Nude Men

then asked Henrietta for my new phone number, saying she wanted to apologize to me, but Henrietta wasn’t sure it was okay to give it to her, so she didn’t.
    Well, well, my mother wants to apologize. I’m not sure I believe her. She might be up to her old tricks. Anyway, after all she’s put me through, she deserves to wait a bit, to be tortured a bit. I’ll make her wait a few days, and then I’ll call her.
     
    T he very next morning, however, my mother is ringing my buzzer. I let her up with no argument. She walks in, shoulders drooping, looking at me shamefully.
    She goes to the window and stares outside, her back turned to me. She says, “I stayed awake all night, unable to sleep.”
    What does she expect me to answer: I’m sorry I told you the news? “I’m sorry,” I tell her.
    She shakes her head quickly. “No, I’m not saying that to make you apologize. I’m just devastated. I’m shocked. That’s all I meant.” She keeps staring out the window, and finally adds, “I want to apologize.”
    She doesn’t add anything more, so I say “Oh?” and she goes and sits in a corner of my couch. She then looks at me frankly, squarely, and says, “I was a tyrant and a tormentor, and I repent.”
    It’s a little late for that. It’s easy to repent when a tragedy occurs. I remain quiet and look at my feet.
    “I miss your messiness,” she says. “I was hoping your apartment would be dirty today, so that I would get a chance to act like a wonderful person. I had it all planned out. I was going to come in, ignore the mess, sit on your couch, or, if your couch was too cluttered, sit in a corner somewhere, and I was planning to not utter the slightest word about, you know, the old fruits and fur balls. I was going to be admirable, but good intentions always come too late.”
    Sadness starts creeping into my heart.
    “I’m especially embarrassed about the agents,” she adds.
    I can no longer bear it. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” I tell her, unable to believe I’m saying this. “You felt that what I did was wrong, and you expressed your opinion sincerely.”
    She snorts sadly and says, “What a nice way of putting it.” She looks grim, older than I’ve ever seen her. The corners of her mouth are drooping excessively, as though a child drew them. Her wrinkles, usually mostly horizontal, are today mostly vertical. The tears, which she undoubtedly shed all night, seem to have dug permanent descending lines into her cheeks.
    “Don’t worry about the agents,” I tell her. “They were sort of funny.” And I force out a laugh. I decide I’d better blabber something more, because she looks as though she might burst into tears. “1 was able to practice my social skills on them,” I say.
    She gives me the faintest of smiles and appears to be searching for words, but finally she just says, “Well, whatever. Everything seems so trivial now, so sad.” She gets up. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time. You must be busy.” She walks toward the door and turns to me. “Is there anything at all I can do for you?”
    “No, thank you. Do you want to go out for coffee or something?”
    “I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” she repeats. “But if you need me in any way, need any favors or anything at all, just tell me. I’ll do anything.”
    “Thank you; that’s very nice. Are you sure you don’t want to have coffee? You’re not taking up my time.”
    “I know that I am. Anyway, not yet, coffee. It’s too soon.”
    I want to ask her what she means, but I refrain from doing so, because I know exactly what she means. We are just starting to know each other in a new way. We are almost strangers who have just met. We need time to get used to each other.
    How sad life is, that a little girl’s fatal illness is what it takes to bring my mother to her senses. In a way, I miss her old self, just as, I suppose, she misses my dirty apartment. But I’m sure I should not worry; she’ll probably regain her true personality before I know it. At least partly. People don’t just change, just like that, permanently.
     
    A week of the Happy Symptom is all it takes for Sara to teach her parrot to say certain things, very distasteful things, which I’m sure she’ll deeply regret having taught him, as soon as the symptom fades.
    The parrot now enjoys saying: “We are dying today.”
    “Are we dying today? And today? And now?”
    “Sara is dying.”
    “Is it time yet?