A. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

She folds the paper with the number and puts it in the pocket of her robe. "Thanks." They retreat to their rooms.

His mind races. He's thinking about his ex-wife and this hotel, about the crying woman, about how strange it is to be in his ex-wife's regular hotel room in the city where he lives, with a woman who is basically a stranger.

He thinks of Ben on the road: Where is Ben right now? Driving? He didn't even know Ben had a driver's license. With Barth's aunt in Cleveland? In a motel? Sleeping in the car under the anticrime lights in a truck stop?

He falls asleep, has a horrible dream, the kind that is so awful that while you are having it you're sure that you'll never forget it, a dream that is terrifyingly clear — except that when Richard wakes up he can't remember anything. He wakes up and has no idea where he is — his brother's house, his ex-wife's apartment? Everything looks different. He hears voices, people talking. Cold air blows through the room; the curtains are billowing. He wraps himself in a robe and goes into the living room.

She is there, in front of the television. "I hope I didn't wake you.

"I had a dream," he says.

The two of them in their heavy robes look like marshmallows, like the latest arrivals in a spa called Heaven. He takes a bottle of apple juice from the minibar, opens it, sips. "Too sweet," he says, putting it down.

"You're not going to drink that?"

"I'm used to fresh-pressed, unsweetened."

"Well, you can't just waste it; give it to me."

He hands her the juice, goes back to the minibar, and gets a bottle of water for himself. "There's microwave popcorn," he says.

"How much?"

"Only five dollars," he says.

She stands in the kitchen watching the popcorn turn in the microwave. "This is so decadent," she says. "When we check into a hotel, we ask them to empty the minibar — we buy sodas from a gas station."

"Exactly my point," he says, popping the top on the Pringles. "Let's be real Americans and do the gorge and gouge."

They have the popcorn, the chips, the caramel-coated walnuts, the seven-dollar cookie. They drink the beer, the white wine, and the champagne.

In the middle of the night they have a party, eating and drinking themselves into a stupor. He gets up to go to the bathroom, and when he comes back, she's asleep on the sofa. He covers her with a blanket and sits in the chair, finishing the champagne.

He watches her sleeping. He thinks of his ex-wife, of leaving his ex-wife. There was a crippling stillness, an absence of oxygen; he lived with it until there was nothing left, not another minute. It wasn't like he had the whole thing worked out; he just had to go.

He stood at the door of Ben's room, waving bye-bye, knowing he was not coming back. He stood at Ben's door, etching the stuffed animals, cars, small shoes, pale-blue walls, the sweaty, slightly sour scent of an unwashed boy into his mind's eye.

"Bye-bye," Ben said, looking up.

"Bye-bye," Richard said, and he didn't say anything more.

He went to a hotel, checked in, lay down on the bed. He didn't feel high or like he'd escaped, he felt like he'd left his life behind, like he'd become a ghost. In the morning he got up and went to work. Someone asked if he was all right. "Flu," he said, and no one asked more.

And his wife? His wife didn't say anything, didn't call him at the office, didn't yell or scream, didn't even check to make sure he was all right. After a week, he called her.

"You forgot your pillow," she said. "It's hard for me to take you seriously with your pillow still here — do you want me to leave it with the doorman?" She paused. "What do you want, do you want me to tell you to come back? You're the one who decided to leave; no one told you to go."

He couldn't go back — just the sound of her voice was enough to ensure that. He hung up and didn't call again.

In the pocket of his jacket he had Ben's small stuffed lion. He didn't discover it until later. He couldn't bear how bad he felt about Ben — couldn't bear that he couldn't bear — and so he froze. He did nothing. He rubbed the lion's head and hated himself.

At first he saw Ben a couple of times a week — he'd call the nanny and ask her to bring Ben down, and the nanny would put him in the stroller and push him to the park. And they would play — swings, slide, sandbox. While they were playing, Richard would ask the nanny how Ben was doing, was he going to classes, seeing friends, eating, sleeping, and so on.

No matter what he asked, the nanny always said, "He do good. He do good."

And winter came, and it got colder and more difficult, and Richard saw him less often, and soon it had been six months since he'd left and he called his wife.

"I'm moving to Los Angeles and I want to see Ben before I go."

"Whenever you want, any afternoon after school; I'm never there," she said, as though they had just spoken the day before.

He went back. He walked into the building, past the doorman, rode up the elevator, and went into the apartment, the whole time feeling like he was the creep, he had done something wrong, like no one knew the truth, and either way it didn't matter — truth was irrelevant.

And there was Ben. Bigger Ben.

"Hi."

Ben ran towards him, and then, before he even got close— ran away. Ben ran and Richard ran after, half chasing him. It was a game and it wasn't a game. Ben stopped in front of Richard, Richard got down on his knees, and Ben hit him hard, laughed, and then ran away again.

When it was time to leave, Richard hugged the boy. "Bye-bye," Richard said, and Ben began to cry.

ALL PERIL. His mind leapt to insurance. He had the homeowner's policy with him somewhere; was he really not covered?

All peril, pencils, peppermints, Pepcid; it was like the game $20,000 Dollar Pyramid — things an insurance agent keeps in his drawer?

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING," the crying woman says, startling him, "watching me sleep?"

"I was thinking."

"You were staring; I was watching you."

"How could you have been watching me? Your eyes were closed. Did you call your family?"

She shakes her head.

"Don't just leave," he says, out of the blue. "They may not appreciate you, but you have to try. Make rules. Dinner is at six-thirty. You do the cooking, they do the cleaning. Be tough." By telling her what to do, he is telling himself what to do. "Got it?"

She nods.

"Early flight; sleep well," he says, heading towards the bedroom.

"If it's OK, I'll stay on the sofa; I haven't slept alone in almost twenty-five years."

"Wherever you're most comfortable."

PERSPECTIVE. In the morning he drives back to the house, thinking he's going to check the progress of the hole, go inside, and take a look around. From the outside his house is a box, a box with windows and a view. He drives up, slows down as he passes, and then steps on the gas. At the top of the hill, he turns the car around and zooms down, past the house with the horse, past the movie star, past his own house, all the way down — to see Anhil.

"I will drive you to the airport."

"Who'll watch the store?"

"I will call my brother; he will come, and I will drive you, and I will take your car while you are gone. I will give it good exercise."

While they are waiting for the brother to arrive, Anhil serves Richard breakfast — the cereal, the Lactaid milk, and a cup of hot water with lemon — good decongestant for the plane.

"Thank you for the car," Anhil says, leaving him at the airport.

"I'm not giving it to you, I'm loaning it."

"I understand," Anhil says. "It is too much to give."

FLYING COACH, he settles into his seat and puts on his headset, and he's fine, on the verge of enjoying himself, thinking he's escaped, gotten out. He drinks his complementary water and eats his complementary pretzel sticks. He's fine until the plane lands, until he gets in his rental car, until he pulls up at the brother's house, and then it's as though he's been getting smaller and smaller ever since he woke up that morning, shrinking as he brushed his teeth, as he zipped his suitcase, as he left the hotel, as he went through the X-ray machine at the airport, shriveling on the plane as he put his bag in the overhead, as he buckled the belt, even smaller still in the rental car, pulling the seat forward, amazed he could reach the pedals or see over the wheel. Smaller and smaller, so that by the time he arrives at the brother's house, he is less than four feet, a child again.