They let me make the final decision on Grandmother’s house. I decide to rent it. After my mind is made up, I’ll say this for Mother and Aunt Louise—they take to consulting me about a lot of things they hadn’t before. They ask me what I think about leaving some of the furniture in the house so it can be rented furnished, and what I think about how much we should charge, and when I will be ready to let people see it. They must have read a book on child psychology. After two weeks of whispering about me and arguing with each other, they suddenly start consulting me about things, and I’ll admit that I feel better disposed to the whole big deal. We find a tenant in another week, a guy who wants to move his wife and little kid in before Christmas, who will take the house for two years. When Fred throws himself on his back in front of the guy and the guy rubs his belly like he is supposed to, I figure he will be a good person to be a landlord to.
Mother is very perky after the business about the house is settled, and when we sign the lease she insists we give a big party for Mr. Henderson, the tenant. For Mother, giving a big party means having a large number of drinks, so Aunt Louise pooh-poohs that right away, but Mother won’t let Mr. Henderson out of the house until he agrees to have a highball with her. Mr. Henderson has one drink. As he’s leaving he says he’s looking forward to showing his wife the house and knows she’ll love it because she likes old things.
“If there are problems about anything, just ask me,” Mother urges. Since she plans to go back to New York in another few days, the offer isn’t as generous as it seems. Mother tells me that she’s done everything she can, don’t I think? I tell her sure she has. To forestall one of the long talks she has been having with me in the last week when there’s been no one else around, I tell her that I have a lot of homework to do. That’s not a good reason for not talking “heart-to-heart” as Mother puts it, so I sit down and Mother talks. She tells me about all the plans she had for herself when she was a young girl, how fantastically popular she was in college, how she moved right along when she went to New York, how one bad mistake has set her back so that she has really had a whole decade robbed from her by my father, how difficult it was to get back into the swing of things when you had given everything you had to your family, how now she was a happy and mature adult and was looking forward to having a wonderful life with me, and so on. I say Yes and No when she wants me to, and an hour and a half later she tells me that we’ve had a good talk, haven’t we? I tell her we have, and she tells me I stay up too late for my age. So I take Fred out for his finals and tumble into bed, knowing that in another week or so I’ll not be sleeping here again.
Mother goes back to New York a few days later. Fred and I move in with Aunt Louise temporarily. Mother will get her apartment ready for us in a few weeks, so I can move down during Christmas vacation. I’m so busy shuffling myself around now that the time goes by fast. I tell Mother I want to bring a lot of stuff to New York, and she tells me I can bring about a quarter of it. She sends me the measurements of my closet and tells me that in New York everything has got to be shoved into little spaces and that every inch will be important. I can’t bring my own bed and my own chest. They are too big. She is talking with a decorator about my room, and it’s going to be lovely. I say good-bye to a lot of people, everyone in school and all the teachers. I’m planning to visit Aunt Louise in the summer, so it’s not as though I’m not going to see all these people again. I tell about thirty guys that they can visit me in New York, and I wonder what Mother will think about that. I kiss Mary Lou Gerrity good-bye. It’s not the first time I’ve kissed her, but it’s the first time we’ve opened our mouths when we kissed. Mary Lou tells me afterwards that she will be faithful to me, and I tell her that I will be faithful to her too, though I really had no intention of getting that involved. She said it first, so there was nothing else I could do.
I take Fred to the cemetery a lot now, almost every day. Aunt Louise’s house is even closer than Grandmother’s. I begin to feel guilty on days when I don’t go to visit. When I come the next day, I always tell Grandmother that I’m sorry I wasn’t there yesterday. I tell her about everything that has happened during the day and about all the plans for New York. I ask her if that’s OK with her. I guess I cry a lot. I don’t want to leave her behind. It’s cold now, and I know it’s very cold underground, and when there isn’t anyone to come to talk with you, the cold is worse, I am sure. Can you hear me, Grandmother? Will you know when I’m not coming any more that it’s not because I don’t love you? It’s because I’m in New York. Fred always lifts his leg on the gravestone.
