Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close Part 12

Planes going into buildings.

Planes going into buildings.

Planes going into buildings.

When I no longer had to be strong in front of you, I became very weak. I brought myself to the ground, which was where I belonged. I hit the floor with my fists. I wanted to break my hands, but when it hurt too much, I stopped. I was too selfish to break my hands for my only child.

Bodies falling.

Staples and tape.

I didn't feel empty. I wished I'd felt empty.

People waving shirts out of high windows.

I wanted to be empty like an overturned pitcher. But I was full like a stone.

Planes going into buildings.

I had to go to the bathroom. I didn't want to get up. I wanted to lie in my own waste, which is what I deserved. I wanted to be a pig in my own filth. But I got up and went to the bathroom. That's who I am.

Bodies falling.

Buildings falling.

The rings of the tree that fell away from our house.

I wanted so much for it to be me under the rubble. Even for a minute.

A second. It was as simple as wanting to take his place. And it was more complicated than that.

The television was the only light.

Planes going into buildings.

Planes going into buildings.

I thought it would feel different. But even then I was me.

Oskar, I'm remembering you onstage in front of all of those strangers.

I wanted to say to them, He's mine. I wanted to stand up and shout, That beautiful person is mine! Mine!

When I was watching you, I was so proud and so sad.

Alas. His lips. Your songs.

When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.

Alas. Your songs.

My parents' lives made sense.

My grandparents'.

Even Anna's life.

But I knew the truth, and that's why I was so sad.

Every moment before this one depends on this one.

Everything in the history of the world can be proven wrong in one moment.

Your mother wanted to have a funeral, even though there was no body. What could anyone say?

We all rode in the limousine together. I could not stop touching you. I could not touch you enough. I needed more hands. You made jokes with the driver, but I could see that inside you were suffering. Making him laugh was how you suffered. When we got to the grave and they lowered the empty coffin, you let out a noise like an animal. I had never heard anything like it. You were a wounded animal. The noise is still in my ears. It was what I had spent forty years looking for, what I wanted my life and life story to be. Your mother took you to the side and held you. They shoveled dirt into your father's grave.

Onto my son's empty coffin. There was nothing there.

All of my sounds were lock inside me.

The limousine took us home.

Everyone was silent.

When we got to my building, you walked me to the front door.

The doorman said there was a letter for me.

I told him I'd look at it tomorrow or the next day.

The doorman said the person had just dropped it off.

I said, Tomorrow.

The doorman said, He seemed desperate.

I asked you to read it for me. I said, My eyes are crummy.

You opened it.

I'm sorry, you said.

Why are you sorry?

No, that's what it says.

I took it from you and looked at it.

When your grandfather left me forty years ago, I erased all of his writing. I washed the words from the mirrors and the floors. I painted over the walls. I cleaned the shower curtains. I even refinished the floors. It took me as long as I had known him to get rid of all of his words. Like turning an hourgla.s.s over.

I thought he had to look for what he was looking for, and realize it no longer existed, or never existed. I thought he would write. Or send money. Or ask for pictures of the baby, if not me.

For forty years not a word.

Only empty envelopes.

And then, on the day of my son's funeral, two words.

I'm sorry.

He had come back.

ALIVE AND ALONE.

We had been searching together for six and a half months when Mr. Black told me he was finished, and then I was all alone again, and I hadn't accomplished anything, and my boots were the heaviest they'd ever been in my life. I couldn't talk to Mom, obviously, and even though Toothpaste and The Minch were my best friends, I couldn't talk to them either. Grandpa could talk to animals, but I couldn't, so Buckmin-ster wasn't going to be helpful. I didn't respect Dr. Fein, and it would have taken too long to explain to Stan everything that needed to be explained just to get to the beginning of the story, and I didn't believe in talking to dead people.

Farley didn't know if Grandma was home, because his shift had just started. He asked if something was wrong. I told him, "I need her." "You want I should buzz up?" "It's OK." As I ran up the seventy-two stairs, I thought, And anyway, he was an incredibly old guy who slowed me down and didn't know anything useful. And anyway, he was an incredibly old guy who slowed me down and didn't know anything useful. I was breathing hard when I rang her bell. I was breathing hard when I rang her bell. I'm glad he said he was finished. I don't know why I invited him to come along with me in the first place. I'm glad he said he was finished. I don't know why I invited him to come along with me in the first place. She didn't answer, so I rang again. She didn't answer, so I rang again. Why isn't she waiting by the door? I'm the only thing that matters to her. Why isn't she waiting by the door? I'm the only thing that matters to her.

I let myself in.

"Grandma? h.e.l.lo? Grandma?"

I figured maybe she went to the store or something, so I sat on the sofa and waited. Maybe she went to the park for a walk to help her digest, which I know she sometimes did, even though it made me feel weird. Or maybe she was getting some dehydrated ice cream for me, or dropping something off at the post office. But who would she send letters to?

Even though I didn't want to, I started inventing.

She'd been hit by a cab while she was crossing Broadway, and the cab zoomed away, and everybody looked at her from the sidewalk, but no one helped her, because everyone was afraid to do CPR the wrong way.

She'd fallen from a ladder at the library and cracked her skull. She was bleeding to death there because it was in a section of books that no one ever looked at.

She was unconscious at the bottom of the swimming pool at the Y. Kids were swimming thirteen feet above her.

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.

She'd had a heart attack.

Someone had pushed her onto the tracks.

She'd been raped and murdered.

I started looking around her apartment for her.

"Grandma?"

What I needed to hear was "I'm OK," but what I heard was nothing.

I looked in the dining room and the kitchen. I opened the door to the pantry, just in case, but there was only food. I looked in the coat closet and the bathroom. I opened the door of the second bedroom, where Dad used to sleep and dream when he was my age.

It was my first time being in Grandma's apartment without her, and it felt incredibly weird, like looking at her clothes without her in them, which I did when I went to her bedroom and looked in her closet. I opened the top drawer of the dresser, even though I knew she wouldn't be in there, obviously. So why did I do it?

It was filled with envelopes. Hundreds of them. They were tied together in bundles. I opened the next drawer down, and it was also filled with envelopes. So was the drawer underneath it. All of them were.

I saw from the postmarks that the envelopes were organized chronologically, which means by date, and mailed from Dresden, Germany, which is where she came from. There was one for every day, from May 31, 1963, to the worst day. Some were addressed "To my unborn child." Some were addressed "To my child."

What the?

I knew I probably shouldn't have, because they didn't belong to me, but I opened one of them.

It was sent on February 6, 1972. "To my child." It was empty.

I opened another, from another stack. November 22, 1986. "To my child." Also empty.

June 14, 1963. "To my unborn child." Empty.

April 2, 1979. Empty.

I found the day I was born. Empty.

What I needed to know was, where did she put all of the letters?

I heard a sound from one of the other rooms. I quickly closed the drawers, so Grandma wouldn't know I had been snooping around, and tiptoed to the front door, because I was afraid that maybe what I had heard was a burglar. I heard the sound again, and this time I could tell that it was coming from the guest room.

I thought, The renter! The renter!

I thought, He's real! He's real!

I'd never loved Grandma more than I loved her right then.

I turned around, tiptoed to the guest room door, and pressed my ear against it. I didn't hear anything. But when I got down on my knees, I saw that the light in the room was on. I stood up.

"Grandma?" I whispered. "Are you in there?"

Nothing.

"Grandma?"

I heard an extremely tiny sound. I got down on my knees again, and this time I saw that the light was off.

"Is someone in there? I'm eight years old and I'm looking for my grandma because I need her desperately."

Footsteps came to the door, but I could only barely hear them because they were extremely gentle and because of the carpet. The footsteps stopped. I could hear breathing, but I knew it wasn't Grandma's, because it was heavier and slower. Something touched the door. A hand? Two hands?

"h.e.l.lo?"

The doork.n.o.b turned.