She had chocolate puffed wheat balls this time. Clayton had loved them. She was older than most parents of kids my age. Even her husband had died, or been called home, and her other children lived in Bolivia and Akron, Pennsylvania. I changed a light bulb for her and cut her bangs after she wet them in the kitchen sink. She had all-white appliances in her kitchen because she said that coloured stoves and fridges were pre-sins, like pre-cancerous cells. Same with touch-tone telephones and soft-top cars.
I can’t believe he’d be graduating from high school already, she said. What will you do afterwards, she asked me.
I moved her wet hair to one side like Clayton’s. I don’t know, I said. (I did know. Hello, abattoir!)
No, I don’t imagine he’d have known either, she said.
Was he like that, I asked.
In some ways, she said. But not in others. I nodded. She told me she liked her hair to be asymmetrical.
That’s a good choice, I said. That’s my signature cut.
Clayton would have liked this too, she said. She was pointing at a thin piece of leather I’d tied around my wrist.
Yeah? I said.
She said yes, he would have. Very much.
When I was done cutting she got up and looked at herself in the toaster. Perfect, she said. Thank you.
She got a broom out of the pantry and started sweeping up the bits of feathery white hair.
What do you do these days, she asked me.
I didn’t want to tell her the truth. I didn’t want her to imagine Clayton doing what I did. Well, I said. I walk around a lot.
Do you enjoy it, she asked me.
Sometimes, I said.
Clayton liked to run, she said. She told me how he’d been running down the sidewalk one day and had tripped on his new shoes which she’d bought a couple of sizes too big, for the savings. He had a hole in his head the size of an Aspirin, she said. At the hospital he’d been so brave. When they asked him his name he’d said: My name is Clayton. Clayton Peters. The real Batman.
What did they say when he said that, I asked.
They said next time he was in such a hurry he should take the…what did they call it?
The Batmobile, I said.
That’s right, she said. The Batmobile.
Did he get stitches, I asked.
Yes, she said, right here. She touched her temple.
How many, I asked. She loved to answer questions about Clayton.
Was it three or four, she wondered. Three, I think, she said. I lifted my shoulders and held them for a few seconds near my ears before letting them drop.
She said something in the odd unwritten language of our people, a language that is said to sound vaguely Yiddish.
Can you translate that, I asked.
She thought. Then she said: I don’t know. I just don’t know. To the point of knowing I will never not know as much about something as what I don’t know about him.
She smiled. I can’t wait to see him in heaven, she said.
I said yeah and looked at my feet. Will he recognize you, I asked.
Of course he will, Nomi, he’s my son.
But I mean you’ll have aged, right, I asked.
Oh no, she said, I’ll be young again.
But I mean, how young, I asked. Young like when you had Clayton? Or young like…
Don’t worry, she said, we’ll recognize each other. God will make sure of that.
Who would you say hi to first, your husband or your son, I asked.
Oh, now that’s a good question, she said.
What if you had remarried, I asked her. And that husband had died too, and then when you got to heaven there would be your son, your first husband and your second husband. That could be awkward, eh? Like, who would you live with?
Hmmmm, she said. My son, I think.
But I mean which husband, I asked. First or second? Or both?
Not both, she said. I’m not sure. God will know. He’ll have a plan.
But, I said, what if…
How’s your dad, she asked. People asked me that a lot.
Great, I said, smiling back at her. He wasn’t great, he was on life support, but she didn’t want to hear that. She wanted to listen to the funeral announcements on the radio, so I left.
Goodbye, I wanted to say to her, I may not be back for a while. But that sounded ridiculous. I was pathetic. I couldn’t even follow through with my plan to say goodbye to people in the manner of a person going away for a long time. Maybe my heart wasn’t in it or maybe I was just a bad actor.
I decided to visit Lids in the hospital. I wouldn’t say goodbye to her.
When I got there she was lying on her tall bed with her eyes closed and a surgical mask tied around her face. She must have smelled fumes or something. Maybe from a car in the parking lot or somebody doing some painting two hundred miles away. There was a pile of papers on her stomach.
Hi there, I whispered. She opened her eyes and smiled and said come in.
What is this, I asked her, pointing at the papers.
Mr. Quiring brought them so I wouldn’t fall behind, she whispered. She pointed at her throat.
Can’t talk? I asked. She nodded.
Do you want these on your stomach? She shook her head and whispered that she couldn’t lift them.
The nurse just plunked them on your stomach? I asked. I picked them up and put them in the drawer of her bedside table.
Thank you for your poem the other day, I said. I wish you could come out and play.
Soon, she whispered.
Yeah, I said.
She pointed to a small piece of paper on the bedside table. I wrote another poem for you, she said. I picked it up and read the title: “C’mon, Get Normal.” I said thanks and told her I’d read it later when I was feeling odd.
She opened her eyes wide and looked at me. That meant I was supposed to talk about my life. I told her about some things, seeing Gloria, finding out that she was engaged to Marvin Fast. When I said Marvin Fast, Lids put her hand over her mouth and I said I know and started to laugh. The nurse came in and said she’d heard laughing. Maybe Lydia wasn’t as sick as she thought?
No, I said, that was me laughing.
Well, she said, I guess there’s something really funny going on in here. I told the nurse I had found a place for Lydia’s papers besides her stomach.
Oh, said the nurse. I thought she’d have been able to do that herself.
Well, I guess it’s not a good idea to make assumptions, I said.
Well, said the nurse, if you had twelve patients to take care of maybe you wouldn’t be quite as sure of yourself.
I’m not sure of myself, I said.
You sound very sure of yourself, said the nurse. She was fiddling around with things near Lids’s bed. It was the biggest sin in our town to be sure of yourself.
Lydia, said the nurse in a loud snippy voice, you didn’t eat your lunch. Lydia didn’t move a muscle or open her eyes. Lydia! said the nurse.
She needs it to be softer, I said, or it hurts to chew. She needs everything cooked an extra couple of minutes.
Oh really, said the nurse. Lydia needs a lot of things, doesn’t she?
Yes, I said, she does. The second biggest sin in town was to need a lot of things.
Isn’t that what a hosp—…I started but the nurse announced that both Lydia and I needed to have our wings clipped.
What? I get so mad. I go fucking insane sometimes with people like her. You know what? I said to the nurse. I don’t…