Aurora(76)

She looked at him. She’d expected him to fudge, to lie or hedge, but he’d just come out with it. For that, she had not prepared herself. She didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t look so sad,” he said.

“Will you please just take a bite? For me?”

Norman looked at her for a long moment, weighing her request. He picked up the orange slice, gave it a delicate sniff, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the aroma. Finally, he opened his eyes and nibbled off a corner. He looked at her and smiled, chewing.

“Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” She sat back in her chair, looking out the window at the neighborhood. “Hell of a view you got here.”

“Isn’t it gorgeous? I’ve lived here thirty-seven years and I’ve never seen the neighborhood look halfway so beautiful.”

“We’re taking the squashes, figs, and chard in the next few days. Pumpkins and kale the week after. I’ll bring you some.”

“Please do,” he said.

Aubrey glanced to her right, into the den just off his living room, where Norman kept his radio equipment. “What have you heard lately?”

He waved an old-man hand at her, dismissing the subject. “Not much.”

She turned and looked at him, not buying the brush-off. “What have you heard?”

“You said not to bother with bad news.”

Aubrey nodded, turning and looking out the window again. She shook her head. “Some days I feel so incredibly good. Better than I have in years. And then other times—it can be the next day or the next minute—it all turns, and I just don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.”

Norman set down the orange slice, reached out, and put his hand on top of hers, on the arm of her chair.

She looked up at him. “What have you heard, Norman?”

“That things are going to get worse before they get better.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I told you, if you knew exactly what was going on in San Jose and Capetown and Budapest, would you do a single thing differently today? Here? On the street where you live?”

She shook her head no. She looked down. Against her will, her eyes filled with tears and overflowed. Her shoulders heaved, and she choked out a sob.

Norman didn’t try to make it better. He let her cry for a while, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft and tired.

“‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Then you’re a fucking idiot.”

She laughed, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.

“I have seen the best of humanity,” he said, “and I have seen the worst. I have seen friends suffer the loss of their fortunes, their spouses, their children. I have said, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ and then I turned around and suffered every single one of those same unimaginable losses myself. And somehow never saw it coming. I have seen the hopes of whole generations crash against reality and collapse, I have watched the horrors of the last century—and really, historically speaking, you could pick a better century out of a hat—and through all of it I’ve noticed one thing. Life is worth living only when it has meaning. That is our biggest task and our greatest challenge.”

“What kind of meaning?”

“Viktor Frankl says there are only three that matter. To do work that matters to you, to care for others, and to rise to the challenge of difficult times. Work, love, courage. That’s it. Any other human pursuit is horseshit.”

“OK, Norman.”

“Don’t fucking do that.” He leaned forward and shook his head emphatically. “Do not blow past this. Look out the window. Look at what you’ve done.”

She looked up, through the window. The neighborhood was alive with activity. Phil and Scott and Celeste and Mrs. Chen and her boys, Derek and Janelle, Frank and Johnny Witzky, and half a dozen others were all sweating in the late-afternoon sun, working with a common purpose.

“I know you consider yourself a failure,” Norman said. “I know that’s hardwired into your brain for some unfathomable reason, but your life is not without meaning. Love, work, courage—you have it all. Your life is goddamn rich with meaning.”

She started to cry again. It wasn’t hopelessness this time but exhaustion.

“I love you, Norman.”

“Right back at you, kiddo.” He looked out the window, to where Phil was harvesting tomatoes. “What are you gonna do about your fella, once the lights go back on?”

“I don’t know. I don’t expect it to last.”

Norman shrugged. “Sometimes those are the ones that do.”

“I wouldn’t know. Guess it’d be nice to find out.”

“Well, he cleaned up nice, anyway.”

Aubrey smiled. She looked down at the orange slice, on the table between them, only a tiny bite taken from one corner, not enough to feed a mouse. Norman followed her gaze, then looked up at her and shrugged. “It went stale, sweetie. It happens.”

“Scott wanted to bring them himself, but—”

He saw through that and waved her off. “Don’t get mad at him. Dying isn’t a spectator sport.”

She leaned forward, wrapped both her arms around the old man’s bony shoulders, and squeezed him tight.