The Goldfinch

“Not at all. I think it’s nice.” Then, after a brief pause—during which I could hear the little terrier snoring—she said: “You don’t mind if I close my eyes for a few seconds, do you?”

“No,” I said, ru

“I know it’s rude, but I just absolutely have to.”

I looked down at her shaded eyelids, chapped lips, pallor 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 di

“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 a

“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 my head away.

“I don’t think he was even a horror person,” Andy said, in his faint, a

“Yeah. That was when she went up to talk to the security guard.”

“Leather pants. All those piercings. I mean, who knows, maybe he really was making a vampire film but he was definitely a huge perv, did you notice that? Like, that sneaky smile? And the way he kept trying to look down her top?”

I gave him the finger. “Come on, let’s go,” I said. “I’m hungry.”

“Oh, yes?” I’d lost nine or ten pounds since my mother died—enough weight that Mrs. Swanson (embarrassingly) had started weighing me in her office, on the scale she used for girls with eating disorders.

“What, you’re not?”

“Yeah, but I thought you were watching your weight. So you’d fit in your prom dress.”

“Fuck you,” I said good-naturedly as I opened the door—and walked straight into Mr. Barbour, who had been standing right outside, whether eavesdropping or about to knock it was hard to say.

Mortified, I began to stammer—swearing was seriously against the rules at the Barbours’ house—but Mr. Barbour didn’t seem greatly perturbed.

“Well, Theo,” he said dryly, looking over my head, “I’m certainly glad to hear that you’re feeling better. Come along now, and let’s go get a table.”

iv.

DURING THE NEXT WEEK, everyone noticed that my appetite had improved, even Toddy. “Are you done with your hunger strike?” he asked me curiously, one morning.

“Toddy, eat your breakfast.”

“But I thought that was what it was called. When people don’t eat.”

“No, a hunger strike is for people in prison,” Kitsey said coolly.

“Kitten,” said Mr. Barbour, in a warning tone.

“Yes, but he ate three waffles yesterday,” said Toddy, looking eagerly between his uninterested parents in an attempt to engage them. “I only ate two waffles. And this morning he ate a bowl of cereal and six pieces of bacon, but you said five pieces of bacon was too much for me. Why can’t I have five pieces, too?”

v.

“WELL, HELLO THERE, GREETINGS,” said Dave the psychiatrist as he closed the door and took a seat across from me in his office: kilim rugs, shelves filled with old textbooks (Drugs and Society; Child Psychology: A Different Approach); and beige draperies that parted with a hum when you pushed a button.

I smiled, awkwardly, eyes going all around the room, potted palm tree, bronze statue of the Buddha, everywhere but him.

“So.” The faint traffic drone floating up from First Avenue made the silence between us seem vast, intergalactic. “How’s everything today?”