and bruises, the ugly hashmark of metal over one ear. The strange combination of what was exciting about her, and what wasn’t supposed to be, made me feel light-headed and confused.
Guilty, I glanced back, and noticed Hobie standing in the door. After tiptoeing out to the hall again, I closed the door quietly behind me, grateful that the hall was so dark.
Together, we walked back through to the parlor. “How does she seem to you?” he said, in a voice so low I could hardly hear him.
What was I supposed to say to that? “Okay, I guess.”
“She’s not herself.” He paused, unhappily, with his hands dug deep into the pockets of the bathrobe. “That is—she is, and she isn’t. She doesn’t recognize a lot of people who were close to her, speaks to them very formally, and yet sometimes she’s very open with strangers, very chatty and familiar, people she’s never seen before, treats them like old friends. Quite common, I’m told.”
“Why isn’t she supposed to listen to music?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, she does, sometimes. But sometimes, late in the day especially, it tends to upset her—she thinks she has to practice, that she has to prepare a piece for school, she gets distraught. Very difficult. As far as playing on some amateur level, that’s perfectly possible someday, or so they tell me—”
Quite suddenly, the doorbell rang, startling us both.
“Ah,” said Hobie—looking distressed, glancing at what I noticed was an extremely beautiful old wristwatch, “that’ll be her nurse.”
We looked at each other. We weren’t finished talking; there was so much still to say.
Again the doorbell rang. Down the hall, the dog was barking. “She’s early,” said Hobie—hurrying through, looking a bit desperate.
“Can I come back? To see her?”
He stopped. He seemed appalled that I had even asked. “But of course you can come back,” he said. “Please come back—”
Again the doorbell.
“Any time you like,” said Hobie. “Please. We’re always glad to see you.”
iii.
“SO, WHAT HAPPENED DOWN there?” said Andy as we were dressing for dinner. “Was it weird?” Platt had left to catch the train back to school; Mrs. Barbour had a supper with the board of some charity; and Mr. Barbour was taking the rest of us out to dinner at the Yacht Club (where we only went on nights when Mrs. Barbour had something else to do).
“He knew your mother, the guy.”
Andy, knotting his necktie, made a face: everybody knew his mother.
“It was a little weird,” I said. “But it’s good I went. Here,” I said, fishing in my jacket pocket, “thanks for your phone.”
Andy checked it for messages, then switched it off and slipped it in his pocket. Pausing, with his hand still in the pocket, he looked up, not straight at me.
“I know things are bad,” he said unexpectedly. “I’m sorry everything is so fucked up for you now.”
His voice—as flat as the robot voice on an answering machine—kept me for a moment from realizing quite what he’d said.
“She was awfully nice,” he said, still without looking at me. “I mean—”
“Yeah, well,” I muttered, not anxious to continue the conversation.
“I mean, I miss her,” Andy said, meeting my eye with a sort of half-terrified look. “I never knew anybody that died before. Well, my grandpa Van der Pleyn. Never anybody I liked.”
I said nothing. My mother had always had a soft spot for Andy, patiently drawing him out about his home weather station, teasing him about his Galactic Battlegrounds scores until he went bright red with pleasure. Young, playful, fun-loving, affectionate, she had been everything his own mother wasn’t: a mother who threw Frisbees with us in the park and discussed zombie movies with us and let us lie around in her bed on Saturday mornings to eat Lucky Charms and watch cartoons; and it had annoyed me sometimes, a little, how goofy and exhilarated he was in her presence, trotting behind her babbling about Level 4 of whatever game he was on, unable to tear his eyes from her rear end when she was bending to get something from the fridge.
“She was the coolest,” said Andy, in his faraway voice. “Do you remember when she took us on the bus to that horror-fan convention way out in New Jersey? And that creep named Rip who kept following us around trying to get her to be in his vampire movie?”
He meant well, I knew. But it was almost unbearable for me to talk about anything to do with my mother, or Before, and I turned