1 1 6 Y N I G H T S K A R E N S A T R A N Annie Goldner, though only thirty-five and in good health, felt death upon her and got up in the middle of an October night, while her husband slept on his half of their king-sized bed, to write her last will and testament. The moon shone in through the far window of the living room as she wrote by the light of a dim lamp, which sat on the cheap pine desk given her by the first roommate she’d had in New York after college – the one who left with an odd boyfriend for Wisconsin to start anew. Annie wrote in a small lined notebook and felt pleasure at the way the paper took the ink. ‘‘I, Anne Goldner, née Coburn, being of sound mind . . .’’ Their beige cat, curled into a corner of the couch, began to stretch as Annie wrote, awakened only for a moment by the changing shape of shadows on the furniture. The sound of a squirrel hurling himself from roof to tree interested Annie but did not stop her pen. ‘‘. . . the following items to be dispersed after my death as directed by Franklin Goldner, my beloved husband.’’ ‘‘What’s going on here?’’ asked Franklin. He stood dazed in the 1 1 7 R arch of the doorway, toes flexed. He had been awake for perhaps two minutes but was already deep into irritability. ‘‘I woke up waiting for Alec to wake up, but he didn’t,’’ said Annie normally, as if it were bright noon in summer. Alec had wakened several times a night for most nights of his nearly three years, as had his brother, Richie, now six, before him. ‘‘A little mystery of the DNA,’’ their pediatrician, who had small children, said, yawning. Richie had slept through the night at two years nine months, but Alec’s waking up was still going strong. ‘‘Do you have a fever?’’ Franklin asked, and placed the palm of his hand on his own forehead and swayed a bit as he looked at his wife. ‘‘Nope,’’ said Annie. She turned o√ the desk lamp and in the dark put the notebook into the pocket of her nightshirt. They checked Richie on their way back to bed. He was wrapped so tightly into his down quilt that his neck was sweaty and so was his chest, when Franklin carefully felt him. Annie tried to loosen the quilt but Richie said, quite loudly, with his eyes closed, ‘‘No.’’ ‘‘You’re too hot, Rich,’’ said Annie. ‘‘Don’t care,’’ he answered, and clutched the quilt closer. ‘‘Go away.’’ In the room opposite, Alec was asleep on his back, his arms and legs forming an X. The blue light from his clock radio, which displayed the wrong time, illuminated him, making his curly hair seem painted on, his face extraterrestrial. ‘‘How can he sleep in blue light?’’ Annie whispered as Franklin bent to give him a kiss but thought better of it. Sometimes Alec woke when a key turned in the front-door lock downstairs. Kissing him at night was taking a terrible chance, Franklin always said, like kissing a hand grenade. If he woke, he would be up and about for hours. In bed, Franklin fell asleep immediately, a skill he’d learned during his internship in psychiatry at Bellevue. The night had not lightened but seemed to be less densely black. The cucumber magnolia outside their bedroom window was almost leafless. The birds were gone. What should she make for dinner? It might be too soon to have macaroni and cheese again. But it was something everyone would eat. She pulled her hand out of Franklin’s by 1 1 8 S A T R A N Y inches. She sat up slowly and eased the notebook from the nightshirt ’s pocket, then put it in the middle drawer of her night table, on top of her round plastic case of birth control pills and roommother ’s class list for the first grade. She could hear Alec turning in his bed and though he’d mumbled...