Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

to express. I'm sorry. That's what I've been trying to say to you, I'm sorry for everything. For having said goodbye to Anna when maybe I could have saved her and our idea, or at least died with them. I'm sorry for my inability to let the unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things. I'm sorry for what I'm about to do to your mother and to you. I'm sorry I'll never get to see your face, and feed you, and tell you bedtime stories. I've tried in my own way to explain myself, but when I think of your mother's life story, I know that I haven't explained a thing, she and I are no different, I've been writing Nothing, too. “The dedication,” she said to me this morning, just a few hours ago, when I went to the guest room for the last time, “Read it.” I touched my fingers to her eyelids and opened her eyes wide enough to convey every possible meaning, I was about to leave her behind without saying goodbye, to turn my back on a marriage of millimeters and rules, “Do you think it's too much?” she asked, bringing me back to her invisible dedication, I touched her with my right hand, not knowing to whom she had dedicated her life story, “It's not silly, is it?” I touched her with my right hand, and I was missing her already, I wasn't having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts, “It's not vain?” I touched her with my right hand, and for all I knew she'd dedicated it to herself, “Does it mean everything to you?” she asked, this time putting her finger on what wasn't there, I touched her with my left hand, and for all I knew she'd dedicated it to me. I told her that I had to get going. I asked her, with a long series of gestures that would have made no sense to anyone else, if she wanted anything special. “You always get it right,” she said. “Some nature magazines?” (I flapped her hands like wings.) “That would be nice.” “Maybe something with art in it?” (I took her hand, like a brush, and painted an imaginary painting in front of us.) “Sure.” She walked me to the door, as she always did, “I might not be back before you fall asleep,” I told her, putting my open hand on her shoulder and then easing her cheek onto my palm. She said, “But I can't fall asleep without you.” I held her hands against my head and nodded that she could, we walked to the door, navigating a Something path. “And what if I can't fall asleep without you?” I held her hands against my head and nodded, “And what if?” I nodded, “Answer me what,” she said, I shrugged my shoulders, “Promise me you'll take care,” she said, pulling the hood of my coat over my head, “Promise me you'll take extra-special care. I know you look both ways before you cross the street, but I want you to look both ways a second time, because I told you to.” I nodded. She asked, “Are you wearing lotion?” With my hands I told her, “It's cold out. You have a cold.” She asked, “But are you?” I surprised myself by touching her with my right hand. I could live a lie, but not bring myself to tell that small one. She said, “Hold on,” and ran inside the apartment and came back with a bottle of lotion. She squeezed some into her hand, rubbed her hands together, and spread it on the back of my neck, and on the tops of my hands, and between my fingers, and on my nose and forehead and cheeks and chin, everything that was exposed, in the end I was the clay and she was the sculptor, I thought, it's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I'd had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her. I would have stayed in the apartment with her, torn the blueprint from the door, held her on the bed, said, “I want two rolls,” sang, “Start spreading the news,” laughed, “Ha ha ha!” cried, “Help!” I would have spent that life among the living. We rode the elevator down together and walked to the threshold, she stopped and I kept going. I knew I was about to destroy what she'd been able to rebuild, but I had only one life. I heard her behind me. Because of myself, or despite myself, I turned back, “Don't cry,” I told her, by putting her fingers on my face and pushing imaginary tears up my cheeks and back into my eyes, “I know,” she said as she wiped the real tears from her cheeks, I stomped my feet, this meant, “I won't go to the airport.” “Go to the airport,”
    she said, I touched her chest, then pointed her