web to bother finding out what they are. Probably something to do with suppressing information to avoid a large-scale panic. Certainly the power here in Lansdowne has been on the fritz. (And before Dory accuses me of discriminating against Germans with the use of that phrase, let me assure you that the origins of the expression have never been determined.)
You know, I’m beginning to enjoy opining on camera—perhaps you’ll say this doesn’t surprise you. With a competent host who can muster a flare of curiosity in his eyes, it isn’t so different from the classroom. But don’t think I’m too much of an egoist to realize that my new-found celebrity is in itself a desperate sign of the times. When philosophers are on the evening news, you can be sure society is in crisis.
He put down the pen. He ought to call before driving all the way down there. He could give her the letter in person; save the postage.
He dialled her number, but there was a strange nothingness on the other end—no ringing, no beep, no out-of-order message. He double-checked the number in the back of his address book, and the second time it rang. After twelve rings, an answering service picked up and Keelan left a message.
“Julia, this is your father. I’m hoping to see you very soon.” He paused, wondering if he should broach his whole plan. He decided, instead, that it was better to reduce anticipatory objections. Then he worried he was leaving too long of a silence. “Give my love to Dory and the baby. The baby-on-the-way, that is.”
He picked up the pen again to add a postscript.
My dear,
In case I don’t make it to you and in case I ought to have asked before, I just want you to know that when you announced your good news via e-card I was genuinely curious as to who is carrying your baby, be it you or Dory. If I said little, it was from delicacy, not from lack of affection or concern. There are oceans of debate as to what is or is not a legitimate or polite question, these days. (For instance, whose egg was used? And whose sperm?) It’s likely best if I wade in slowly, don’t you agree? There is nothing I want less than to inadvertently insult you, or especially Dory, whom history has shown may be less inclined to forgive my shortcomings. I am delighted to reflect that when I arrive in New York City I will see one of you with the glow of motherhood, and I hope you believe me when I say that any response to the above questions will overjoy me.
It was possible, he had to acknowledge, that they would not want to come back with him. Dory, he knew, was quite the workhorse at her publishing company, and Julia would probably defer to her. It was the safety of their unborn child that he had to press to his advantage.
He hoped it was Julia carrying the baby. He had felt prehistoric even thinking it (where was the ledger where he could get credit for this silent self-shaming?), but it was something he wanted for her: motherhood, and the physicality of it. Annie had carried Julia with such humour and laughing grace that it made him bristle with indignation to hear people talk about childbearing like it was all stretch marks and spider veins. But Dory would tell him—they both would, wouldn’t they?—that motherhood was more than pregnancy. It started afterwards. It was like the difference between a wedding and a marriage. Everybody knew that. And thank God there were no adoptive mothers around to hear his offensive and hurtful comments that implied that they were somehow different, lesser, left out. Keelan wondered if his own voice had come to be the vicious conscience in the minds of his negligent students in the way that Dory’s had become, in his, the soundtrack of all that was mean, querulous, and condemning.
He hoped not.
Keelan supposed it was his own bias that had turned her into the person against whom he was most inclined to dig in his heels. But it was all pretty rich. Even though Dory was only lately a lesbian, she’d made herself into the homosexual acceptance police. She used to be married to a man, for God’s sake—the son of two of his colleagues, actually. He’d even met her before, at some departmental holiday party or other.
The doorbell rang, and Keelan shuddered, startled. Somehow he