Where I'm Calling From

Francis put his arm around Howard’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. God, how I’m sorry.” He let go of Howard’s shoulders and held out his hand. Howard looked at the hand, and then he took it. Dr Francis put his arms around Ann once more. He seemed full of some goodness she didn’t understand. She let her head rest on his shoulder, but her eyes stayed open. She kept looking at the hospital. As they drove out of the parking lot, she looked back at the hospital.
    At home, she sat on the sofa with her hands in her coat pockets. Howard closed the door to the child’s room. He got the coffee-maker going and then he found an empty box. He had thought to pick up some of the child’s things that were scattered around the living room. But instead he sat down beside her on the sofa, pushed the box to one side, and leaned forward, arms between his knees. He began to weep. She pulled his head over into her lap and patted his shoulder. “He’s gone,” she said. She kept patting his shoulder. Over his sobs, she could hear the coffee-maker hissing in the kitchen. “There, there,” she said tenderly. “Howard, he’s gone. He’s gone and now we’ll have to get used to that. To being alone.”
    In a little while, Howard got up and began moving aimlessly around the room with the box, not putting anything into it, but collecting some things together on the floor at one end of the sofa. She continued to sit with her hands in her coat pockets. Howard put the box down and brought coffee into the living room. Later, Ann made calls to relatives. After each call had been placed and the party had answered, Ann would blurt out a few words and cry for a minute. Then she would quietly explain, in a measured voice, what had happened and tell them about arrangements.
    Howard took the box out to the garage, where he saw the child’s bicycle. He dropped the box and sat down on the pavement beside the bicycle. He took hold of the bicycle awkwardly so that it leaned against his chest. He held it, the rubber pedal sticking into his chest. He gave the wheel a turn.
    Ann hung up the telephone after talking to her sister. She was looking up another number when the telephone rang. She picked it up on the first ring.
    “Hello,” she said, and she heard something in the background, a humming noise. “Hello!” she said. “For God’s sake,” she said. “Who is this? What is it you want?”
    “Your Scotty, I got him ready for you,” the man’s voice said. “Did you forget him?” “You evil bastard!” she shouted into the receiver. “How can you do this, you evil son of a bitch?”
    “Scotty,” the man said. “Have you forgotten about Scotty?” Then the man hung up on her.
    Howard heard the shouting and came in to find her with her head on her arms over the table, weeping.
    He picked up the receiver and listened to the dial tone.
    Much later, just before midnight, after they had dealt with many things, the telephone rang again.
    “You answer it,” she said. “Howard, it’s him, I know.” They were sitting at the kitchen table with coffee in front of them. Howard had a small glass of whiskey beside his cup. He answered on the third ring.
    “Hello,” he said. “Who is this? Hello! Hello!” The line went dead. “He hung up,” Howard said.
    “Whoever it was.”
    “It was him,” she said. “That bastard. I’d like to kill him,” she said. “I’d like to shoot him and watch him kick,” she said.
    “Ann, my God,” he said.
    “Could you hear anything?” she said. “In the background? A noise, machinery, something humming?”
    “Nothing, really. Nothing like that,” he said. “There wasn’t much time. I think there was some radio music. Yes, there was a radio going, that’s all I could tell. I don’t know what in God’s name is going on,” he said.
    She shook her head. “If I could, could get my hands on him.” It came to her then. She knew who it was.
    Scotty, the cake, the telephone number. She pushed the chair away from the table and got up. “Drive me down to the shopping center,” she said. “Howard.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “The shopping center. I know who it is who’s calling. I know who it is. It’s the baker, the son-of-abitching baker, Howard. I had him bake a cake for Scotty’s birthday. That’s who’s calling. That’s who has the number and keeps calling us. To harass us about that cake. The baker, that bastard.”
    They drove down to the shopping center. The sky was