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handed the pill to her and she took it. Mothers and sons. Explore that if they lock you in a cell.
    In five minutes she was nodding. In six she was asleep. “I don’t believe you did that,” I said. “You didn’t do that while I watched.”
    â€œOne Seconal compared to the list you just read?”
    We put her to bed on the white sofa where she had fallen asleep. We straightened up the room and turned off the lights and went into the kitchen to sit around and feel guilty. “You and Arthur could go to the opera,” Kathleen said. “Someone should go. She won’t wake up. Cary and I can watch her.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think I could do it.”
    â€œI can.” Arthur laughed. He was drinking milk and eating cookies. He’s going to be a fat man. I will love him even more when he’s fat. If he gets fat, I’ll get fat. We’ll be fat together. If we aren’t in jail. “Come on, Sara. Let’s go. If no one uses those tickets, she’ll have a fit. She’ll be madder about wasting those tickets than anything else.”
    â€œShe may never speak to us again.” This from Cary. “Get ready for that. She may not pay our tuition next year.”
    â€œDad will pay it.”
    â€œI think we ought to call him. We ought to let him know about this.”
    â€œAre you kidding?”
    â€œArthur, you and Sara go back to the hotel and see if there are any messages and then go to the opera. We’ll be fine here. She won’t wake up for hours.”
    We went outside. It was still light, just after seven. We got into the Cadillac and drove into Manhattan and found a parking garage and ran for Lincoln Center. We made it just before they closed the doors.
    Das Reingold . It was superb. A metaphor for how the innocence and beauty of the world were stolen and taken down into the earth to be made into a ring of power. In the second scene, as the curtain rises, the king and queen of the gods are asleep on the ground. It is dawn on a mountain. They have nice clothes and food and weapons but no home. They still have to sleep on the ground like animals. As the sun rises and the mist clears away, a beautiful city appears in the distance. Valhalla, a place for gods to live. Fricka, the queen of the gods, wakes up. She shakes her husband. “Look at that,” she says. “A city for us to live in.”
    â€œI know,” he says. “I paid two giants to build it for us.”
    â€œWhat did you pay them with?” she says, getting suspicious.
    â€œI gave them your younger sister, Freia, Youth. One of them is madly in love with her.”
    â€œMy little sister, Youth? Oh, no, she is the treasure of the world.”
    â€œWell, we couldn’t go on sleeping on the ground all our lives. We had to have a city.”
    About that time the beautiful younger sister comes running onto the stage with these ugly giants chasing her. She throws herself at her sister’s feet, begging for mercy, and in the end the king makes a deal with the giants that he’ll go down into the earth and bring back the gold and give it to them in exchange for Freia. “Well, okay,” the giants say. “You have until sundown to get it. Meanwhile, we will keep Freia as a hostage.”
    They take her away and as soon as she leaves the stage, the gods begin to age. Their faces wrinkle and they begin to stoop.
    â€œOh, my God,” I whisper to Arthur. “This is too much metaphor. Let’s go to the hotel and get the messages and then go back out to Brooklyn. Let’s leave at intermission.”
    â€œThere isn’t any intermission. It’s three hours nonstop. This is German opera.”
    â€œBe quiet,” a man said in a foreign accent. The stage was dark. It was a set change. We grabbed our things and ran.
    We went to the hotel and got the phone messages. We called the doctor’s