The Illusion of Separateness by Simon van Booy Page B

afternoon, while Mom and I went through Grandpa’s things. She put them in my hands and described them to me. Mom was surprised when I told her to sell the house. It’s what she wanted, too, but thought I would have been more upset. Deep down I knew that keeping the house would have become my way of trying to keep Grandpa alive.
    “And once it’s sold,” I said, “give the money away—because we’re happy as we are, and it’s what Grandpa would have wanted.”
    “We’re talking about millions of pounds, Amelia,” Mom said, but I could tell that part of her agreed.
    Then we both cried and held each other. It was a nice moment and helped us prepare for the next few days.
    The next day, Philip was exploring and came across Grandpa’s old Rolls-Royce, which he used to drive into the village every day for a newspaper and a loaf of bread. It was the only place Grandma had allowed him to smoke cigars. Philip said it needed engine work, but that it was otherwise immaculate. I told Philip that he could have it, but then later on in bed, he said he didn’t want it, and I realized how lucky I am to have someone who knows me so well.
    A couple of days before the service, Mom took me to her old school. It had closed down and the gates were locked, but we sneaked in. She took me to the place where she used to smoke with the sixth-form girls. Then she drove me to the park where Grandpa took her every Sunday to play on the swings.
    Grandpa’s nurse discovered him. She said he was on the side of the bed Mrs. Bray used to sleep on.
    Mom and I stood in his bedroom next to the bed. Then Mom said, “Oh my God,” and told me how on the bedside table were Grandma’s books, her reading glasses, her silver pen, and an empty teacup.
    “In his mind, they were still living together,” she said.
    And I thought how if Philip died, I wouldn’t move his things either.
    Over dinner, Mom said it was a miracle Grandpa made it through the war. That he was in a bad way for a long time. Philip asked what happened to him. Mom said that nobody knew the details, but that after being discovered on a battlefield in France, he spent months in a coma at a military hospital. Dad was ripping up newspapers to light a fire and stopped to listen.
    Canadian soldiers found him at first light.
    Dawn was cool, and the grass wet with night’s retreat. He wasn’t wearing any kind of uniform, and walking aimlessly through a field of dead enemy soldiers. When Canadian commandos called out and aimed their rifles, he simply fell over.
    They didn’t know what to do because he could not be identified. It’s lucky that the chief medic considered it his duty to save the young man presented like a gift from His unseen hand . After the war, Grandpa and the medic kept in touch. Dr. Mohammed went on to become a renowned heart surgeon, and his dream of building a children’s cardiac center in Toronto was eventually realized through an anonymous donor in England.
    T he flames crackled as we drank wine and laughed about things Grandpa used to say. A few times, I left the room to cry.
    Mom got drunk and had to be carried up to bed.
    Philip and I stayed downstairs in each other’s arms. I could feel the heat on my face like Grandpa watching.

 
    JOHN
    FRANCE,
    1944

 
    I.
    W HEN J OHN WAS about seven years old, he killed a bird.
    There was a park near the diner on Long Island, and he used to go there with the other boys to run, shout, and play games. One day someone had a slingshot, and they all took turns firing. When it was John’s turn to try, he found a small round stone, then placed it in the slingshot the way the others had shown him. He closed one eye and took aim at some distant birds in a tree. Nobody could believe it when, from high up in the branches of an old elm, a small body fell to earth.
    The other boys patted John on the back and crowded around the lump.
    Over dinner that night, John threw up on his plate. As his mother cleaned him off in the bathroom,