Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,166

with nets were circling through the traffic.

When she heard the crack of the rifle shot she thought at first it was just a car backfiring.

—

She likes the word mother and all the complications it brings. She isn’t interested in true or birth or adoptive or whatever other series of mothers there are in the world. Gloria was her mother. Jazzlyn was too. They were like strangers on a porch, Gloria and Jazzlyn, with the evening sun going down: they just sat there together and neither could say what the other one knew, so they just kept quiet, and watched the day descend. One of them said good night, while the other waited.

—

They find each other slowly, tentatively, shyly, drawing apart, merging again, and it strikes her that she has never really known the body of another. Afterward they lie together without speaking, their bodies touching lightly, until she rises and dresses quietly.

—

The flowers are cheap, she thinks, the moment she buys them. Waxy flower paper, thin blooms, a strange scent to them, like someone in the deli has sprayed them with a false fragrance. Still, she can find no other open florist. And the light is dimming, the evening disappearing. She heads west, toward Park, her body still tingling, his phantom hand at her hip.

In the elevator the cheap scent of the flowers rises. She should have looked around and found a better shop, but it’s too late now. No matter. She gets out on the top floor, her shoes sinking into the soft carpet. There is a newspaper on the ground, by Claire’s door, the slick hysteria of war. Eighteen dead today.

A shiver along her arms.

She rings the doorbell, props the flowers against the frame as she hears the latches click.

—

It is the Jamaican nurse who opens the door for her again. His face is broad and relaxed. He wears short dreadlocks.

—Oh, hi.

—Is there anyone else here?

—Excuse me? he says.

—Just wondering if there’s anybody else home.

—Her nephew’s in the other room. He’s napping.

—How long has he been here?

—Tom? He spent the night. He’s been here a few days. He’s been having people over.

There is a momentary standoff as if the nurse is trying to figure out just exactly why she has returned, what she wants, how long she’ll stay. He keeps his hand around the doorframe, but then he leans forward and whispers conspiratorially: He brought a couple of real estate people to his parties, y’know.

Jaslyn smiles, shakes her head: it doesn’t matter, she will not allow it to matter.

—Do you think I can see her?

—Be my guest. You know she had a stroke, right?

—Yes.

She stops in the hallway.

—Did she get my card? I sent a big goofy card.

—Oh, that’s yours? says the nurse. That one’s funny. I like that one.

He sweeps his hand along the corridor, points her down toward the room. She moves through the half-dark, as if pushing back a veil. She stops, turns the glass handle on the bedroom door. It clicks. The door swings. She feels as if she is stepping off a ledge. The room looks dark and heavy, a thick tenor to it. A tiny triangle of light where the curtains don’t quite meet.

She stands a moment to let her eyes adjust. Jaslyn wants to part the dark, open the curtains, crack the window, but Claire is asleep, eyelids closed. She pulls up a chair by the bed, beside a saline drip. The drip is not attached. There is a glass on the bedside table. And a straw. And a pencil. And a newspaper. And her card among many other cards. She peers in the dark. Get well soon, you funny old bird. She is not sure now whether it is humorous at all; perhaps she should have bought something cute and demure. You never know. You cannot know.

The rise and fall of Claire’s chest. The body a thin failure now. The shrunken breasts, the deep lids, the striated neck, the intricate articulation. Her life painted on her, receding on her. A brief flutter of her eyelids. Jaslyn leans close. A waft of stale air. An eyelid flutter once more. The eyes open and stare. In the dark, their whites. Claire opens her eyes, wider still, does not smile or say a word.

A pull on the sheets. Jaslyn looks down as Claire moves her left hand. The fingers go up and down as if playing a piano. The yellow rufflework of age. The person we know at first, she thinks, is not