I hear you got some heavy news out by the lake, Grandma says. We’re on the couch in the living room. Just me and her. Mommy and Daddo are upstairs. I don’t know if they think the house is safe or if they don’t care or maybe it’s because with four of us nobody ever has to be alone. I don’t want to talk about it, I say. No, neither do I, she says. But that’s the thing, we probably should. You’ll notice, the older you get, that it’s the topics people say you shouldn’t talk about that get all messed up beyond r epair. My whole life, people said don’t bring up politics and religion and, well, look at things now. Subjects can become sick just like people can. They need care. They need medicine. They need talk. So, while I wish I’d asked you about the water and the sand, we really should talk about the news you got. That’s the trick, Bela. The whole trick. With aging, with living, with enduring this life. It’s all about heart. How long can you maintain an open heart and an open mind in this world, how long can you sustain being kind to other people, no matter what they say or do. Now, ke ep in mind, some things are beyond the pale. Of course. There are killers and cruelties that surpass our wildest imaginings. But this... what your parents told you... this was born of heart. Your mother might not think so, right now, but even she’ll come around and stop beating herself up for not telling a child a truth that even an adult couldn’t rightly process. And your daddo... well... do you have a better friend? Is there anybody in this life who has been better to you than your daddo? You see, Bela... heart. I want you to think of your heart like a house. This house, if it’s easier. There’s only so many rooms, right? But at the same time, there’s a lot of room. That’s the same with your heart. Here we’ve got the dining room and the living room and the kitchen and the foyer and the stairs and the bedrooms and the hallways and the bathrooms. But those are just the defined spaces, you see? Those are the spaces with names. But what about the spaces between these rooms? What do you call it when one foot is in the dining room and one in the foyer? Where are you then? And when you’re more than halfway up the st eps... are you then upstairs... or down? We say the living room and the kitchen are different places but isn’t there only a counter between them, and doesn’t that make them one? There are so many hidden spaces in a house, Bela. And there are so many hidden spaces in your heart. Some of them in plain sight. So what we need to do then, we need to determine what we’ll allow in to our home, what we’ll allow in to our heart. With a home we have furniture. We have pets. We have guests. But there are also feelings allowed into a house, just like you have feelings in your heart. And the trick of aging, the trick of getting through this life with your sanity, is deciding to let the right feelings exist inside your house and your heart. Some people let in a lot of dark feelings and some people don’t let any dark feelings in at all, but that’s a lot of work and I think it’s best to let in a good healthy mix of both. Still, the feelings to look out for are the ones that are immovable, the ones made of stone. Last night your parents told you something that justifiably upset you, and there are people who would take the feeling you have now and make a statue of it, so that in their house, there is always this solid, unremovable statue that remains long into old age. And the reason I tell you this now is not because I think you should get over these feelings immediately, but because I know that the longer a statue remains, the harder it is to take out of the house. So, please, just think about it. Think about your house and your heart and think about what you would allow into both.
Grandma looks at me like she’s wondering if I understand everything she’s saying. How many rooms are in this house? she asks me. I don’t know, I say. Guess for me. I don’t know. Guess. Like... ten? Okay. There are ten rooms in this house. Now, how much room is in this house? I think of the video I saw of my bedroom. I think how small my bedroom looked on the little video. Not as much as I thought there was, I say. Grandma looks like I surprised her. O, but think about it, Bela. You could learn the piano in this house. And what if you did? And what if that led to you playing concerts all over the world? Then wouldn’t this house become big as the world? Sometimes, when people are all grown up, they come by to visit the house they grew up in. You know why? Because their childhood took place in that house. And your childhood is taking place in this house. And childhood has a habit of playing a major role in the rest of your life. Doesn’t that make this house bigger? Doesn’t something so important give this house more room? I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. It’s room we’re looking for, Grandma says. All our lives. Room to grow, room to love, room to prosper, room to get out of a jam, room to succeed, wiggle room to chase our dreams. And every house has a lot of room because every house has people in it and those people are infinite insomuch as they go on to do an infinite number of various things. Just because Mommy and Daddo are raising you here doesn’t mean you’re going to grow up to be Mommy and Daddo. You see? Am I just like Mommy? No, I say. Exactly. And you’re not just like Mommy and you’re not just like Daddo, though you’re more like him than you are Mommy. I hear Mommy and Daddo talking on the stairs. They’re talking about where we’re all going to sle ep. Daddo is saying maybe Lois’s plan worked and we don’t have to worry about this anymore. Mommy is saying we have to worry until we know we don’t. Room, Grandma says. Room and rooms. And anything can happen in any room. And when one thing leaves your house or heart it makes room for another thing to take its place. This is why it’s unwise to make solid statues inside. A statue takes up that space without moving, without flowing, without growing. You see? Mommy is telling Daddo we need to take turns sle eping still. Daddo is saying maybe we can all just live like normal people again now. He says he went through the camera footage of when we were gone and nothing was in the house. And some rooms have secrets, Grandma says. And some secrets have a lot of room. I think this one, what you learned last night, that has a lot of room. A lot of room to be taken in different ways, to be examined over time, to
make sense to you. But that doesn’t change the fact that the house, like the heart, has corners and closets and places for things to hide. That’s really what I wanted to say to you right now. That you may not even know that something’s hiding in your house or heart unless someone like me, a friend in your life, told you that such things can be. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Yeah, I say. Good. That’s good. Mommy and Daddo come down the hall, into the living room. Someone’s gotta stay up, Mommy says. It’s late now. It’s dark outside. The sun went down when we drove home. I’ll stay up, Grandma says. I’m wide-awake. But you really have to stay up, Mommy says. I said I would, didn’t I? We don’t mean to tell you what to do, Daddo says. It’s just... we’re tired. Say no more, Grandma says. I understand. She puts her hand over mine. What about you? she says. Are you tired? No, I say. ’Cause I’m not. I feel like I could never sle ep again. We can sle ep in the dining room, Mommy says. So you two can watch a movie or something in here. Grandma squeezes my hand and we get up and Mommy and Daddo bring couch cushions and beach blankets into the dining room and Grandma asks me what kind of movie I wanna watch or would I rather do the Michigan puzzle and I tell her it doesn’t matter, the puzzle is fine. We’ll see you in the morning, Daddo says. I don’t answer him. Bela, he says. I’m sorry. I don’t answer him. But suddenly... I kinda wanna. I think about what Grandma told me and I kinda wanna tell Daddo it’s okay, I won’t make a statue of what they told me. I don’t want it in my house. Good night, Daddo says. Good night, Mommy says from the other room. Then Daddo heads up the hall and Grandma puts the puzzle on Daddo’s desk in the living room and she says, You’re a good person, Bela.
Then we try to put pieces together and it’s hard because so many of them look the same. When we do get two together Grandma gets excited. We have most of the fish together and the apple blossom is easier because it’s got pink, but the water is really hard. I hear a creaking from upstairs and I look up. When I look to Grandma again, she’s smiling because she just fit three whole lake pieces together. We’re gonna do it, Bela, she says. By God, we’re gonna solve this.