I sprint into the darkness.
The piercing sound comes from directly below me. I squint to get my bearings.
“Grandma?!”
I fly down the stairs. I make out someone standing near the door of a ground-floor office. The figure is hunched. Grandma.
I hustle to her.
She stares into the office’s plate-glass window.
“Adrianna can’t breathe,” she says.
“It’s okay. I’m here.”
I gently put my hand on her back. She flinches and her hand whips up and slaps my arm away. She’s strong.
“Grandma, it’s me.”
“I’m not going inside.”
“Absolutely not. We’re not going inside.”
I put my arm on her shoulder. She’s quivering.
“My father drove a red Chevrolet,” she says.
“Deep breath, Grandma.”
“My family came from Eastern Europe.”
“Poland, Grandma. You’re absolutely right.”
“Irving wore a suit to our wedding.”
She’s all over the place.
“Grandma,” I take a step back, and hold her hands. “What happened here?”
“I did my best to love Irving. I made him tuna casserole, which I hate. I just didn’t fit into that kind of life — a casserole life. I know you know what I’m talking about.”
“What happened here, Lane? Please focus.”
“There are some things I’d prefer to forget.”
“Did you see something happen to Adrianna? Did she…” I pause before saying the words, “Why can’t she breathe?”
“Do you know what it’s like to feel suffocated? Do you know what it’s like when you’re trapped? It’s like being anesthetized. Do you know what that word means?”
“Grandma…”
“You want to feel thrilled. Isn’t that what it means to be alive? You know that, Nathaniel. That’s why I can tell you.”
She’s meandering, anxious, confused, pouring out and swirling together memory, philosophy, fear, anger, raw emotion.
“What do you want to forget, Grandma?”
“Pigeon.”
Pigeon. This doesn’t ring the remotest bell.
“Pigeon — like the bird?”
“Pigeon, take me someplace warm.”
I take a deep breath.
“Shhh,” she says, animatedly.
“What?”
“Is there something there?” She’s looking out into the parking lot.
I look in the darkness. I hear nothing, see nothing.
“Harry, take me someplace warm, please.”
“I’m Nathaniel.”
She does not respond at first.
“You should marry that friend of yours,” she finally says. “There are ways you can have everything, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
I take a deep breath. The San Francisco air hangs dusty wet with incoming fog and night.
My cortex clicks through dozens of seemingly unrelated details and events. I can’t grasp the connection but I know there is one. I notice I’m rubbing my thumb against my index finger, an old habit that happens when I’m close to figuring something out.
“You’re saying a lot of different things, Grandma. But I have this strange feeling that there is some connective tissue. There are clues in what you’re saying. But I have no idea how to assemble them — and which are clues, which are…” I stop, because I don’t want to say the word “nonsense.”
“Nathaniel, you were always close enough to see the truth.”
“What truth, Lane?”