So, we went back out into the garden.
There’s a thing I have to tell you, she said. I think this is it. I pretty much think this is it.
What do you mean?
I want us to go back inside in a bit and I will sit down in my chair, and you can sit near me. Maybe make some tea. I think this may be, I think it may be it.
I started crying, but with no sound. I could see she didn’t like it, so I got myself together and stopped. It was like trying to swallow something enormous, something made out of air, and I couldn’t do it, but then I did.
I helped her back inside, and got her into the chair. She started telling me a bunch of things she was sorry about, and how she wished that she was younger, how she even wished we could be the same age, because we matched up so well, and how she was proud of me, so proud, it was like I was her daughter. I said, stop it. She said, I will, I will.
I held her hand, and after a while gave her the tea. She held the cup for a second and then I took it back and put it on the ground by the chair.
Why don’t you put on a record, she said. Something quiet. I said okay, I’ll put on a record. I’ll go do that.
I found a record. I put it on.
I came back across the room, and behind me the record was just starting, behind me there was hissing and hissing and as the first few notes came, scratched out of the dark plastic by the needle, I looked for her in the chair where her body was, but I saw that she wasn’t there.
The Wentworth building stands at the end of a big avenue. You can see it from a mile away. Matter of fact, it’s like the hand of a clock, because when the sun is shining on some parts of town, other parts get nothing because they are in its shadow.
I decided I was done with people. Even good ones—they can’t do much for you.
Lana and I pretended to be going to some office, and we got to the roof of the Wentworth building. The elevator doesn’t even go all the way. The last five floors are these majestic stairs. I guess it was a place for captains of industry or some other hateful types. This beautiful staircase comes to a huge double door that is cobwebbed and dirty. I kicked at it and Lana rammed it. Then we saw there was another door on the side. We kicked at that, and kicked at it. It opened and we got out onto the roof.
The sudden expanse was—surprising. The thing about distance is, it feels complete. Maybe it is the opposite of complete, but it feels so finished in its endlessness.
We walked out toward the edge.
Wait.
I’m not afraid, I said.
Afraid of what? Wait up.
I walked right to it, as if I were walking on a sidewalk. I mean, my toes were hanging over. My body swayed forward, then back, then forward. I looked down, and I felt nothing.
Asshole, get back here.
No, you come over here.
I sat down with my legs hanging off. The roof was warm, real warm, and I could feel the warmth all through my legs. The breeze was stiff and cool, and it came now and then.
Lana crept to the edge and sat next to me.
You asshole.
We looked down over the town.
It is so hard, she said, to take it seriously. Matter of fact, I refuse to. Long as I live, I won’t take anything seriously. What do you say?
I said I would agree, for me and for my aunt, too.
Lana was quiet for a while.
She’s dead, isn’t she?
Yeah. How’d you know?
Your eyes are swollen. Was it yesterday?
Yeah.
Crazy old bat. I don’t want to live that long.
Me neither.
I want to die in the afternoon—when it’s just stopped raining and no one’s around.
How would you do it?
I would walk out into the middle of a public park, some beautifully trimmed lawn. People would be starting to leave their houses. From every direction they’d be coming toward me, but they wouldn’t be there yet. Because by the time they got there, they would find that I was dead. No matter when they did come, I would just be a corpse in a park.
…
We sat for a while.
What would you do? she asked me.
I think I would go to the top of a building with a friend, and then I would leap off, jump all the way to the ground and be crushed against it. The ground isn’t dangerous. It’s just the ground, but somehow when I touched it, I would be crushed against it. No matter how delicately I reached out my hands, my feet, I would be crushed flat.
Shut the fuck up. Do it then.
Oh, we laughed and laughed, Lana and me.
Everyone should just crush themselves to death.
Yeah, everyone should do that. Why not?
I can’t think of a reason.
Wait, wait. No. No, I can’t either.
Let’s throw something off.
Like what?
To sum up, let me tell you: I’m not one of those nihilistic types who thinks there is no meaning. I guess, I don’t think there’s meaning; there’s definitely no meaning, but not in a nihilistic way. I don’t find it exciting the way they do. I think you could as well be a bug or a sparrow or part of an antler, or the back of someone’s pocketknife.
There’s a story someone told me, a friend of my aunt’s who came to the funeral. She said, your aunt was at the soup kitchen and a guy came in and he wanted a bowl of soup, but there wasn’t any soup. We call it a soup kitchen, but more often there are sandwiches, or burritos or whatever. Soup is kind of messy. But he wants some soup. So, my aunt gets him a sandwich and she sticks it in his bowl and hands it to him with a spoon and she says, soup for one. Apparently all the people at the shelter liked this a lot. They would always say, soup for one. Soup for one. One guy even tattooed it on his leg. Can you imagine? That you can say something, offhand, and it can matter, it can really matter to someone else? Can you imagine what it’s like to hear something like that? To hear someone say something and feel the world ripple around you?
LETTER
Well, I got back to my aunt’s place, and I stood there looking around. It felt pretty bad, I have to say, being in a place like that. I stuck most of my things in an army bag and put it by the door. That made me feel a little better. Then I noticed an envelope that was on the kitchen table. Somehow I hadn’t seen it.
—LUCIA—
It was addressed to me—a letter from my aunt. She must have left it out the day before. She was probably waiting for me to find it. That’s the kind of thing she would do—and did, all the time.
I opened it. There were two letters inside. One was from Hausmann. It was an acceptance letter.
I sank into the chair. Then I realized I was sitting in the chair where my aunt died and I started to stand up. But, I decided, why not. I might as well huddle there with her death, so I curled up and looked at the other letter.