“You know I can’t do that.”
“Yes. I do know. And I hope that was not the wrong way to make my point. All I am saying is that people need a world that no one seems to be able to create. And since it can’t be fixed, I think only time will help. I think I need a great deal of time for this thing that has happened to move through me. But the fact that you want to help means more to me than I can say. It means the world, Raymond. That and the idea of those children, his children, coming to meet me and know me. They and you might be the only things holding me down to the earth right now. Oh, and this little cat. She has been such a comfort to me, sitting on my lap and purring. And I’d like you to stop to think which of these things I would have if you had not befriended me. Think about it, Raymond. Everything that is holding me down on the planet right now is something you brought into my life. And speaking of right now . . . aren’t you going to be late for school?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Getting toward late.”
But he didn’t move.
“Go,” she said. “What do you think will change while you are gone? Nothing will change. I will be right here.”
Reluctantly—very reluctantly—he left her and ran all the way to school.
He stopped in on the way home, hoping to see that she had moved while he was away.
She had not moved.
She was sitting up on the bed, the cat on her lap. Dressed in the same clothes. Staring in the same direction.
“Have you eaten?” That was the first thing he asked her.
She answered with only a sigh.
“If I make you something, will you eat it?”
“I don’t really feel very much like eating,” she said, turning her head vaguely in his direction. “I did get up and feed the cat, though. That’s the lovely thing about having an animal. You might not want to get up for your own sake, but you will bring yourself to do it for them. But I didn’t feel hungry.”
Raymond sat on the very edge of her bed.
“But that wasn’t really the question, though. Not so much if you felt hungry or felt like eating. I was asking if you would eat. If I fixed something and brought it in here, if you would at least try to get some of it down the way you did this morning. Because people need food to live. And the food doesn’t care if you really wanted it or not. It nourishes you either way.”
They sat in silence for a minute or two.
Then she said, “I feel like I’m letting you down, Raymond. Like I’m holding you back from the way you deserve to live.”
For some reason it made his face tingle. Almost a fear response. Or maybe embarrassment.
“I’m not sure why you would say that.”
“You want me to be okay. To get up and feel better. And go on.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And you want me to make the world a place where nobody would shoot Luis, because their gun would still be in their purse when they found out he was only trying to return their wallet. But I’m not taking it on that I can’t do that for you. I’m not seeing that as any personal failure on my part.”
“Good point, my friend. Good point.”
Another silent minute or two.
“Maybe a scrambled egg,” she said.
“Coming right up.”
“I feel bad having you wait on me hand and foot like this.”
“Don’t,” he said. “It’s no trouble.”
“What did I do to deserve such a good friend as you, Raymond?”
It might have been a lightly tossed-off comment. Raymond wasn’t sure. But he decided to approach it as a genuine question.
“I think you’re the first person I’ve ever known . . . I might not say it right. We’ll see . . . who really sees me. And I mean the whole thing of me, not just the part that fits with how they want to see me. And it seems weird to me, because the first person I met who really sees me for all of who I am . . . you know . . . can’t see.”
“When it comes to seeing what is important about a person,” she said, “I think it’s possible that what our eyes tell us is only a distraction. Not that I wouldn’t take them back if I could. Oh, I would. I miss seeing. But I also like the things I’ve learned to see without them.”
“What if I made you two scrambled eggs?” he asked, sensing a slight lift in the mood. Both of their moods. “Would you try to eat two?”
“Yes. For Raymond, at least I will try.”
When he arrived back at his own apartment, he closed himself into his room and opened his laptop. He found what he had hoped to find: an email from Isabel.