Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

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,