Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(186)
“So do you guys want a tour? Or do you want to just explore it yourselves?”
“Maybe explore?” Sam said.
“Go on. Your names are on the doors of your rooms, so you can’t miss them.”
He heard himself.
The boys went upstairs, slowly, deliberately. They didn’t speak, but Jacob could hear them touching things.
Julia hung back, and waited until the kids were on the third floor before saying, “So far, so good.”
“You think?”
“I do,” she said. “But it’ll take time.”
Jacob wondered what Tamir would have to say about the house, should he ever see it. What would Isaac have said? He spared himself the move to the Jewish Home, unaware that he was also sparing himself Jacob’s move—and sparing Jacob.
Jacob led Julia into what would become the living room—emptier now than if it had never been enclosed by walls. They sat on the only piece of furniture, the green sofa that Jacob had fallen asleep on a few weeks before. Not that exact sofa, but one of its two million identical siblings.
“Dusty,” she said. And then: “Sorry.”
“No, it is. Horribly.”
“You have a vacuum?”
“I got the kind we have,” Jacob said. “We had? You have? And I mop it, too. All the time, it feels like.”
“There’s dust in the air, from the work. It keeps settling.”
“How does one get dust out of the air?”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” she said.
“And expect a different result? Isn’t that the definition of insanity?”
“Do you have a Swiffer duster?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll get you one. They’re really useful.”
“I can get it if you send me the link.”
“At that point it’s easier for me to just get it.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you feel OK about Argus?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“My feelings have never once cared about what they should be.”
“You’re good, Jacob.”
“Compared to what?”
“Compared to other men.”
“I feel like I’m bailing water with a colander.”
“If life were easy, everyone would do it.”
“Everyone does.”
“Think about how many trillions of trillions of people are never born for every one who is.”
“Or just think about my grandfather.”
“I often do,” she said. Her eyes raised, and scanned the room. “I don’t know if it’s annoying or helpful when I mention things—”
“Why so binary?”
“Right. Well. The walls are rather dark.”
“I know. They are, right?”
“Disconsolate.”
“I hired a colorist.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I used that paint you like. Farrow whatever.”
“Farrow and Ball.”
“And they offered a colorist’s services, I assumed as a courtesy because I was buying so much of their overpriced paint. And then I got a bill for twenty-five hundred dollars.”
“No.”
“Yes. Two thousand five hundred. And I feel like I’m living underneath a Union kepi.”
“Excuse me?”
“Those Civil War hats. I’ve been listening to this history of—”
“You should have asked me.”
“I can’t afford you.”
“Would have been pro bono.”
“Didn’t my father teach you there’s no such thing as a free colorist?”
“There’s paper everywhere,” Benjy said, coming down the stairs. He seemed buoyant, unfazed.
“It’s just protecting the floor while they finish the work,” Jacob said.
“I’m going to trip a lot.”
“It’ll be long gone by the time you live here. The paper on the floor, the ladders, the dust. All of it will be gone.”
Max and Sam came back down.
“Can I have a mini-fridge in my room?” Max asked.
“Definitely,” Jacob said.
“For what?” Julia asked.
“Don’t you think there’s too much paper on the floors?” Benjy asked his brothers.
“For all those Italian sodas.”
“I think Dad intended those as something special for your first time here.”
“Dad?”
“They would definitely not be an everyday beverage.”
“Sam, don’t you think the paper on the floor is bad?”
“Fine, so I could keep the dead rats.”
“Dead rats?”
“I gave the OK for a python,” Jacob said, “and that’s what they eat.”
“Actually, they’d probably have to be frozen,” Max said. “And I don’t think those mini-fridges have little freezer sections in them.”
“Why would you want a python?” Julia asked.
“Because I’ve wanted a python forever, because they’re amazing, and Dad said now that we had the new house we could finally get one.”