Page 564 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
would visit us frequently, play bridge with us, and engage not just with Peter and Rachel but with Dan and Dave as well. And we would visit them frequently, sometimes with Peter and Rachel (and with Danny when he was in town), and would dine with them in their local Chinese restaurant. They would also drive to Scarsdale to eat with Peter and Rachel in the middle of the week, sometimes in Friendly’s, sometimes in Seven Woks.
We didn’t notice it at first, but those patterns started slowly to change, and they found driving much more difficult. My father was clearly show- ing his age, and he was losing his clarity. During the years prior to 1998, he was hospitalized twice and suffered a number of minor strokes; my mother would call in the middle of the night if she feared that something was wrong. Many of the calls were baseless; some were not. All were frightening. We hired aides for them, but none of them lasted.
I was at my office in New York City but away from my phone when Kathy received the most frightening of calls as she arrived at her office. It was from a New York State trooper. He had been unable to reach me. He told Kathy that there had been a fire but gave few other details. She at first thought that he was referring to a fire at 16 Church Lane South, but he wasn’t. He was calling to say that there had been a fire in my par- ents’ unit. Kathy was very upset and was later cloudy on the details. He calmed her down somewhat and gave her the impression that things were under control. She told him that she would reach me and that I would call him. It turned out that the report was only partially true. Kathy called Peter Nadel, who located me, and I then called the trooper. He confirmed that there had been a fire and then told me that my father had been taken by helicopter to Westchester Medical Center’s burn unit and that my mother had gone by ambulance to Northern Westchester Hospital, as she had minor burns and her condition was much less seri- ous. I called Kathy, we met at Grand Central, and, somewhat in shock, we traveled home and got into separate cars. I went directly to West- chester Medical Center, and Kathy drove alone to see my mother.
The story—and I think that I got it from the trooper—is that my father had awakened before my mother and had started the stove in
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