, Jack thought, and found the prospect terrifying. He picked up the phone and called his father again.
    â€œI don’t know why I’m calling,” he said when the old man came to the phone.
    â€œYou don’t have to know.”
    â€œI just want to hear you at the other end.”
    â€œYou don’t have to explain.”
    Jack picked at the dried cereal in Danny’s bowl.
    His father said, “I’ve been thinking about him. Something he and I talked about when you were here last Christmas.” He took another hard breath and coughed again. “He asked me something that I thought was really extraordinary. He seemed to be trying to understand, understand life, if I had to describe it. I don’t mean he was trying to make sense of it, but—wait a second, I have to—wait.” When he came back: “Danny was trying to understand it . He asked about Anne and about you, just general things. And he asked me where I thought ideas came from.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIf I thought they came from inside of us or outside. Did I believe in God and did He put ideas into people’s heads to get them to do things and behave the way they did.” His father stopped to catch his breath. “He asked me where my ideas came for my inventions. From inside myself or outside, or did they come from God and how could we ever know the difference. And did Anne get ideas for her paintings from inside or outside of herself. Did she get the idea to leave from—”
    Jack took the phone away from his ear, stared down the hallway at the photographs on the “Danny wall,” then he brought the phone to his mouth. “Danny told his friend that he had to get ready for summer vacation, then he killed himself the next morning. Where did he get that idea?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t have decided something like that on impulse. In a moment of—what? He wouldn’t have done it just like that.”
    â€œNo, Jackie, he wouldn’t have done it just like