I told her, "The fall play this fall is Hamlet, in case you're interested.

I told her, "The fall play this fall is Hamlet, in case you're interested. I'm Yorick. We have a working fountain. If you want o come to opening night, it's twelve weeks from now. It should be pretty great." She said, "I'll try," and I could feel the reath of her words against my face. I asked her, "Could we kiss for a little bit?" Excuse me?" she said, although, on the other hand, she didn't pull her head back. "It's just that I like you, and I think I an tell that you like me." She said, "I don't think that's a good idea." Disappointment #4. I asked why not. She said, Because I'm forty-eight and you're twelve." "So?" "And I'm married." "So?" "And I don't even know you." "Don't you feel ike you know me?" She didn't say anything. I told her, "Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are." "And the more you wage war?" Then I was the silent one. She said, "You're a sweet, sweet boy." I said, "Young man." "But I don't think it's a good idea." "Does it have to be a good idea?" "I think it does." "Can I at least take a picture of you?" She said, "That would e nice." But when I started focusing Grandpa's camera, she put her hand in front of her face for some reason. I didn't ant to force her to explain herself, so I thought of a different picture I could take, which would be more truthful, nyway. "Here's my card," I told her, when the cap was back on the lens, "in case you remember anything about the key r just want to talk." *** I went over to Grandma's apartment when I got home, which is what I did basically every afternoon, because Mom orked at the firm on Saturdays and sometimes even Sundays, and she got panicky about me being alone. As I got near randma's building, I looked up and didn't see her sitting at her window waiting for me, like she always did. I asked Farley f she was there, and he said he thought so, so I went up the seventy-two stairs. rang the doorbell. She didn't answer, so I opened the door, because she always leaves it unlocked, even though I don't hink that's safe, because sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped. As I alked in, she was coming to the door. It looked almost like she had been crying, but I knew that was impossible, because nce she told me that she emptied herself of tears when Grandpa left. I told her fresh tears are produced every time you ry. She said, "Anyway." Sometimes I wondered if she cried when no one was looking. Oskar!" she said, and lifted me from the ground with one of her hugs. "I'm OK," I said. "Oskar!" she said again, picking me p in another hug. "I'm OK," I said again, and then I asked her where she'd been. "I was in the guest room talking to the enter." hen I was a baby, Grandma would take care of me during the day. Dad told me that she would give me baths in the sink, nd trim my fingernails and toenails with her teeth because she was afraid of using clippers. When I was old enough to ake baths in the bathtub, and to know I had a penis and a scrotum and everything, I asked her not to sit in the room with e. "Why not?" "Privacy." "Privacy from what? From me?" I didn't want to hurt her feelings, because not hurting her eelings is another of my raisons d'être. "Just privacy," I said. She put her hands on her stomach and said, "From me?" She agreed to wait outside, but only if I held a ball of yarn, which went under the bathroom door and was connected to he scarf she was knitting. Every few seconds she would give it a tug, and I had to tug back--undoing what she'd just one--so that she could know I was OK. She was taking care of me when I was four, chasing me around the apartment like she was a monster, and I cut my top lip against the end of our coffee table and had to go to the hospital. Grandma believes in God, but she doesn't believe in taxis, so I bled on my shirt on the bus. Dad told me it gave her incredibly heavy boots, even though my lip only needed a couple of stitches, and that she kept coming across the street to tell him, "It was all my fault. You should never let him be around me again." The next time I saw her after that, she told me, "You see, I was pretending to be a monster, and I became a monster." Grandma stayed at our apartment the week after Dad died, while Mom was going around Manhattan putting up posters. We had thousands of thumb wars, and I won every single one, even the ones I was trying to lose. We watched approved documentaries, and cooked vegan cupcakes, and went for lots of walks in the park. One day I wandered away from her and hid. I liked the way it felt to have someone look for me, to hear my name again and again. "Oskar! Oskar!" Maybe I didn't even like it, but I needed it right then. I followed her around from a safe distance as she started to get incredibly panicky. "Oskar!" She was crying and touching everything, but I wouldn't let her know where I was, because I was sure that the cracking up at the end would make it all OK. I watched her as she walked home, where I knew she would sit on the stoop of our building and wait for Mom to come back. She would have to tell her I had disappeared, and that because she wasn't watching me closely enough, I was gone forever and there would be no more Schells. I ran ahead, down Eighty-second Street and up Eighty-third, and when she came up to the building, I jumped out from behind the door. "But I didn't order a pizza!" I said, cracking up so hard I thought my neck would burst open. She started to say something, and then she stopped. Stan took her arm and said, "Why don't you sit down, Grandma." She told him, "Don't touch me," in a voice that I'd never heard from her. Then she turned around and went across the street to her apartment. That night, I looked through my binoculars at her window and there was a note that said, "Don't go away." Ever since that day, whenever we go on walks she makes us play a game like Marco Polo, where she calls my name and I have to call back to let her know that I'm OK. "Oskar." "I'm OK." "Oskar." "I'm OK." I'm never exactly sure when we're playing the game and when she's just saying my name, so I always let her know that I'm OK. A few months after Dad died, Mom and I went to the storage facility in New Jersey where Dad kept the stuff that he didn't use anymore but might use again one day, like when he retired, I guess. We rented a car, and it took us more than two hours to get there, even though it wasn't far away, because Mom kept stopping to go to the bathroom and wash her face. The facility wasn't organized very well, and it was extremely dark, so it took us a long time to find Dad's little room. We got in a fight about his razor, because she said it should go in the "throw it away" pile and I told her it should go in the "save it" pile. She said, "Save it for what?" I said, "It doesn't matter for what." She said, "I don't know why he saved a three-dollar razor in the first place." I said, "It doesn't matter why." She said, "We can't save everything." I said, "So it will be OK if I throw away all of your things and forget about you after you die?" As it was coming out of my mouth, I wished it was going into my mouth. She said she was sorry, which I thought was weird. One of the things we found were the old two-way radios from when I was a baby. Mom and Dad put one in the crib so they could hear me crying, and sometimes, instead of coming to the crib, Dad would just talk into it, which would help me get to sleep. I asked Mom why he kept those. She said, "Probably for when you have kids." "What the?" "That's what Dad was like." I started to realize that a lot of the stuff he'd saved--boxes and boxes of Legos, the set of How It Works books, even the empty photo albums--was probably for when I had kids. I don't know why, but for some reason that made me angry. Anyway, I put new batteries in the two-way radios, and I thought it would be a fun way for me and Grandma to talk. I gave her the baby one, so she wouldn't have to figure out any buttons, and it worked great. When I'd wake up I'd tell her ood morning. And before I'd go to bed we'd usually talk. She was always waiting for me on the other end. I don't know how she knew when I'd be there. Maybe she just waited around all day. "Grandma? Do you read me?" "Oskar?" "I'm OK. Over." "How