World and Town by Gish Jen Page B

generalize these days, but if I may in this instance: The death of a brother does give one pause.” He exhales. “And wonder how one contributed, as you put it. He had his own lab at the end, you know. He was doing good work—AIDS research. NIH loved him.”
    “So I guess he caught up to you, by the end.”
    “I would have said passed me. But as you know, we see what we see.”
    “World makers that we are, you mean.”
    “Yes.” Carter hesitates, his eyes on her, then says again, “He always felt pressure”—a backtrack so uncharacteristic that, upset as she is, she can’t help but notice. People used to say his train of thought really was like a train—that he made his stops and moved on. She’s never known him to wander, as others do, after what he used to call the wraith of an idea . Not that it much matters if he does now—since when are the people we admire most like trains anyway?—except that Hattie remembers what people said about his father —he’s slipping— and how that haunted Carter. Dr. Hatch is slipping . Is that why he retired? It is hard to believe that he’d be slipping in any noticeable way at sixty-seven. And yet maybe that was the idea, to get out before anyone noticed—before anyone could say that about him.
    “I brought a towel,” he announces suddenly. “And a wet suit.” He toes his bag, leaving a dimple in it. “A concession to middle age.”
    “Are you thinking about a swim?” When there could still be ice floes in the water? Now this does make her wonder about his mental competence. He can’t be serious.
    But he is. “With company, I hope. Do you own a wet suit?”
    “Maybe you’d like to come in first?”
    A belated invitation, half hospitality, half avoidance: Whether or not Carter is still his old self, she is no longer the Hattie who would dive into any kind of water. Time’s made a sensible creature out of her.
    Carter gives a Carter Hatch shake of his head, though—with a back and forth so subtle, it could almost be a tic. How used to being read he is—to people divining his thoughts. (The Gnome, people called him in the lab; and later, she heard, the G-nome, though it was Anderson who was working on the genome, not he.)
    “I heard you’ve retired from the saving of our nation’s youth,” he says suddenly.
    Just teasing, she knows, and yet she bristles. “The youth do need our help, Professor.”
    He smiles. “You’ve grown testy in your old age, Hattie.”
    Testy.
    “And what about you? What have you grown?” She’s trying to tease—trying not to be testy .
    “Stupid—I’ve grown stupid.” Another smile. “Sweet and slow, as they say.”
    “Oh, Carter,” she says. “You’ll never be sweet.”
    Inviting return fire, she thinks. But he just sinks into himself a moment—his irises as blue as ever, though she can’t help but look for the arcus senilis around his corneas, and finds it: that faintly milky edging that midlife will bring, like a sea of memory rimming one’s worldview.
    “And if I do not own a wet suit?” she goes on, more gently.
    “But everyone knows that you do.”
    “So why did you ask?”
    “Bashful, I guess.”
    To which she smiles in spite of herself—charmed and glad to have been charmed. Glad that he’s managed to charm her. “And what if I had a cold? You are impossible.”
    “Unlike you, Miss Agreeability?”
    “Yes.”
    “ Bú duì, ” he says. “ Bú duì, bú duì, bú duì. ” He winks. “How’s my pronunciation?”
    She laughs.
    Her wet suit is packed away who knows where. For while she does start swimming early in the year, she doesn’t start this early; whatever the neural circuits for sanity, hers are still firing. Bureaus. Baskets. Reedie. Reedie. It’s worse than looking for her keys, which she brilliantly keeps on a designated hook, painted red. Reedie. Joe. Lee. Is it not too much, all this death? Reedie. But, ah—there. She changes self-consciously—feeling more naked than she has in