middle-aged blonde in a kaftan and every surface spotless.
His mother rearranged dry goods and crockery and occupied herself changing drawer liners and purchasing items for
which he had no use, such as fondue forks and silver napkin rings. In corners of his apartment things sprang up that bore no relation to him. On the toilet tank, a china shepherdess with rouged cheeks and a crook and a curly-haired lamb at her feet; on a wall in the foyer, a framed picture of angels accompanied by a homily; on the arms of a leather sofa, elaborate lace sleeves.
“I don’t remember,” he mused over dinner on the day the shepherdess appeared, “you decorating our house this way when I was growing up.”
“What way?” asked his mother.
She insisted on cooking for him every night; the meals were low-fat and almost completely devoid of flavor. He had taken to eating a fast-food hamburger on his way home from the office.
“You know—the thing you put in the bathroom, the Little Bo Peep thing.”
“You don’t like it?” asked his mother, her spoon suspended halfway to her lips, trembling.
He heard something in her tone and noticed her eyes were brimming.
“It’s not that,” he said hastily. “I wouldn’t have picked it out myself, per se, is all I meant.”
“You needed somewhere to put the guest soaps,” she said, and resumed eating. “You can’t expect guests to use the same soap you use. It’s not hygienic.”
“What the hell good is soap if it’s not hygienic?”
“You get your germs on it. Or from shaving. A hair could stick to it.”
“I appreciate all your efforts,” he said. “I love having you here, and I know the dog does too. But maybe you should focus on yourself, for once. You know? There are good day spas in walking distance. Susan made up a list for you. Or
you could take one of those weekend cruises to the Catalinas.”
“When will you stop treating me like the walking wounded, T.? I’m fine. I like to keep busy.”
“I realize. But I think you’ve been looking after someone, two people, right?—for the last twenty years of your life . . .” “Twenty-three. Thirty-three if you count from when we got married, which you probably should. That man hasn’t
ironed his own shirts since 1963.”
“. . . and maybe you need to stop looking after other people and look after yourself. Concentrate on what you want, what you need. Because my guest soap is, let’s face it, not yet at the level of a national emergency.”
“You don’t like it, do you? It’s an antique. It is Dresden china , T. From Dresden, Germany.”
“Mother? I’m not entirely sure you’re listening to me.” “They’re famous for their china. Wonderful workman-
ship. Little blue marks . . . I may be alone, my husband may have left me, but I know how lucky I am, T. At least I know that.”
“I’m sure—”
“You know what we did to Dresden in 1945? Your father had friends who were pilots in the air war. And some of them—we’re talking about boys who were eighteen years old here, T., barely out of puberty who still had facial acne—they talked about trying them as war criminals. Their superiors told them they had to bomb Dresden, so they did. Some of them were shot down. They still had facial acne .”
She gazed at him balefully.
“You know what happened with the carpet bombing? There were fires that burned at fifteen hundred degrees. The cold air rushed in from outside and all the people got sucked into the flames and burned to death in terrible agony. Those
were someone’s friends, T. Their friends and their families. They had friends and someone was friends with them. Someone lost their friends then.”
“Uh . . .”
“Hundreds of thousands of someone’s friends burned to death then, screaming.”
He tried to catch her eye but she picked up a salt shaker. “They were someone’s friends and they saw right out of their eyes, like you do. They watched things pass, there was nothing they
His mother rearranged dry goods and crockery and occupied herself changing drawer liners and purchasing items for
which he had no use, such as fondue forks and silver napkin rings. In corners of his apartment things sprang up that bore no relation to him. On the toilet tank, a china shepherdess with rouged cheeks and a crook and a curly-haired lamb at her feet; on a wall in the foyer, a framed picture of angels accompanied by a homily; on the arms of a leather sofa, elaborate lace sleeves.
“I don’t remember,” he mused over dinner on the day the shepherdess appeared, “you decorating our house this way when I was growing up.”
“What way?” asked his mother.
She insisted on cooking for him every night; the meals were low-fat and almost completely devoid of flavor. He had taken to eating a fast-food hamburger on his way home from the office.
“You know—the thing you put in the bathroom, the Little Bo Peep thing.”
“You don’t like it?” asked his mother, her spoon suspended halfway to her lips, trembling.
He heard something in her tone and noticed her eyes were brimming.
“It’s not that,” he said hastily. “I wouldn’t have picked it out myself, per se, is all I meant.”
“You needed somewhere to put the guest soaps,” she said, and resumed eating. “You can’t expect guests to use the same soap you use. It’s not hygienic.”
“What the hell good is soap if it’s not hygienic?”
“You get your germs on it. Or from shaving. A hair could stick to it.”
“I appreciate all your efforts,” he said. “I love having you here, and I know the dog does too. But maybe you should focus on yourself, for once. You know? There are good day spas in walking distance. Susan made up a list for you. Or
you could take one of those weekend cruises to the Catalinas.”
“When will you stop treating me like the walking wounded, T.? I’m fine. I like to keep busy.”
“I realize. But I think you’ve been looking after someone, two people, right?—for the last twenty years of your life . . .” “Twenty-three. Thirty-three if you count from when we got married, which you probably should. That man hasn’t
ironed his own shirts since 1963.”
“. . . and maybe you need to stop looking after other people and look after yourself. Concentrate on what you want, what you need. Because my guest soap is, let’s face it, not yet at the level of a national emergency.”
“You don’t like it, do you? It’s an antique. It is Dresden china , T. From Dresden, Germany.”
“Mother? I’m not entirely sure you’re listening to me.” “They’re famous for their china. Wonderful workman-
ship. Little blue marks . . . I may be alone, my husband may have left me, but I know how lucky I am, T. At least I know that.”
“I’m sure—”
“You know what we did to Dresden in 1945? Your father had friends who were pilots in the air war. And some of them—we’re talking about boys who were eighteen years old here, T., barely out of puberty who still had facial acne—they talked about trying them as war criminals. Their superiors told them they had to bomb Dresden, so they did. Some of them were shot down. They still had facial acne .”
She gazed at him balefully.
“You know what happened with the carpet bombing? There were fires that burned at fifteen hundred degrees. The cold air rushed in from outside and all the people got sucked into the flames and burned to death in terrible agony. Those
were someone’s friends, T. Their friends and their families. They had friends and someone was friends with them. Someone lost their friends then.”
“Uh . . .”
“Hundreds of thousands of someone’s friends burned to death then, screaming.”
He tried to catch her eye but she picked up a salt shaker. “They were someone’s friends and they saw right out of their eyes, like you do. They watched things pass, there was nothing they
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