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 good 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 did you sleep, darling? Over.” “What? I couldn’t hear that. Over.” “I asked how did you sleep. Over.” “Fine,” I’ll say, looking at her across the street, my chin in my palm, “no bad dreams. Over.” “One hundred dollars. Over.” We never have all that much to say to each other. She tells me the same stories about Grandpa again and again, like how his hands were rough from making so many sculptures, and how he could talk to animals. “You’ll come visit me this afternoon? Over?” “Yeah. I think so. Over.” “Please try. Over.” “I’ll try. Over and out.”
Some nights I took the two-way radio into bed with me and rested it on the side of the pillow that Buckminster wasn’t on so I could hear what was going on in her bedroom. Sometimes she would wake me up in the middle of the night. It gave me heavy boots that she had nightmares, because I didn’t know what she was dreaming about and there was nothing I could do to help her. She hollered, which woke me up, obviously, so my sleep depended on her sleep, and when I told her, “No bad dreams,” I was talking about her.
Grandma knitted me white sweaters, white mittens, and white hats. She knew how much I liked dehydrated ice cream, which was one of my very few exceptions to veganism, because it’s what astronauts have for dessert, and she went to the Hayden Planetarium and bought it for me. She picked up pretty rocks to give to me, even though she shouldn’t have been carrying heavy things, and usually they were just Manhattan schist, anyway. A couple of days after the worst day, when I was on my way to my first appointment with Dr. Fein, I saw Grandma carrying a huge rock across Broadway. It was as big as a baby and must have weighed a ton. But she never gave that one to me, and she never mentioned it.
“Oskar.”
“I’m OK.”
One afternoon, I mentioned to Grandma that I was considering starting a stamp collection, and the next afternoon she had three albums for me and— “because I love you so much it hurts me, and because I want your wonderful collection to have a wonderful beginning” —a sheet of stamps of Great American Inventors.
“You’ve got Thomas Edison,” she said, pointing at one of the stamps, “and Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington Carver, Nikola Tesla, whoever that is, the Wright Brothers, J. Robert Oppenheimer—” “Who’s he?” “He invented the bomb.” “Which bomb?” “The bomb.” “He wasn’t a Great Inventor!” She said, “Great, not good.”
“Grandma?” “Yes, darling?” “It’s just that where’s the plate block?” “The what?” “The thing on the side of the sheet with the numbers.” “With the numbers?” “Yeah.” “I got rid of it.” “You what?” “I got rid of it. Was that wrong?” I felt myself starting to spaz, even though I was trying not to. “Well, it’s not worth anything without the plate block!” “What?” “The plate block! These stamps. Aren’t. Valuable!” She looked at me for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess I heard of that. So I’ll go back to the stamp shop tomorrow and get another sheet. These we can use for the mail.” “There’s no reason to get another,” I told her, wanting to take back the last few things I said and try them again, being nicer this time, being a better grandson, or just a silent one. “There is a reason, Oskar.” “I’m OK.”
We spent so much time together. I don’t think there’s anyone that I spent more time with, at least not since Dad died, unless you count Buckminster. But there were a lot of people that I knew better. For example, I didn’t know anything about what it was like when she was a kid, or how she met Grandpa, or what their marriage was like, or why he left. If I had to write her life story, all I could say is that her husband could talk to animals, and that I should never love anything as much as she loved me. So here’s my question: What were we spending so much time doing if not getting to know each other?
“Did you do anything special today?” she asked that afternoon I started my search for the lock. When I think about everything that happened, from when we buried the coffin to when I dug it up, I always think about how I could
have told her the truth then. It wasn’t too late to turn around, before I got to the place I couldn’t come back from. Even if she wouldn’t have understood me, I would have been able to say it. “Yeah,” I said. “I put the finishing touches on those scratch-and-sniff earrings for the craft fair. Also I mounted the eastern tiger swallowtail that Stan found dead on the stoop. And I worked on a bunch of letters, because I’d gotten behind on those.” “Who are you writing letters to? she asked, and it still wasn’t too late. “Kofi Annan, Siegfried, Roy, Jacques Chirac, E. O. Wilson, Weird Al Yankovic, Bill Gates, Vladimir Putin, and some other people.” She asked, “Why don’t you write a letter to someone you know?” I started to tell her, “I don’t know anyone,” but then I heard something. Or I thought I heard something. There was noise in the apartment, like someone walking around. “What is that?” I asked. “My ears aren’t a hundred dollars,” she said. “But there’s someone in the apartment. Maybe it’s the renter?” “No,” she said, “he went off to a museum earlier.” “What museum?” “I don’t know what museum. He said he wouldn’t be back until late tonight.” “But I can hear someone.” “No you can’t,” she said. I said, “I’m ninety-nine percent sure I can.” She said, “Maybe it’s just your imagination.” I was in the place that I couldn’t come back from.
Thank you for your letter. Because of the large
volume of mail I receive, I am unable to write
personal responses. Nevertheless, know that I
read and save every letter, with the hope of one
day being able to give each the proper response it
deserves. Until that day,
Most sincerely,
Stephen Hawking
I stayed up pretty late designing jewelry that night. I designed a Nature Hike Anklet, which leaves a trail of bright yellow dye when you walk, so in case you get lost, you can find your way back. I also designed a set of wedding rings, where each one takes the pulse of the person wearing it and sends a signal to the other ring to flash red with each heartbeat. Also I designed a pretty fascinating bracelet, where you put a rubber band around your favorite book of poems for a year, and then you take it off and wear it.
I don’t know why, but as I was working, I couldn’t stop thinking about that day Mom and I went to the storage facility in New Jersey. I kept going back to it, like a salmon, which I know about. Mom must have stopped to wash her face ten times. It was so quiet and so dark, and we were the only people there. What drinks were in the Coke machine? What fonts were the signs in? I went through the boxes in my brain. I took out a neat old film projector. What was the last film Dad made? Was I in it? I went through a bunch of the toothbrushes they give you at the dentist, and three baseballs that Dad had caught at games, which he wrote the dates on. What were the dates? My brain opened a box with old atlases (where there were two Germanys and one Yugoslavia) and souvenirs from business trips, like Russian dolls with dolls inside them with dolls inside them with dolls inside them… Which of those things had Dad kept for when I had kids?
It was 2: 36 A.M. I went to Mom’s room. She was sleeping, obviously. I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes. I could tell that Mom was dreaming, but I didn’t want to know what she was dreaming about, because I had enough of my own nightmares, and if she had been dreaming something happy, I would have been angry at her for dreaming something happy. I touched her incredibly gently. She jumped up and said, “What is it?” I said, “It’s OK.” She grabbed my shoulders and said, “What is it?” The way she was holding me hurt my arms, but I didn’t show anything. “Remember when we went to the storage facility in New Jersey?” She let go of me and lay back down. “What?” “Where Dad’s stuff is. Remember?” “It’s the middle of the night, Oskar.” “What was it called?” “Oskar” “It’s just that what was the name of the place?” She reached for her glasses on the bedside table, and I would have given all of my collections, and all of the jewelry I’d ever made, and all future birthday and Christmas presents just to hear her say “Black Storage.” Or “Blackwell Storage.” Or “Blackman.” Or even “Midnight Storage.” Or “Dark Storage.” Or “Rainbow.”
She made a weird face, like someone was hurting her, and said, “Store-a-Lot.”
I’d lost count of the disappointments.
Why I’m Not Where You Are 5/21/63
Your mother and I never talk about the past, that’s a rule. I go to the door when she’s using the bathroom, and she never looks over my shoulder when I’m writing, those are two more rules. I open doors for her but I never touch her back as she passes through, she never lets me watch her cook, she folds my pants but leaves my shirts by the ironing board, I never light candles when she’s in the room, but I do blow candles out. It’s a rule that we never listen to sad music, we made that rule early on, songs are as sad as the listener, we hardly ever listen to music. I change the sheets every morning to wash away my writing, we never sleep in the same bed twice, we never watch television shows about sick children, she never asks me how my day was, we always eat on the same side of the table, facing the window. So many rules, sometimes I can’t remember what’s a rule and what isn’t, if anything we do is for its own sake, I’m leaving her today, is that the rule we’ve been organizing ourselves around this whole time, or am I about to break the organizing rule? I used to ride the bus here at the end of every week, to take the magazines and newspapers that people left: behind when they got on their planes, your mother reads and reads and reads, she wants English, as much as she can get her hands on, is that a rule? I’d come late Friday afternoon, it used to be that I would go home with a magazine or two and maybe a paper, but she wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else, so I started bringing a knapsack, which I would stuff with as much as would fit, it got heavy, my shoulders burned with English, she wanted more English, so I brought a suitcase, I filled it until I could barely zip the zipper, the suitcase sagged with English, my arms burned with English, my hands did, my knuckles, people must have thought I was actually going somewhere, the next morning my back ached with English, I found myself sticking around, spending more time than was necessary, watching the planes bring people and take people away, I started coming twice a week and staying for several hours, when it was time to go home I didn’t want to leave, and when I wasn’t here, I wanted to be here, now I come every morning before we open the store, and every evening after dinner, so what is it, am I hoping to see someone I know get off one of the planes, am I waiting for a relative who never will come, do I expect Anna? No, that’s not it, it’s not about my joy, the relief of my burden. I like to see people reunited, maybe that’s a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can’t tell fast enough, the ears that aren’t big enough, the eyes that can’t take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone, I sit on the side with a coffee and write in my daybook, I examine the flight schedules that I’ve already memorized, I observe, I write, I try not to remember the life that I didn’t want to lose but lost and have to remember, being here fills my heart with so much joy, even if the joy isn’t mine, and at the end of the day I fill the suitcase with old news. Maybe that was the story I was telling myself when I met your mother, I thought we could run to each other, I thought we could have a beautiful reunion, although we had hardly known each other in Dresden. It didn’t work. We’ve wandered in place, our arms outstretched, but not toward each other, they’re marking off distance, everything between us has been a rule to govern our life together, everything a measurement, a marriage of millimeters, of rules, when she gets up to go to the shower, I feed the animals—that’s a rule?
??so she doesn’t have to be self-conscious, she finds things to keep herself busy when I undress at night—rule—she goes to the door to make sure it’s locked, she double-checks the oven, she tends to her collections in the china cabinet, she checks, again, the curlers that she hasn’t used since we met, and when she gets undressed, I’ve never been so busy in my life. Only a few months into our marriage, we started marking off areas in the apartment as “Nothing Places,” in which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we never would look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment in which one could temporarily cease to exist, the first was in the bedroom, by the foot of the bed, we marked it off with red tape on the carpet, and it was just large enough to stand in, it was a good place to disappear, we knew it was there but we never looked at it, it worked so well that we decided to create a Nothing Place in the living room, it seemed necessary, because there are times when one needs to disappear while in the living room, and sometimes one simply wants to disappear, we made this zone slightly larger so that one of us could lie down in it, it was a rule that you never would look at that rectangle of space, it didn’t exist, and when you were in it, neither did you, for a while that was enough, but only for a while, we required more rules, on our second anniversary we marked off the entire guest room as a Nothing Place, it seemed like a good idea at the time, sometimes a small patch at the foot of the bed or a rectangle in the living room isn’t enough privacy, the side of the door that faced the guest room was Nothing, the side that faced the hallway was Something, the knob that connected them was neither Something nor Nothing. The walls of the hallway were Nothing, even pictures need to disappear, especially pictures, but the hallway itself was Something, the bathtub was Nothing, the bathwater was Something, the hair on our bodies was Nothing, of course, but once it collected around the drain it was Something, we were trying to make our lives easier, trying, with all of our rules, to make life effortless. But a friction began to arise between Nothing and Something, in the morning the Nothing vase cast a Something shadow, like the memory of someone you’ve lost, what can you say about that, at night the Nothing light from the guest room spilled under the Nothing door and stained the Something hallway, there’s nothing to say. It became difficult to navigate from Something to Something without accidentally walking through Nothing, and when Something—a key, a pen, a pocketwatch—was accidentally left in a Nothing Place, it never could be retrieved, that was an unspoken rule, like nearly all of our rules have been. There came a point, a year or two ago, when our apartment was more Nothing than Something, that in itself didn’t have to be a problem, it could have been a good thing, it could have saved us. We got worse. I was sitting on the sofa in the second bedroom one afternoon, thinking and thinking and thinking, when I realized I was on a Something island. “How did I get here,” I wondered, surrounded by Nothing, “and how can I get back?” The longer your mother and I lived together, the more we took each other’s assumptions for granted, the less was said, the more misunderstood, I’d often remember having designated a space as Nothing when she was sure we had agreed that it was Something, our unspoken agreements led to disagreements, to suffering, I started to undress right in front of her, this was just a few months ago, and she said, “Thomas! What are you doing!” and I gestured, “I thought this was Nothing,” covering myself with one of my daybooks, and she said, “It’s Something!” We took the blueprint of our apartment from the hallway closet and taped it to the inside of the front door, with an orange and a green marker we separated Something from Nothing. “This is Something,” we decided. “This is Nothing.” “Something.” “Something.” “Nothing.” “Something.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” Everything was forever fixed, there would be only peace and happiness, it wasn’t until last night, our last night together, that the inevitable question finally arose, I told her, “Something,” by covering her face with my hands and then lifting them like a marriage veil. “We must be.” But I knew, in the most protected part of my heart, the truth.