A. Homes: May We Be Forgiven

“Where are you going?”

“The hospital.”

“Let me have your cell in case I need you.”

I give him the number and he hangs up. In my head I hear Jane’s voice: “Condoms?”

Yes. And where are they now? Gone, used, finished, dropped in the kitchen trash, loaded with jism.

I go back into the house. “Mind if I make a fresh pot of joe?”

“I won’t stop you,” the cop says. “Was that dog always here?” The cop points to Tessie, who is licking the water from my feet. Her bowl is dry. “That’s Tessie.”

I give the dog fresh water and kibble.

The evidence team suits up on the front lawn, laying out white Tyvek onesies and then climbing into them as if mounting a hazmat operation, complete with booties and latex gloves. “No, really, it’s okay,” I say. “We’re not contagious and the carpet’s already wrecked.” They don’t respond. “Coffee anyone?” I ask, holding up my mug. Usually I don’t drink coffee, but this morning I’m already on my fourth cup; I’ve got my reasons. As directed, I follow them from room to room. “So you use film and digital?”

“Yep,” the photographer says, snapping away.

“That’s really interesting. And how do you know what to photograph?”

“Sir, if you could please stand back.”

Before they leave, the cop takes out his notebook. “A couple of queries before I go. There are some blank spots, holes in the story.”

“Like what?”

“Were you having sex with her when your brother came home?”

“I was sleeping.”

“Have you been having a relationship with your brother’s wife?”

“I am here because my brother has been in the hospital.”

“And your wife?”

“She’s in China. It was my wife’s suggestion that I stay with my brother’s wife.”

“How would you describe your relationship with your brother?”

“Close. I remember when they bought the house. I remember helping them pick things out — the kitchen tiles. After the accident, I comforted Jane.”

The cop slaps his notebook closed. “All right, then, we know where to find you.”

When the cop leaves, I discover Jane’s purse on the front hall table and go through it, pocketing her cell phone, house keys, and, inexplicably — lipstick. Before I put her lipstick in my pocket, I open it, sweeping “Sweet Fuchsia” across my lips.

From the car, I call Claire in China. “There’s been an accident; Jane has been injured.”

“Should I come home tomorrow?”

In China tomorrow is today, and where we are today is tomorrow there. “Stay where you are,” I say. “It’s too complicated.”

Why was Claire so willing to let me go? Why did she send me into Jane’s arms? Was she testing me? Did she really trust me that much?

“I’m going to the hospital now and will call again when I know more.” A pause. “How’s work?”

“Fine. I’ve been feeling punk, I ate something strange.”

“Maybe a worm?”

“Call me later.”

When I get to the hospital, they tell me Jane is in surgery and George is still in the Emergency Room, shackled to a gurney in the rear.

“You stupid fuck,” he says when I part the curtain.

“What happened to your face?” I point to a row of fresh stitches above his eye.

“Call it a welcome-back present.”

“I fed the dog and stayed until the cops were finished, and then I called your lawyer — he’s coming later.”

“They don’t want me back on account of how I ‘ran away.’ It’s not like anyone told me what the checkout policy was and that I needed some sort of permission to go.”

A hospital housekeeper passes through with a metal mop and bucket.

“Is he contagious?”

“No, just violent; come in,” I say.

A young male doctor wheels in with an enormous lighted magnifying glass. “I am Chin Chow and I am here to pluck your face.” The doctor leans over him, plucking shards from his face. “You’ve got no tits,” George tells the doctor.

“And that is a good thing,” Chin Chow says.

I go to the nurses’ station. “My brother has stitches in his head — they weren’t there when he left the house this morning.”

“I’ll make a note that you’d like the doctor to speak with you.”

I go back to George, his face now a polka-dotted canvas of bloody red spots. “Chow Fun fucking plucked me, trying to get me to confess: ‘Oh, so what bring you here today? You have rough night at home?’ He fucking dug holes in my face with no anesthesia. ‘Stop,’ I said a hundred times. ‘Stop. Stop. Stop.’ ‘Oh, you a big baby, cry, cry, cry. You a big boy now, act like a man.’ That was no doctor, that was an undercover agent, trying to pry a confession out of me.”

“Really? I think he was making conversation. I doubt he knows why you’re here.”

“Yes he does, he said he was going to read all about me in the New York Post. ” And with that George starts to cry.

“Aw, come on, don’t start that.”

He sputters a little longer and then, snorting and snuffling, he stops. “Are you going to tell Mom?”

“Your wife is having brain surgery and you’re worried I’m going to tell your mother?”

“Are you?”

“What do you think?”

He doesn’t answer.

“When did you last see Mom?” I ask.

“A few weeks ago.”

“A few weeks?”

“Maybe a month?”

“How many months?”

“I don’t fucking know. Are you telling her?”

“Why would I? Half the time she doesn’t even know who she is. How about this: if she asks about you, I’ll say you were transferred overseas. I’ll send her tea from Fortnum and Mason and let her think you’re still a big macher.”

He wriggles on the gurney. “Scratch my ass, will you? I can’t reach. You’re a pal,” he says, breathing deep with relief. “A pal when you’re not a complete son of a bitch.”

An orderly brings George a lunch tray, and, arms and legs bound, he manages to contort himself sufficiently that with his knees he bounces it off the tray table and onto the floor.

“One per customer,” the lunch lady says, “try again tomorrow.”

“Start an IV on him so he doesn’t get dehydrated,” I hear the nurse say without missing a beat.

“They’re not fucking around,” I tell him, when she pulls back the curtain, needle in hand, with four guys singing backup behind her. “Speaking of lunch, I’m going to the cafeteria.”

“You may not die today,” he says, “but I will unwind you like a spool of thread.”

“Can I bring you anything?” I ask, cutting him off.

“Chocolate-chip cookies,” he says.

I go through the cafeteria line, circling steaming trays of mixed vegetables, stuffed shells, meat loaf, cold sandwiches made to order, pizza, doughnuts, cereal; I go around and at the end my tray is empty. I circle again and get the tomato-rice soup, a bag of Goldfish crackers, and a carton of milk.

When I tear the package open, orange crackers take flight, littering the table and the floor around me. I collect what I can. They are different from what I remember; I’m not sure if it’s the Goldfish in general or the flaw of the hundred-calorie pack — they’re smaller and flatter and now with facial expressions. They float on their sides, looking up at me with one eye and a demented half-smile.

I eat thinking of the “worm” in the Chinese food, of the way the man at the deli near my apartment says “tomato lice.” I eat picturing the pot of soup on my mother’s stove, soup that formed a membranous skin across the top as it cooled, and how she would obliviously serve me that stringy clot, which I always ate imagining that it was really blood.