Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer Page A

apartment. Maybe it's the renter?” “No,” she said, “he went off to a museum earlier.” “What museum?” “I don't know what museum. He said he wouldn't be back until late tonight.” “But I can hear someone.” “No you can't,” she said. I said, “I'm ninety-nine percent sure I can.” She said, “Maybe it's just your imagination.” I was in the place that I couldn't come back from.
    Thank you for your letter. Because of the large

volume of mail I receive, I am unable to write
    personal responses. Nevertheless, know that I
    read and save every letter, with the hope of one
    day being able to give each the proper response it
    deserves. Until that day,
    Most sincerely,
    Stephen Hawking
    I stayed up pretty late designing jewelry that night. I designed a Nature Hike Anklet, which leaves a trail of bright yellow dye when you walk, so in case you get lost, you can find your way back. I also designed a set of wedding rings, where each one takes the pulse of the person wearing it and sends a signal to the other ring to flash red with each heartbeat. Also I designed a pretty fascinating bracelet, where you put a rubber band around your favorite book of poems for a year, and then you take it off and wear it.
    I don't know why, but as I was working, I couldn't stop thinking about that day Mom and I went to the storage facility in New Jersey. I kept going back to it, like a salmon, which I know about. Mom must have stopped to wash her face ten times. It was so quiet and so dark, and we were the only people there. What drinks were in the Coke machine? What fonts were the signs in? I went through the boxes in my brain. I took out a neat old film projector. What was the last film Dad made? Was I in it? I went through a bunch of the toothbrushes they give you at the dentist, and three baseballs that Dad had caught at games, which he wrote the dates on. What were the dates? My brain opened a box with old atlases (where there were two Germanys and one Yugoslavia) and souvenirs from business trips, like Russian dolls with dolls inside them with dolls inside them with dolls inside them ... Which of those things had Dad kept for when I had kids?
    It was 2:36 a.m. I went to Mom's room. She was sleeping, obviously. I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes. I could tell that Mom was dreaming, but I didn't want to know what she was dreaming about, because I had enough of my own nightmares, and if she had been dreaming something happy, I would have been angry at her for dreaming something happy. I touched her incredibly gently. She jumped up and said, “What is it?” I said, “It's OK.” She grabbed my shoulders and said, “What is it?” The way she was holding me hurt my arms, but I didn't show anything. “Remember when we went to the storage facility in New Jersey?” She let go of me and lay back down. “What?” “Where Dad's stuff is. Remember?” “It's the middle of the night, Oskar.” “What was it called?” “Oskar.” “It's just that what was the name of the place?” She reached for her glasses on the bedside table, and I would have given all of my collections, and all of the jewelry I'd ever made, and all future birthday and Christmas presents just to hear her say “Black Storage.” Or “Blackwell Storage.” Or “Blackman.” Or even “Midnight Storage.” Or “Dark Storage.” Or “Rainbow.”
    She made a weird face, like someone was hurting her, and said, “Store-a-Lot.”
    I'd lost count of the disappointments.

WHY I'M NOT WHERE YOU ARE 5/21/63
    Your mother and I never talk about the past, that's a rule. I go to the door when she's using the bathroom, and she never looks over my shoulder when I'm writing, those are two more rules. I open doors for her but I never touch her back as she passes through, she never lets me watch her cook, she folds my