Where I'm Calling From

there, too, and beside the clock a few magazines and a paperback. We’re sitting on the part of the bed where we keep our feet when we sleep. It looks like whoever was using this bed left in a hurry. I know I won’t ever look at this bed again without remembering it like this. We’re into something now, but I don’t know what, exactly.
    “I don’t want anything like that to ever happen to me,” she says. “Or to you, either.” She wipes her face with a corner of the blanket and takes a deep breath, which comes out as a sob. “I’m sorry. I just can’t help it,” she says.
    “It won’t happen to us. It won’t,” I say. “Don’t worry about any of it, okay? We’re fine, Iris, and we’re going to stay fine. In any case, that time’s a long time off. Hey, I love you. We love each other, don’t we?
    That’s the important thing. That’s what counts. Don’t worry, honey.”
    “I want you to promise me something,” she says. She takes her hand back. She moves my arm away from her shoulder. “I want you to promise me you’ll pull the plug on me, if and when it’s ever necessary.
    If it ever comes to that, I mean. Do you hear what I’m saying? I’m serious about this, Jack. I want you to pull the plug on me if you ever have to. Will you promise?”
    I don’t say anything right away. What am I supposed to say? They haven’t written the book on this one yet. I need a minute to think. I know it won’t cost me anything to tell her I’ll do whatever she wants. It’s just words, right? Words are easy. But there’s more to it than this; she wants an honest response from me. And I don’t know what I feel about it yet. I shouldn’t be hasty. I can’t say something without thinking about what I’m saying, about consequences, about what she’s going to feel when I say it-whatever it is I say.
    I’m still thinking about it when she says, “What about you?”
    “What about me what?”
    “Do you want to be unplugged if it comes to that? God forbid it ever does, of course,” she says. “But I should have some kind of idea, you know—some word from you now—about what you want me to do if worst comes to worst.” She’s looking at me closely, waiting for me to say. She wants something she can file away to use later, if and when she ever has to. Sure. Okay. Easy enough for me to say, Unplug me, honey, if you think it’s for the best. But I need to consider this a little more. I haven’t even said yet what I will or won’t do for her. Now I have to think about me and my situation. I don’t feel I should jump into this. This is nuts. We’re nuts. But I realize that whatever I say now might come back to me sometime. It’s important. This is a life-and-death thing we’re talking about here.
    She hasn’t moved. She’s still waiting for her answer. And I can see we’re not going anywhere this morning until she has an answer. I think about it some more, and then I say what I mean. “No. Don’t unplug me. I don’t want to be unplugged. Leave me hooked up just as long as possible. Who’s going to object? Are you going to object? Will I be offending anybody? As long as people can stand the sight of me, just so long as they don’t start howling, don’t unplug anything. Let me keep going, okay? Right to the bitter end. Invite my friends in to say good-bye. Don’t do anything rash.”
    “Be serious,” she says. “This is a very serious matter we’re discussing.”
    “I am serious. Don’t unplug me. It’s as simple as that.”
    She nods. “Okay, then. I promise you I won’t.” She hugs me. She holds me tight for a minute. Then she lets me go. She looks at the clock radio and says, “Jesus, we better get moving.”
    So we get out of bed and start getting dressed. In some ways it’s just like any other morning, except we do things faster. We drink coffee and juice and we eat English muffins. We remark on the weather, which is overcast and blustery. We don’t talk anymore about plugs, or about sickness and hospitals and stuff like that. I kiss her and leave her on the front porch with her umbrella open, waiting for her ride to work. Then I hurry to my car and get in. In a minute, after I’ve run the motor, I wave and drive off.
    But during the day, at work, I think about some of those things we talked about this morning. I can’t help it. For one thing, I’m bone-tired from lack of sleep. I feel vulnerable and prey to any random, gruesome thought. Once, when nobody is