On Being Useful

Mother took a nap almost every afternoon on the couch in our living room.  Wearing a snap-front, cotton, permanent press house coat, her twisted, arthritic feet crossed at the ankle, she lay, her hand at her neck, her toes wiggling slowly in rhythm to the tugging of the  loose skin under her chin.  Toes so crippled looking and skin so dry it was hard to imagine how once they danced in heels, her little foot, kicking up, proudly showing off the "Reid legs" - catching my father's eye.

 Peering through the screen door, into the living room, I would see her there, a certainty of my life.   The backyard pool, where we all learned to swim, glimmering in the background through sliding glass doors.   It was a neighborhood where people  grew up and didn't move far. At least I didn't. For long.
I stayed close to Mother.  Two blocks to be exact. Home was a blend of  the street of my childhood - Resh and the street of my children's childhood -  Pine.

Whenever I approached the house, I was sure to find Mother  - reclining on the couch, on a lounge chair, on her bed, a paperback in her hands. The TV Guide and her Beagle by her side. Sometimes the TV blared. Especially as she got older and her hearing began to go. The radio in the kitchen blasted news of traffic jams and pileups on freeways nowhere near us  - but she never failed to report them.  Ever vigilant. Ever watchful of potential threats - invasions - the weather-  a full tank of gas and a full pantry her defense against impending doom.

She kept herself useful to the end even when, truth be known, her usefulness had run its course.  In her mind, even after dementia set in, four words never escaped her vocabulary - "do you need anything?"

A mother's usefulness is on my mind right now.

My mother remained useful because I allowed her to be.  I allowed her to continue mothering me even when I felt like I was being suffocated by her. Yet, Mother also had a way of keeping her distance.  She was not an interfering mother.  She was helpful.  Sometimes too helpful - evidenced by a few shrunken sweaters. But there was overall a bond so intense and so practical that for the most part, it worked. For both of us.

 Even at the bitter end, after four painfully difficult years of caregiving, it worked.  I was able to be there in the end. No guilt. No regrets.
Just a chapter I'd prefer not to have lived. Cutting pills, brushing dentures, trips to ER, radiation for a skin cancer overtaking her upper lip, battles over the caregivers - it was a nasty time. My lower back perpetually out from hoisting the wheel chair in and out of the trunk and jutting my hip a certain way to lift her into the car. I have seen old age up close. I know what it looks like. What it smells like.  What if feels like.  I have walked the halls of an Alzheimer's facility, shoveled food into my mother's mouth, and held her hand, silently looking into her eyes for hours on end. There were days I was at the breaking point. A crazy woman. Me.  Not her.  But her too. A crazy combination. She didn't like it any more than I did.

And when it was over - it was over.  We were both released from the bondage of those terrible days.

My father always said one of his greatest fears was that he would be a burden for his children.  He dropped dead long before he needed to worry about that.  Was Mother a burden? I would be less than honest if I said no.  Mother was a heavy load during those years. Ninety is a long life. But to the end, she thought herself useful.  And indeed she was.  Her old age taught me an important lesson.

 The lesson I learned is that usefulness, real or imagined,  is the key to combatting the inevitable decline.

Mother needed me to need her.
I believe all mothers need to be needed to one degree or another.

A mother's usefulness does not necessarily translate into washing dishes and doing laundry as it did for my mother.

Sometimes, the most useful thing a mother can do - is let go.
Circumstances dictate choices.
They certainly did in my case.
 I chose to stay close to my mother because our lives and losses made it nearly impossible not to.

But the lesson I learned is that a mother must be willing to release her children to their own destiny.
And her children must be willing to go.

Perhaps this lesson is one I was compelled to pass on to my children so not to perpetuate the legacy of a suffocating mother.  I have been forced to practice what I preach. Both of my children have chosen to venture across the country in search of their destinies.

And as I remain behind it is up to me to find new ways of being useful. That is my job. Not theirs.

A Rose by Any Other Name

My father called her Big Stuff.
I was Little Stuff.
Sometimes he called her Tomato Face.
In the morning, when into the kitchen she'd come, flopping along in her Daniel Green slippers and zipper-front robe looking for her coffee in the electric percolator, Dad would sing,
Here she comes, Miss America.
Jack called her Irish.
To her friends, she was Els.
To her nephews she was Aunt Elsie.
In Germany she was Frau Elsie who was always schteaming!
Steve called her The Little White Haired Lady and Little Mommy.
Peggy invoked her given name, Elsie Vera.
Aliases included
Marguerite Montmarenzie.
and once, when she decided to be unfaithful to her long time hair dresser, Del at House Beautiful by going to Lucky Lady Beauty Salon, she went by her maiden name, Elsie Reid so he wouldn't find out.
To the salesmen at the office and tellers at the bank, she was Mrs. Luskey.
(And probably some other names that will go unmentioned.)
To her grandchildren, she was Gaga.
To me she was
Mom.
Mother.
Mama.
Mommy.
In that order.
Born the last rose of summer, Mother died on the first day of spring.
Gentle images for this fierce Virgo.
Now
a sleeping lioness
Elise lives
ferocious as ever
in the fire of my being.
There when I need her.
As always.

A Weekend in New York

A new stage of life has begun. With each, a labor. This morning, I sit at JFK airport ready to return to my life in California. Last night I put Gillian into a cab at midnight from the Hyatt back to Brooklyn and into her life in New York.

The back of her head through the taxi cab window was familiar. As she drove off, the same feeling came over me that had that late night in Prague when, after our last meal together, I sent her off from a Hyatt to an apartment in some remote neighborhood in the Czeck Republic. Hyatts, taxis, Gillian and a wave of emotion so deep that it almost makes me dizzy.

That lonesome feeling again. Only this time I know it will pass once I get back to a routine.

This trip has been anything but routine.

A red eye Thursday night.
An endurance test as we made our way bleary eyed to Brooklyn with two suitcases full of books and stuff that Gillian could no longer live without for a furniture assembly-project. That task fell to Steve, who, soldiered on through the Ikea illustrations to build a bed and a desk. My voice had a Kristofferson- like quality to it until about four o'clock when I finally had a double shot latte to wake up.

Then again, it was not unlike my experience with Gillian in Prague. Dragging a suitcase over cobblestones, through the subway back to the West Village - where we made our home for two nights at a friend's loft.

It was off to the theatre where we saw Next to Normal, a musical I am still processing and one that will no doubt make an appearance in a later blog entry once I've landed and taken a breath.

A late night drink and conversation in the lobby of the Algonquin, home to Dorothy Parker and the Round Table. We talked of poetry, plays, and the creative process with Gillian's artistic roommate, and former student of mine, Jen who is now at NYU in the poetry program.

New York seems to be overflowing with former students all of whom are doing exciting things. On Saturday night, we visited with Emma, another former student and writer who plans to study poetry at NYU.

There was a shorthand, a mutuality to these conversations. We know each other. We share an appreciation of one another in this soulful, idealistic world of writing, theatre, and poetry. I felt right at home. And there in the center of the conversation, my absolutely marvelous, vibrant daughter. And suddenly at fifty-one, my life felt alive with possibilities. They say, as a teacher, by your students you'll be taught. I was amazed by the reciprocal nature of these exchanges.

After a light dusting of snow and a blustery Saturday, Sunday morning brought the sun and the Super Bowl to the city and the flu to Steve. An unfair blow to a father who so faithfully serves his wife and daughter. Confined to bed for the day, he missed one of the finest theatre experiences of all time -A View from the Bridge. Clearly the hottest ticket in town, we gave Steve's away to a woman who was down on her luck and was hoping for SRO.

A fully realized production. As far as I'm concerned, this is the highest compliment I can pay to this astonishing two hours of drama. Arthur Miller is our greatest playwright. This production, a master piece.

In the lobby, a voice, "Mrs. Barth!?" Another former student - a young man I directed in Tina Howe's Museum several years ago. Both of us in awe of what we had just seen, we talked quickly of theatre and Miller's power to capture the human experience.
It was one of those priceless moments.

After playing the autograph hound, Gillian managed to get two on a poster from the show, we headed back to the West Village where, in the dark, Steve still lay in bed. We packed up for our move to the Hyatt where Steve's conference runs through the week. The city was eerily empty due to the crowds holed up watching the New Orleans Saints win the Super Bowl. Gillian and I joined my nephew, Rob, for a steak and after dinner drinks.

And then, at midnight, I put Gillian into her cab.

Steve is better this morning. I'm hoping to dodge whatever it was he got hit with. And now after having written this, the loneliness has lifted.

Does that mean that writing is routine?

I hope so.

Hitting Bottom

Just when you think you are "over it" - meat loaf strikes. It wasn't really the meat loaf. It was weighing the ground turkey and ground beef. I'd never owned a kitchen scale in my life except once a very long, ill fated time ago when I was on weight watchers. It sat in my cupboard unused and eventually ended up on a table in a yard sale. Tonight, I weighed the meat on the scale that Gillian had bought and I might add, left behind. She probably doesn't realize it yet. (Honey, if you are reading this, it would cost me more to send it to New York than for you to go to Target to buy a new one.)

Tare. Never had heard of it. Had no idea what it meant. No clue. But tonight, I sat the plate on the scale, hit "tare" and watched as the weight of the plate turned to zero so that I could determine 12 ounces of ground meat. Just as I was taught by Gillian. Where she learned it, I don't know.

After assembling the meat loaf, I decided I'd better clean out the fridge to get ready for the week ahead. The cream line yogurt container sat waiting for me on the shelf. I had planned on finishing the yogurt off with Gillian's raspberry jam and granola after she'd left for New York, but I didn't.
So, I washed out the moldy container and decided to hold on to it. It could be a handy way for me to carry soup to school, I thought.

Then I remembered the night of the big pronouncement.

She had been digging in the lower corner cabinet with the built-in lazy susan, when she announced in utter frustration that we were "in a tupperware crisis."
Lids didn't match bottoms and vice-versa. I had taken to buying the zip-lock and glad style disposable containers. Some clever marketing executive had made sure that the lids were just slightly off in size so not to allow interchangeable brands.
On the night that the crisis hit, it seemed we had lots of glad lids and no matching bottoms.

I usually resorted to putting foil or plastic wrap over the top of the lidless containers. It never occurred to me to toss the useless, bottomless lids.

My mother never threw out any of the trays from her constant diet of frozen food. Stacks and stacks of little black, plastic trays sat in her lower cabinet.
I used to be frustrated with this idiosyncracy of my mother's.
Gillian was frustrated with mine.
I guess we really do become our mothers.

Gillian also preferred to put cheese into separate tupperware containers in the refrigerator. Bleu, camembert, brie, and goat cheese all got their very own little container. Drove me nuts. I, on the other hand, would scoop up the left over cheese wedges from our fattening appetizer habit and put them all together in a ziplock bag. Gillian found this to be unacceptable since the aroma from the different cheeses would then mix together.

I thought about all of this as I washed out the cream line yogurt tub and tucked it away on to the lazy susan in the lower corner cabinet.

There were all those bottomless lids laying there on the shelf.

Hmm....do they still have such a thing as tupperware parties?

Of Mice and Gillian

The squeal on the other end of the phone abruptly ended my long awaited update from Brooklyn.
"A mouse. A mouse. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It just ran into my closet. I've gotta go."
Click.

While I've been lamenting my empty nest, it would seem that Gillian's is not so empty.

While things around here can only be described as "quiet" - it most definitely has not been so for Gillian in NYC.
From learning the subway system, to apartment hunting, to wrestling with internet connectivity issues for her job, to adapting to the cold weather - it would seem that I've had the easier adjustment.
Heck, at least I have a bed to sleep in with Steve for a roommate.
Gillian is on a mattress with a mouse for hers.
I told her she should have taken our cat Lido with her.
I guess this gives new meaning to "creature comforts."

The next box I ship to New York will include a mousetrap.

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

The Coq au Vin was delicious. I served it for dinner after a kayak and trip to the grocery store, all of which I negotiated without incident - no exchanges with produce clerks. No uncontrolled bouts of emotion. Well, I'll admit to a pang at Trader Joe's when I picked out my pre-packaged lunch salads as I realized I would no longer have to jockey for shelf space in the refrigerator - but minor, really, by comparison to my earlier trips.

Progress.

Now the dish towels are another story. We have difference of opinion. I tend toward the aesthetic. I like color coordinated, themed towels - you know, red and green for Christmas, hearts for Valentine's day, Shamrocks for St. Patrick's day. I have a penchant for buying t-towels when I travel. They fit easily into a suitcase and bring back happy memories when I pull them out of the drawer. On any given day, it is an artistic decision which will hang from my oven door.
GIllian on the other hand is all about function and absorption. I'm a dishwasher kind of gal. She, a hand -wash and stack on the sink on top of a white flour sack towel to air -dry type.

Many nights, she would shoo me out of the kitchen to prevent me from loading the knives and pans into the dish washer. This conflict has haunted me for years - going back to the days when my mother would take over my kitchen on Pine Street to whip it into shape. She didn't like how I loaded a dishwasher either. I'll admit to laziness when it comes to washing up the pots and pans. If you are going to hand wash everything, why have a dishwasher? The dullness of the blades is apparently the issue. I do, however, insist on hand washing my china and crystal, something my mother poo poo'd. Hence, the cloudy haze on her Murano Italian cut crystal. I do put the silver into the basket of the dishwasher and am careful not to place it near the stainless. We all have our priorities.

I thought about this as I pulled out my gold colored dish towel - a souvenir from Tuscany. I draped it over the handle of the oven. It looks pretty.

Dividing up the kitchen utensils was something like a friendly divorce. The dispute arose over the tongs. As she pulled them from the red pitcher that serves as a utensil holder on the counter, I gasped. "Wait a minute. What are you doing with those?" She reminded me that she had bought them at Prep with her own money and she just knew this was going to be an issue when the time came. She tossed them into her box as she packed up the Cuisinart. I didn't care about that. I frankly don't like food processors. Too hard to clean. I prefer my little hand held mixer.

Speaking of mixers, the one I got for our first Christmas twenty-seven years ago drove her nuts as she whipped up her berry cobbler batter.
I thought of this as I began to reclaim my kitchen - putting things back where I wanted them regardless of the logic or function. I moved the egg beater inserts from the drawer under the stove where they didn't fit to the lower drawer under the oven where I'd put them when we originally moved in.

She left the white rubber spatula with the wooden handle. I put it into the pitcher and moved the long handled zester from the pitcher into the drawer. I was sure I'd paid for that and she hadn't disputed it. The zester is a necessity these days. I use it surprisingly frequently. But I had never had one prior to GIllian moving back home.

How is it that my daughter taught me to cook? My mother didn't. And I didn't teach Gillian. I thought of the movies, Like Water for Chocolate and Babette's Feast and Chocolat and some of those other soulful stories of the passing on of the culinary traditions and family recipes from mother to daughter and thought how funny it was that our story was generationally backwards.

During my cooking apprenticeship at Chez Savona under the tutelage of my daughter, I'd learned to cook with kosher salt, sea salt, shallots, fennel, leeks, and ginger. My library now contains three of Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and atop my butter dish rests only unsalted butter.

Tonight, I'll use my stock pot, another item I only acquired in the last two years.

I do miss those tongs, though.

Come Saturday Morning

This morning I awake around 8:00 a.m. Fix the coffee. Let the cat in. Pick up the three newspapers from our patio that we still have delivered to our house in a defiant and stubborn effort to keep print media alive. Take the papers out of their plastic bags. Gingerly toss the plastic bags into the trash. Wash my hands. Pour the coffee. Crawl back into my side of the bed. Sip my coffee. Begin reading the front page of the LA Times. I always read the papers in the same order. Front page of the LA Times. Local section of the OC Register. Personal Journal section of the Wall Street Journal. Then, depending on what USC is doing, I pick up the Sports section. I move to Business. I always save the Calendar section and Show for last. For inspiration.
Steve snores next to me as Hobie nuzzles into the side of my left leg. Steve will sleep at least an hour later than me and then awake to a pile of newsprint, now in some sort of hybrid order on my side of the bed.

Ah blissful routine.

There is a hint of Saturday in the air. The sound of a rake and blower down the street. The clock striking 10:00 . The house is still. The sky is clear.

I walk back downstairs to pour a second cup of coffee. I stand in the kitchen and survey our empty nest. I scan the den. I look at the shutters and notice the louvers are closed facing down. I adjust them. I consider the kitchen counter top and question the decision to rid it of the big sunflower cookie jar that used to sit in the center. Gillian's idea. It was chipped she said. And blocked the view of the TV from the kitchen. I think I will go retrieve it from the pile of rummage in the garage. This is, after all, my house. Besides, the cookie jar served as a good spot under which to tuck notes or the cash for my housekeeper. This week the bills sat loose and naked in the middle of the counter. Indiscrete without the cookie jar.

I think about the day ahead. I will tackle the grocery store again in the hope of slaying the dragon. There are two packages of chicken thighs and legs in the fridge that I bought to make Coq au Vin in the crock pot this past week. I didn't. Since it is Saturday, I will cook it on the top of the stove in my dutch oven.

Maybe we will kayak, I think. A walk for sure.

I hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "Where did everybody go?" Steve calls.

"Right here," I respond.

The loneliness is lifting.

The Wait of it All

Isn't it interesting how "waiting" for someone can bring meaning to life? I realized the other night how much the pre-dinner hour has always been about "waiting". When I was a kid it was "waiting" for Daddy to come home. When I grew up and got married, it was "waiting" for my husband to come home. Then, when I began teaching, my kids and my husband "waited" for me to come home. And when Gillian moved home after college, I was back to "waiting" for her to come home. Now I'm "waiting" for my husband to come home again.

I have been thinking a lot about my mother over this past week. For some reason that I've not quite figured out yet, she is all mixed up in my emotions over this transition I'm going through with Gillian. I'm sorting it out. But a few things have occurred to me.

After my father died and I got married, my mother no longer had anyone to "wait" for. That is, until my children were school age and she took up the task of "waiting" to drive them home after school. Her "waiting" gave her meaning for all of those years and I'm sure in some way really extended her life. I made it easy for my mother - and in truth, she made it easier for me. We never didn't have each other to wait for. Even when she grew old and frail. Even when her memory was fading. She waited for me to come visit her. And I knew she was waiting. So I came. We "waited" together that morning she took her last breath.

One thing my mother didn't have to do was go through a transition with me like I am going through right now with Gillian. Except for the nine months after we were first married when we lived in Los Angeles, I never left my mother. In fact, I moved back to Anaheim to be as close to her as I could be - two blocks away. I never left my mother. Maybe that's why this transition is so disorienting for me right now. I have never been without either my mother or my daughter in my entire life.

I wouldn't want Gillian to do what I did. I don't need her to do what I did. I did what I did for good reasons. It's just that I have to figure out what I'm supposed to do now that I don't have either of them to "wait" for anymore.

Maybe that means it's time to get on with my life. I know, I know. What am I waiting for?

The Grocery Store and Me

It hit at the grocery store. There I was, in the produce aisle, buying food for the week for the first time for just the two of us. I think it was the leeks that got me. And those damned green beans. Then it was thinking about making the lemon chicken. I don't pound it. She does. I don't. I remembered the scolding when I bought the wrong lemon pepper.

I walked along the aisle and the fennel almost undid me. The kind produce clerk asked how I was doing today. They are always so cheerful, aren't they? Have you ever noticed that? They seem to like their job stacking apples and potatoes. He was placing the lettuce in neat rows when he asked me this simple, casual, friendly question that begged a not so simple answer. I pretended my eyes were watering.
"Ooh," I faked a laugh. "Don't know why my eyes keep watering. I'm great, how are you?" I dabbed at my eyes. For God's sake, Amy, get a hold of yourself, I thought. Why is it that the "kindness of strangers" keeps stirring my emotions? First the magazine salesman and now the produce clerk?
It was then I spotted the garlic. It all flooded over me - trips to the open air market. Planning our menus. Post-it notes in the cookbooks. Lists of exotic spices and special flour for baking.

I then remembered I had asparagus in the fridge. She had grown tired of the roasted asparagus recipe with tarragon and lemon sprinkled over it. I thought, oh good. I'll fix that.

A walk down the meat aisle took me to the pork. We rarely ate pork the entire time she lived at home. She had a thing about it. I put a center cut loin roast in my basket. Cook stuff she didn't like, I thought. That will help.

I walked along the dairy case. Her yogurt is still in the fridge, I remembered. I ate some this morning with her raspberry jam mixed in. I scooped it into the little round tupper she took to work. I thought, well, I might as well finish it off. I threw a bag of granola into the basket to mix with the yogurt. Then that darned granola guy at the farmer's market came to mind and I saw her buying it and putting it into her reusable grocery bags. She'd converted me to using them long ago, although today, I'd forgotten them. I felt guilty.

I made it through the canned foods without incident and went to the check out.
Now I had to go home.

Steve had set the timers for the lights so the house was lit up, welcoming me. It helped.
There were Hobie and Lido. I think Lido is depressed.
Through the door I went. Tears just streaming down my face. It was 5:30 and she usually came home about then. And I would hear all about her day.
I emptied the car and a loneliness like I've rarely felt in my life consumed me.
No sound of the garage door opening.
No dirty tupper thrown into the sink.
No foul mood, exasperated sigh or stomping up the stairs in her clunky heels.
It was just quiet.
I put the groceries away.
I spotted that half a bagel still in the cuboard. I tossed it.
And the smooth peanut butter.
I washed the asparagus.
Marinated the two chicken breasts without pounding them.
Fixed the rice.
And set the table.
For two.

I will adjust. I know that.
But in a million years, I wouldn't have believed that I could miss her this much.
Dinner time is going to take some getting used to.

I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face

I emerge from the bathtub. Soaking in the lavender salts she gave me for Christmas.
"Quality over quantity," she said as she distributed customized stockings to each of us.
The lavender salts came from L'Occtaine.
From the essential oil aroma therapy, I know they are quality bath salts.

The phone rings. I answer it.
"Is Gillian in?"
"No," I say. "She is not."
"This is Cook's Illustrated calling."
The tears brim again as they have all day off and on.
"Oh," I say.
The sales pitch.
I interrupt. This poor magazine subscription renewal salesman
does not need to hear my sob story.
I simply say,
"Gillian doesn't live here any more. She is starting graduate school so
this is probably not the time for Cook's Illustrated in her life.
But thank you."

Cook's Illustrated? Is this some kind of cosmic joke?
Gillian and I spent more time together in our little kitchen
than anywhere else over these last two and a half years.
We learned more about each other in our little kitchen over these two and a half years
than in her entire life.
She loves to cook. She taught me to love to cook.
A "Foodie", she temped at Bon Appetite. She mourned Gourmet Magazine's demise.
The name of her blog while living at home was Dine and Travel.
And now, she's off to New York for a graduate program in publishing at NYU...
and on my first night without her in the kitchen,
Cook's Illustrated calls?

I've grown accustomed to her face. She almost makes the day begin.

Maybe it's that the adrenaline has gone out of me.
There has, after all, been a long emotional build to this day.
It began when she moved home.
New York has always been the goal.

There was the GRE class.
The test.
The test again.
The essay (when, after I read it, knew without a doubt that she had publishing in her DNA)
The letters.
The application.
The acceptance in five days.

Along the way there was horseback riding on
George.
Cupcakes.
Brannigan's.
Yen Sushi.
Blue Windows - her favorite shop on 2nd Street.
Trader Joe's.
Getting our toes done.
There was Hobie.
And Lido.
Cooking classes at Prep.
The writing workshop at Stanford.
Editing.
Critiquing.
Twitter.
Facebook.
Apple computers.
DPL
Mary Hunt
Every Day Cheapskate
SEO
Tags
Friends
And Katy.

There was Obama.
Hillary.
The debates.
The election.
The inauguration.

Dinner together nearly every night.
Heated conversations.
Wine.
Cheese.
Berry Cobbler.
Pumpkin Muffins.
Lemon Chicken.
Garlic.
Ginger.
Green beans.
And tea.

And over those two and a half years...
something was happening.

My daughter and I
were becoming friends.

Her joys her woes
Her highs her lows
are second nature to me now.
Like breathing out and breathing in.

Maybe it's that my hormones are out of whack.
Crying when there is nothing logical to cry about.
Her every dream has come true. Our every dream has come true.
It's what she has worked for. It's what we have worked for.
It's why she came back to live with us after graduating from college.
Maybe it's because between Mother's passing and Gillian's return home
my life has been bookended by my mother and daughter.
Both Virgo's.
Maybe it's because I'm an Aquarian.

"We've launched her," Steve said.
Yes. We've launched her.
It was time.
She is not a child.
She is the age I was when she was born.
She is assured.
Accomplished.
Beautiful.
Ripe and Ready for the Big Apple.

And yet, I've grown accustomed to her voice
to something in the air.
Accustomed to her face.

The phone rings.
It's Gillian.