Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

child.”
    What the?
    I knew I probably shouldn't have, because they didn't belong to me, but I opened one of them.
    It was sent on February 6, 1972. “To my child.” It was empty.
    I opened another, from another stack. November 22, 1986. “To my child.” Also empty.
    June 14, 1963. “To my unborn child.” Empty.
    April 2, 1979. Empty.
    I found the day I was born. Empty.
    What I needed to know was, where did she put all of the letters?
    I heard a sound from one of the other rooms. I quickly closed the drawers, so Grandma wouldn't know I had been snooping around, and tiptoed to the front door, because I was afraid that maybe what I had heard was a burglar. I heard the sound again, and this time I could tell that it was coming from the guest room.
    I thought, The renter!
    I thought, He's real!
    I'd never loved Grandma more than I loved her right then.
    I turned around, tiptoed to the guest room door, and pressed my ear against it. I didn't hear anything. But when I got down on my knees, I saw that the light in the room was on. I stood up.
    “Grandma?” I whispered. “Are you in there?”
    Nothing.
    “Grandma?”
    I heard an extremely tiny sound. I got down on my knees again, and this time I saw that the light was off.
    “Is someone in there? I'm eight years old and I'm looking for my grandma because I need her desperately.”
    Footsteps came to the door, but I could only barely hear them because they were extremely gentle and because of the carpet. The footsteps stopped. I could hear breathing, but I knew it wasn't Grandma's, because it was heavier and slower. Something touched the door. A hand? Two hands?
    “Hello?”
    The doorknob turned.
    “If you're a burglar, please don't murder me.”
    The door opened.
    A man stood there without saying anything, and it was obvious he wasn't a burglar. He was incredibly old and had a face like the opposite of Mom's, because it seemed like it was frowning even when it wasn't frowning. He was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt, so you could see his elbows were hairy, and he had a gap between his two front teeth, like Dad had.
    “Are you the renter?”
    He concentrated for a second, and then he closed the door.
    “Hello?”
    I heard him moving stuff around in the room, and then he came back and opened the door again. He was holding a little book. He opened it to the first page, which was blank. “I don't speak,” he wrote, “I'm sorry.”
    “Who are you?” He went to the next page and wrote, “My name is Thomas.” “That was my dad's name. It's pretty common. He died.” On the next page he wrote, “I'm sorry.” I told him, “You didn't kill my dad.” On the next page there was a picture of a doorknob, for some reason, so he went to the page after that and wrote, “I'm still sorry.” I told him, “Thanks.” He flipped back a couple of pages and pointed at “I'm sorry.”
    We stood there. He was in the room. I was in the hall. The door was open, but it felt like there was an invisible door between us, because I didn't know what to say to him, and he didn't know what to write to me. I told him, “I'm Oskar,” and I gave him my card. “Do you know where my grandma is?” He wrote, “She went out.” “Where?” He shrugged his shoulders, just like Dad used to. “Do you know when she'll be back?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I need her.”
    He was on one kind of carpet, I was on another. The line where they came together reminded me of a place that wasn't in any borough.
    “If you want to come in,” he wrote, “we could wait for her together.” I asked him if he was a stranger. He asked me what I meant. I told him, “I wouldn't go in with a stranger.” He didn't write anything, like he didn't know if he was a stranger or not. “Are you older than seventy?” He showed me his left hand, which had YES tattooed on it. “Do you have a criminal record?” He showed me his right hand, which had NO. “What other languages do you speak?” He wrote, “German. Greek. Latin.” “Parlez-vous français?” He opened and closed his left hand, which I think meant un peu.
    I went in.
    There was writing on the walls, writing everywhere, like, “I wanted so much to have a life,” and “Even just once, even for a second.” I hoped, for his sake, that Grandma never saw it. He put down the book and picked up another one, for some reason.
    “For how long have you been living here?” I asked. He wrote, “How long did your grandmother tell you I've