No. I shook his hand... "And then I came straight here,

No. I shook his hand... "And then I came straight here, and now I don't know what to do." As I had been telling the renter the story, he kept nodding his head and looking at my face. He stared at me so hard that I wondered if he wasn't listening to me at all, or if he was trying to hear something incredibly quiet underneath what I was saying, sort of like a metal detector, but for truth instead of metal. I told him, "I've been searching for more than six months, and I don't know a single thing that I didn't know six months ago. And actually I have negative knowledge, because I skipped all of those French classes with Marcel. Also I've had to tell a googolplex lies, which doesn't make me feel good about myself, and I've bothered a lot of people who I've probably ruined my chances of ever being real friends with, and I miss my dad more now than when I started, even though the whole point was to stop missing him." I told him, "It's starting to hurt too much." e wrote, "What is?" hen I did something that surprised even me. I said, "Hold on," and I ran down the 72 stairs, across the street, right past tan, even though he was saying "You've got mail!" and up the 105 stairs. The apartment was empty. I wanted to hear eautiful music. I wanted Dad's whistling, and the scratching sound of his red pen, and the pendulum swinging in his loset, and him tying his shoelaces. I went to my room and got the phone. I ran back down the 105 stairs, past Stan, who as still saying "You've got mail!," back up the 72 stairs, and into Grandma's apartment. I went to the guest room. The enter was standing in exactly the same position, like I'd never left, or never been there at all. I took the phone out of the carf that Grandma was never able to finish, plugged it in, and played those first five messages for him. He didn't show nything on his face. He just looked at me. Not even at me, but into me, like his detector sensed some enormous truth eep inside me. No one else has ever heard that," I said. What about your mother?" he wrote. Especially not her." e crossed his arms and held his hands in his armpits, which for him was like putting his hands over his mouth. I said, Not even Grandma," and his hands started shaking, like birds trapped under a tablecloth. Finally he let them go. He rote, "Maybe he saw what happened and ran in to save somebody." "He would have. That's what he was like." "He was good person?" "He was the best person. But he was in the building for a meeting. And also he said he went up to the oof, so he must have been above where the plane hit, which means he didn't run in to save anyone." "Maybe he just said e was going to the roof." "Why would he do that?" What kind of meeting was it?" "He runs the family jewelry business. He has meetings all the time." "The family jewelry usiness?" "My grandpa started it." "Who's your grandpa?" "I don't know. He left my grandma before I was born. She ays he could talk to animals and make a sculpture that was more real than the real thing." "What do you think?" "I don't hink anyone can talk to animals. Except to dolphins, maybe. Or sign language to chimps." "What do you think about your grandpa?" "I don't think about him." He pressed Play and listened to the messages again, and again I pressed Stop after the fifth was finished. He wrote, "He sounds calm in the last message." I told him, "I read something in National Geographic about how, when n animal thinks it's going to die, it gets panicky and starts to act crazy. But when it knows it's going to die, it gets very, very calm." "Maybe he didn't want you to worry." Maybe. Maybe he didn't say he loved me because he loved me. But that wasn't a good enough explanation. I said, "I need to know how he died." He flipped back and pointed at, "Why?" "So I can stop inventing how he died. I'm always inventing." He flipped back and pointed at, "I'm sorry." "I found a bunch of videos on the Internet of bodies falling. They were on a Portuguese site, where there was all sorts of stuff they weren't showing here, even though it happened here. Whenever I want to try to learn about how Dad died, I have to go to a translator program and find out how to say things in different languages, like 'September,' which is 'Wrzesie?,' or 'people jumping from burning buildings,' which is 'Menschen, die aus brennenden Gebäuden springen.' Then I Google those words. It makes me incredibly angry that people all over the world can know things that I can't, because it happened here, and happened to me, so shouldn't it be mine? "I printed out the frames from the Portuguese videos and examined them extremely closely. There's one body that could e him. It's dressed like he was, and when I magnify it until the pixels are so big that it stops looking like a person, sometimes I can see glasses. Or I think I can. But I know I probably can't. It's just me wanting it to be him." "You want him to have jumped?" "I want to stop inventing. If I could know how he died, exactly how he died, I wouldn't have to invent him dying inside an elevator that was stuck between floors, which happened to some people, and I wouldn't have to imagine him trying to crawl down the outside of the building, which I saw a video of one person doing on a Polish site, or trying to use a ablecloth as a parachute, like some of the people who were in Windows on the World actually did. There were so many different ways to die, and I just need to know which was his." He held out his hands like he wanted me to take them. "Are those tattoos?" He closed his right hand. I flipped back and pointed at "Why?" He took back his hands and wrote, "It's made things easier. Instead of writing yes and no all the time, I can show my hands." "But why just YES and NO?" "I only have two hands." "What about 'I'll think about it,' and 'probably,' and 'it's possible'?" He closed his eyes and concentrated for a few seconds. Then he shrugged his shoulders, just like Dad used to. "Have you always been silent?" He opened his right hand. "Then why don't you talk?" He wrote, "I can't." "Why not?" He pointed at, "I can't." "Are your vocal cords broken or something?" "Something is broken." "When was the last time you talked?" "A long, long time ago." "What was the last word you said?" He flipped back and pointed at "I." "I was the last ord you said?" He opened his left hand. "Does that even count as a word?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Do you try to alk?" "I know what will happen." "What?" He flipped back and pointed at, "I can't." Try." "Now?" "Try to say something." He shrugged his shoulders. I said, "Please." e opened his mouth and put his fingers on his throat. They fluttered, like Mr. Black's fingers looking for a one-word iography, but no sound came out, not even an ugly sound, or breath. I asked him, "What were you trying to say?" He flipped back and pointed at, "I'm sorry." I said, "It's OK." I said, "Maybe your vocal cords actually are broken. You should go to a specialist." I asked him, "What were you trying to say?" He pointed at, "I'm sorry." I asked, "Can I take a picture of your hands?" He put his hands on his lap, face-up, like a book. YES and NO. I focused Grandpa's camera. He kept his hands extremely still. I took the picture. I told him, "I'm going to go home now." He picked up his book and wrote, "What about your grandma?" "Tell her I'll talk to her tomorrow." As I was halfway across the street, I heard clapping behind me, almost like the birds' wings outside Mr. Black's window. I turned around and the renter was standing at the building's door. He put his hand on his throat and opened his mouth, like he was trying to speak again. I called back to him, "What are you trying to say?" He wrote something in his book and held it up, but I couldn't see it, so I ran back over. It said, "Please don't tell your grandmother that we met." I told him, "I won't if you won't," and I didn't even wonder the obvious thing, which was why would he want to keep it a secret? He wrote, "If you ever need me for anything, just throw pebbles at the guest room window. I'll come down and meet you under the streetlamp." I said, "Thanks." Although inside what I was thinking was, Why would I ever need you? All I wanted was to fall asleep that night, but all I could do was invent. What about frozen planes, which could be safe from heat-seeking missiles? What about subway turnstiles that were also radiation detectors? What about incredibly long ambulances that connected every building to a hospital? What about parachutes in fanny packs? What about guns with sensors in the handles that could detect if you were angry, and if you were, they wouldn't fire, even if you were a police officer? What about Kevlar overalls? What about skyscrapers made with moving parts, so they could rearrange themselves when they had to, and even open holes in their middles for planes to fly through? What about... What about... What about... And then a thought came into my brain that wasn't like the other thoughts. It was closer to me, and louder. I didn't know where it came from, or what it meant, or if I loved it or hated it. It opened up like a fist, or a flower. What about digging up Dad's empty coffin?