“It’s fine,” she assures me. “Just hard when everyone I love has gone.” She sighs again. “Life must be hard for you, too, being stuck at home so much.”
“At least I have my mom,” I say. “She’s had to give up her job to look after me, though. And Dad’s working harder than ever.”
“Are you not going to school at all?”
“Not since last June,” I explain. “I have a tutor who comes once a week. I have constant pain in my arms and legs, and I just get so tired when I do anything. It’s really frustrating. But I think I am improving now.”
“What is the cause?” she asks. “Do they know why it started?”
I shake my head. “I had tonsillitis, and I just didn’t get better. No one knows why it happens.”
“And is there treatment for it?”
“There’s some research going on, but they know so little about it, there isn’t much to offer. I’m on a waiting list to see a consultant. The doctor just told me to try to pace myself.”
“But you will recover?”
“I hope so.”
There’s silence for a moment. I don’t want to think about my illness—about the possibility that I’ll be like this forever. I change the subject.
“Mrs. Gayatri, I wanted to ask you something,” I say now. “I’m interested in the history of our street, and I know you’ve lived here a long time. I wondered if you have any memories to share of anything that has happened here?”
“What kind of thing?” she asks.
“Any memorable events, things that shocked you, tragedies?”
“That’s a strange question!” Mrs. G. shakes her head. “It would be better to focus your energies on happier things. Let me think… Now there’s Amir and Zainab, of course, across the street. Their daughter died. That was most certainly a tragedy. She was so young. Their only child. That must have been twenty-five years ago. But that’s probably not the sort of thing you mean. Now, what else…”
“The girl across the street—can you tell me more?” I ask, leaning forward. “What happened to her?”
Mrs. G. shakes her head. “Really, it is upsetting for me even to think about it. Let’s talk about happier things and leave the past behind. It will do your health no good to focus on such sadness. Should I show you what came in that package the other day?”
I nod. I’m frustrated. I am desperate to know more but I don’t want to push her if it’s upsetting her. She walks slowly back into the kitchen and returns with a bird feeder.
“I love my garden, but I’m not up to tending it like I used to,” she tells me. “I like to watch the birds, though. I wondered, since you’re here, whether you might do me a favor and hang it outside for me—on the silver birch. I have the seeds to fill it with. Then I can sit by the back window and watch for the birds. They’ll be grateful now the weather’s getting colder.” This sounds sad to me—having nothing more interesting to do than watching birds, though maybe it is no sadder than watching the street like I do. I nod again and follow her to the back door, which she unlocks. The garden, which looked overgrown when I last glimpsed it from my parents’ bedroom window, looks far wilder from down here. Neglect has turned it into a jungle.
“This garden was beautiful once,” Mrs. G. says wistfully. “My husband and I—we were both gardeners. But now I don’t have the strength for it, nor the money to pay someone.”
“I wish I could help,” I tell her, “but I don’t have the strength, either.”
Actually, it’s the last thing I’d want to do, even if I did have full strength. Gardening isn’t my idea of fun at all.
“Of course you don’t, my dear, but it’s a kind thought.”
She seems so sad as I struggle for something positive to say. “I guess it’s good for wildlife?”
“True,” she says, but I sense this is little consolation. I fill the feeder and find I can easily hang it on a branch. Mrs. G.’s house is on the corner, and it’s the only one in our row that has a decent-sized yard. I’ve never been very interested in gardens, but I do vaguely remember it being much neater in the past. I used to be jealous as a young child, because we only have a small cement back patio with no lawn or plants at all.
“Thank you so much!” she says. “That’s wonderful. I’d have to stand on a stool to do that, and I knew it wasn’t a good idea.”
“No, you shouldn’t go doing things like that,” I agree. “It’s nice to be able to do something helpful for a change. It’s usually me who needs the help.”
“Well, I’m very grateful,” she says.
“I’d better go now,” I tell her. I suddenly feel so tired—and she is looking tired, too. She doesn’t protest, and I wonder if I have already outstayed my welcome.
“I hope you will come again,” she says. “It’s been so nice to have some company.”
I’m relieved. I was worried I’d upset her asking about tragedies, and that she wouldn’t want me back. I’m glad I came, though—Mrs. G. did seem genuinely happy to see me, and I even learned something about the girl across the street. At least, I may have done. I learned there was a tragedy, and it involved a girl who died. Does that mean the girl I see really is a ghost? I wish I knew the whole story.
7
“A gummy bear factory! My son is making gummy bears?”
Dad has somehow seen Mom’s latest message from Marek, who has moved from sprinkling cheese on pizzas to making gummy bears. Dad is reeling off a torrent of Polish insults.
“Why my son? Why me? We bring him here for a good life, he has a good education, and he throws it all away to make teddy bear sweets! What did I do to deserve this useless child?”
“Don’t say that, Dad,” I protest. Dad has a tendency to be overly dramatic, but to me this seems unfair.
“Sorry, moje kochanie, I don’t want to upset you.” Dad gently strokes my hair. “But gummy bears! Pah!”
A few days later I get a package from Germany. Marek has written a card saying how much he misses me and enclosed five packets of gummy bears. I wish he’d come home.
I have a bad day for no apparent reason. That’s what it’s like. I spend the morning in bed eating gummy bears and then the afternoon sitting up, looking out of the window. I’ve been looking out every day, but I haven’t seen the girl again.
Mom is worrying that I’m seeing things—as in imagining them. I overheard her telling Dad. I get brain fog sometimes. I can’t think straight and I struggle with the schoolwork my tutor leaves for me, but hallucinations are not a symptom of ME. I know that because I looked it up online. Even so, the more I watch from the window and don’t see the girl, the more I doubt my own memory. I’m wondering if I really saw her at all or if it was a trick of the light. It’s easier to think of her as a ghost than as a real person—but if she was real, maybe she was staying there and now she’s gone. I hope so, but either way, I can’t stop thinking about her. I wish I could.