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to need to head to the morgue and get this over with. We should have you home in less than an hour.’ I said, ‘Sure.’ ‘I appreciate your being available.’ ‘Of course, I’m just sorry it’s necessary,’ I said.
    â€œThe driver, he must have been the commanding officer, he said, ‘Goddamn shame is what it is. These kids. The risks they take.’ He looked at me in the rearview mirror. ‘They don’t believe it can happen to them.’
    â€œI said, ‘What happened?’
    â€œâ€˜Single-car accident. Out along 41. Driver drinking. Lost control of vehicle. Into a ravine. Passenger, this Martin girl, through the windshield. Into a tree. Broken neck. Dead on impact.’
    â€œâ€˜What about the driver?’ I said.
    â€œâ€˜Oh,
him,
’ the trooper said. ‘He’s fine.’
    â€œâ€˜What a mess,’ said the trooper next to me.
    â€œâ€˜A real mess,’ said the third trooper. ‘A real mess job.’”
    Rodgers paused and reached for his wine, then thought better of it. He could hear his son cooing at the baby from the other room: “What kind of girl does that? What kind of a silly girl?”

    His son was obviously, stupidly smitten. He couldn’t keep his hands off the baby. “Lambchop,” he called her. “Love of my life.” He carried her around in a ridiculous contraption, a sling that held the baby’s back to his stomach, so that she hung there in front of him, her head bobbing absurdly. Rodgers could hear his son quack playfully as he changed her diaper in the next room.
    His daughters, of course, had plopped the baby into his arms the moment they arrived and motioned with their hands, as if they were tossing salad. This meant he was to interact with her. There was about the act a kind of covert aggression; Rodgers felt as if he were being tested.
See here,
his daughters were saying.
Life goes on.
    But the infant felt inert in his arms, like a stony loaf of bread. He muttered one or two awkward words. As if sensing his discomfort, the baby squirmed with an alarming vitality. Rodgers feared he would drop her, briefly imagined the chaos that would ensue. The baby began to sputter, then to cry, its gums gleaming like tiny pink rinds. His daughter-in-law appeared immediately and swept the child away. “She’s just hungry,” his oldest daughter said, and they all agreed. Nonetheless, Rodgers felt humiliated by the entire episode. He wasn’t Connie.
    Ken said, “Cops never change.”
    Rodgers nodded. “Yeah. They just kept on like that. I was relieved, actually. I settled back and kept my mouth shut. The president was staring out the window, at the rain. He was a dapper fellow, but up close you could tell he’d had some acne as a kid. He had those scars. His hands were folded in his lap and his shoulders were tense. I guess he was scared, too.”
    â€œThat must have sobered you up.”
    â€œNot really,” Rodgers said. “My thoughts were coming too fast. What I was most worried about was that at some point I mightstart talking, you know? Really let loose and start blabbing. And then I might not be able to stop. You know how that can happen?”
    â€œSure,” Ken said.
    â€œI was already paranoid. I was sure the troopers, for instance, knew what I’d been up to. But we were trapped in this strange situation. What could they say? I started thinking about what was going to happen next, picturing things, planning it out, really. We were going to pull up to the funeral parlor—”
    â€œWasn’t it a morgue?”
    â€œYes, that’s right. It was. But somehow in imagining it, that’s not what I saw.” Rodgers smiled and the ball at the end of his nose flushed. “What I saw was this small-town funeral parlor, lit from within, sort of like one of those Hopper paintings. We’d walk in and there’d be this warm