Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

incredibly close.
    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 to 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 breath 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 can 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 like 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 be nice.” But when I started focusing Grandpa's camera, she put her hand in front of her face for some reason. I didn't want to force her to explain herself, so I thought of a different picture I could take, which would be more truthful, anyway. “Here's my card,” I told her, when the cap was back on the lens, “in case you remember anything about the key or 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 worked at the firm on Saturdays and sometimes even Sundays, and she got panicky about me being alone. As I got near Grandma's building, I looked up and didn't see her sitting at her window waiting for me, like she always did. I asked Farley if she was there, and he said he thought so, so I went up the seventy-two stairs.
    I rang the doorbell. She didn't answer, so I opened the door, because she always leaves it unlocked, even though I don't think that's safe, because sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped. As I walked in, she was coming to the door. It looked almost like she had been crying, but I knew that was impossible, because once she told me that she emptied herself of tears when Grandpa left. I told her fresh tears are produced every time you cry. 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 up 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 renter.”
    When 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, and trim my fingernails and toenails with her teeth because she was afraid of using clippers. When I was old enough to take 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 me. “Why not?” “Privacy.” “Privacy from what? From me?” I didn't want to hurt her feelings, because not hurting her feelings 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 the scarf she was knitting. Every few seconds she would give it a tug, and I had to tug back—undoing what she'd just done—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