The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg Page B

watch a baseball game now. It might remind you of your normal life, of what you have to go back to. For Grandma . . . well, she needs to be reminded that people are around to help her. All these people ‘eating their dumb sandwiches’ will tell her that if she needs anything—”
    “Yeah, and most of them won’t even mean it!”
    “Some of them might not. But others will.” I leaned back and felt an edgy restlessness snaking through me. I needed to go outside. Later, I’d ask Pete to take a walk with me. I hadn’t had a chance to be alone with him since we’d arrived, and that’s what
I
needed. “It’s like falling off a cliff, Anthony, when someone dies this suddenly. And these rituals we have, whatever they are—watching sports or having dinner parties, or . . . oh, I don’t know, wearing a yellow tie every third Thursday—they provide some sort of support. You know what I mean? So you can watch baseball. Hannah can call her friends—Hannah
is
on the phone with Gracie, right now. And Grandma is in the kitchen peeling Saran Wrap off cold cuts and tossing salads and arranging cookies on platters instead of weeping in her darkened bedroom with the door closed. All of this—I don’t know, maybe it forges a new neural pathway, almost. It helps you go on in this new situation. It teaches you how. Don’t you think Grandma’s heart is breaking? Of course it is. But does she honor Grandpa by collapsing into grief? Believe me, she’ll do plenty of that. But for right now, I think it’s better if she talks to people and accepts the gifts they can offer. No one is saying Grandpa’s life didn’t matter. They’re just coming together to do what they can. They’re providing some structure, some order, to a situation that feels out of control, especially to Grandma.”
    Anthony listened, biting at his lower lip. Then he stood up. “So what should I do? I’m sorry, I just don’t feel like talking to strangers, answering all these dumb questions about how do I like North Dakota, I ought to play basketball, I’m so tall, blah, blah, blah. But I’d like to . . . should I maybe throw away the used paper plates?” He laughed in his harsh teenage way, embarrassed.
    “I think that’s a perfect thing to do.”
    He came over to me, put his hand on my shoulder. “And . . . are you okay, Mom? You know, I just realized . . . It was your dad!”
    I smiled up at him. “I’m fine. You know what I’m mostly thinking? That I’m so lucky. To have had him, and to have you.”
    There, a hint of color in his face, his shoulders shifting off some discomfort. I wasn’t allowed to show him much affection anymore, no matter how oblique it might be. When he was in second grade, I was allowed to kiss him before he left for school only in the coat closet, door closed. By the time he got to third grade, I got in trouble for even thinking about kissing him. Yet there are still nights when I sit at the side of his bed before he goes to sleep and we talk for a long time—about nothing, really. He lies stretched out under the covers with his hands linked behind his head, smelling of shampoo, his bedside lamp giving him a halo. “O’Conner thinks he’s set for a basketball scholarship,” he’ll say. “Huh!” I’ll say. “A scholarship! That’s great.” And I’ll be thinking,
You’ve become a man, right in front of my eyes. I can’t bear the thought that you’ll leave soon.
    “You want me to bring you anything?” Anthony asked. “Want a sandwich or something? Cookies?”
    “No, thanks. I’m fine.”
    Just after he left the room, Caroline came in. She sat in my father’s chair, looked over at me, and sighed. “Well. That’s that.”
    “Yeah,” I said sadly.
    “I mean, now nobody will ever believe me.”
    “Oh, my God. You—” I stared at her.
    “
What,
Laura?”
    I shook my head, got up from my chair, and walked out.
    In the living room, I caught sight of Hannah sitting alone on the sofa, and I went to sit