A. Homes: May We Be Forgiven

“Do I have to worry about her?” Nate asks as I’m walking out of the room.

“No,” I say.

By morning, Sakhile has e-mailed back several times, wondering when we can talk — anytime is good for him. Wondering how much money is coming their way and when they might get it.

We schedule a village meeting via Skype, and I leave it to Nate to tell them about the Web site and the donations.

“How much?” Sakhile asks excitedly via Skype.

Nate smoothly defers a direct answer. “Quite a bit,” he says. “Enough to make a difference.”

And quickly the conversation becomes about want. From South Africa we hear that the village should have a car or a bus that would run back and forth to the bigger cities.

“A bus is a way out,” Nate says. “Let’s think of ways in — things that make life better in the village.”

“Cable television and a really big TV?” one of the South Africans suggests.

“I’m thinking more along the lines of having a well dug,” Nate says, his voice becoming increasingly tense, sad.

“That would be very expensive,” Sakhile says.

“Exactly,” Nate says, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The conversation continues, with the South Africans talking about all the things they might buy, from electric guitars to Vespas and refrigerators.

“Enough,” Nate says. “You are becoming just like us: you aren’t thinking of your village, of your parents, your children, your future; you’re thinking that you want a fancy car and a gigantic TV.”

We are all silent.

“The child is pointing the way,” Londisizwe says.

“We are not going to resolve this tonight,” I say. “Let’s give it some thought and talk again soon.”

“I feel terrible,” Nate says when we are off the computer. “I created a monster.”

“You didn’t create it,” I say.

“Well, then, I fed it,” Nate says, disgusted with himself.

“No one is immune. It is human nature to want, for each generation to aspire to more. People confuse things with achievement, with other kinds of progress. It’s the measure of success.”

“Whoever has the most toys wins?” Ricardo says.

“You don’t have to give them the money,” I suggest.

“It’s their money,” Nate says. “It was given to me for them. Whatever we do with it has to be for the village, for the future — food, housing, ensuring the quality of the water supply.”

“I’m impressed that you don’t just walk away,” I say.

“I can’t walk away,” Nate says. “I started this.”

“And you can’t blame them. They’re from another country, but they live in the same world as we do.”

Labor Day weekend is spent packing and shopping for school supplies.

Come Tuesday, we all make the pilgrimage with Nate back to the academy. Nate seems to enjoy giving Cy and Ricardo a tour, and Ricardo asks if one day he might get to go to a school like this. “Yes,” I say. “If you want to.”

We get Nate set in his dorm room, Cy gives him twenty bucks “mad money,” and we head home. The next day, Ashley and Ricardo start at the public school down the road, and by the end of the week Madeline and Cy are signed up for three days a week at a program for seniors.

Even my mother places herself in the autumn mix, informing me that she and her husband are going back to school. They’ve signed up with OLLI, an organization devoted to Lifelong Learning, and are taking classes in political science and radio theater.

Nobody seems to notice that I am the only one who has not gone back to school. I am now officially unemployed; the feeling is disconcerting — I manage the stress by organizing everyone else.

The house is filled with life. There are people coming and going constantly. Ricardo gets a pet frog and a turtle and begins taking drum lessons. Ashley resumes her piano lessons. On weekends there are activities such as leaf raking; Cy and Ricardo enjoy creating enormous piles and then either jumping in them or simply walking straight through, and having to do it all over again. We borrow the Gaos’ minivan and go on group excursions to see the foliage, or go pick apples and pumpkins. It is all good and mostly uncomplicated — except for the twenty minutes during which Cy goes missing in a corn maze.

I meet with Hiram P. Moody, to discuss the cash flow — he seems to think it’s not a problem. “Families are like little countries,” he says. “It’s an ecosystem, an ebb and flow. Between the money coming in for rent for Cy and Madeline’s house, their Social Security checks, and income from investments — they’re fine. With regard to Ashley and Ricardo, you function like a human cash machine, but between Jane’s life-insurance coverage, George’s severance from the network, their previous investments, and the settlement from Ashley’s school — you’re more than fortunate.”

I try to live within my means; they’re limited, but I have the benefit of George’s full wardrobe, and when my insurance runs out, I pick up a freelancers’ health policy, and beyond that my wants and needs are few.

I keep track of all the money in dedicated notebooks — one for each child, one for Cy and Madeline, and another for the household and one for myself — carefully noting each expense and from what source it was paid. Not only does it give me something to do, it protects me from a nagging fear of being accused of mismanagement.

Cy is increasingly frail, more forgetful, and having trouble “containing” himself. All this prompts a visit to the doctor, who basically says, “You get what you get and you can’t expect more. None of us last forever.”

I ask the doctor to step out of the examining room for a word in private. We leave Cy on the table, his pale, hairless long legs nearly blue, and veined like a plucked chicken.

“What does that mean—‘none of us last forever’?” I say just outside the door. The doctor shrugs. “How old are you?” I ask.

“Thirty-seven,” he says.

“You got a fuck of a lot of nerve,” I say to him.

“What do you want?” he asks. “You want painkillers, you want Valium? You tell me,” he blithers on.

“What I want is compassion, some understanding of what it’s like to be sitting there in that gown that is one step away from a funeral shroud and worrying what it’s all about.”

“Right,” he says. We go back into the room, and the young doctor hops up onto the exam table next to Cy and says, “Can you hear me okay?”

“No need to yell,” Cy says. “I’m old but I’m not blind. I can see your lips moving.”

“You’re doing very well,” the doctor says. “The more you can get out and exercise, go for walks, the better; just keep moving, and enjoy yourself.” And he hops down off the table, hands me a couple of prescriptions: a statin for Cy’s cholesterol, Flomax for the prostate, Valium as needed for anxiety. He winks at me and is gone.

Ashley, continuing her embrace of Judaica, asks me to please get tickets for the High Holy Days. Having declined to renew the membership at the temple George and Jane belonged to, I find myself online buying tickets from a “liquidator.” The idea that one “buys” tickets to an annual religious event bothers me; I’m aware that for many Jews the High Holies mark their annual visit to temple, and it’s also when synagogues raise their funds for the year — but it doesn’t feel right.

I meet some guy on a corner and pay six hundred dollars cash for two “member” tickets to Yom Kippur services at a conservative temple in Scarsdale.

Excited, Ashley insists we get there early to get good seats. We sit for hours and hours, and when we finally get to the Viddui, the communal confession of sin, I find myself right there with the rest of them, beating my chest, repenting “for the sins that I have done before you.” There are at least twenty-four sins: the sin of betrayal, having an evil heart, causing others to sin, eating what is forbidden, speaking falsely, scoffing at others, being scornful, perverse, rebelliously transgressing, the sin of having turned away from God … I am pounding my chest along with the rabbi as he recites the litany of our wrongs. I am guilty. I am guilty of even more than I realized I could be guilty of.