Grandma. Perhaps you’ve heard.” Lily smiled just in case her grandmother decided to take offense.
“I’ve heard, I’ve heard plenty. How are the subways this morning?”
“They’re fine—”
“Oh, sure, you can’t even fake a polite answer anymore. Did you stand far from the yellow line?”
“I did better than that,” said Lily, putting milk in the refrigerator. “I sat down on the bench.”
Her grandmother squirmed. “Oh, Lily, how is that better? Sitting on that filth-covered bench, how many of those people who sat on it before washed their clothes that morning? And they’re sitting next to you, breathing on you, watching over your shoulder, seeing what you’re reading, hearing your Walkman songs, such loss of privacy. All the homeless sit on that bench.”
Lily wanted to remark that, no, all the homeless were lying on the steps of the 53rd Street church on Fifth Avenue, but said nothing.
“From now on, I give you money, you take a cab to see me.”
Lily wanted to button up her jacket, if only she had one. “So what’s going on with you?”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” said her grandmother, Claudia Vail, seventy-nine years old, widow, war survivor, death-camp survivor, all cataracts removed, a new pacemaker installed, arthritis in check, no mysterious bumps, growths, or distensions, but widow first and foremost, “On Sunday a child fell out of his sixth-floor apartment in the projects and died. This is on a Sunday. What are the parents doing if not looking after their child on a Sunday? On Monday a five-year-old girl was stabbed and killed by her brother and his friend who were supposed to be looking after her. The mother when she returned home from work said, ‘It’s so unlike him. He’s usually such a nice boy.’ Then we find out that this boy, age eleven, had already spent three years in juvenile detention for beating his grandmother blind. The mother apparently overlooked that when she left her child with him.”
“Grandma,” Lily said feebly, putting up her hands in a defensive gesture.
“Last Friday, a vegan couple in Canarsie were arrested for feeding their child soybeans and tofu from the day she was born. That mother’s milk must have been all dried up because at sixteen months the child weighed ten pounds, the weight of a two-to-three-month-old.”
“Grandma,” said Lily helplessly. Her grandmother was cornering her between herself and the fridge. Lily could tell by her grandmother’s eyes she was a long way from done. “Did anything happen on Saturday?”
“On Saturday your sister and that no-good man of hers came over—”
“Which sister?”
“And I told her,” Claudia continued, “that she was lucky not to have any children.”
“Oh. That one. Grandma, if life is no good here, why don’t you move? Move to Bedford with Amanda. Nothing ever happens in Bedford. Hence the name. City of beds.”
“Who said life is not good here? Life is perfect. And are you insane? With Amanda and her four kids? So she could take care of me, too? Why would I do that to her? Why would I do that to myself?”
“Did José bring your groceries this week?” The kitchen looked a bit bare.
“Not anymore. I fired him.”
“You did?” Lily was alarmed. Not for her grandmother—for herself. If José was no longer delivering groceries, then who was going to? “Why did you fire him?”
“Because in the paper last Saturday was a story of an old woman just like me who was robbed by the delivery boy—robbed and raped, I think.”
“Was it José?” Lily said, trying not to sound weary. Struggling not to rub the bridge of her nose.
“No, it wasn’t José. But one can never be too careful, can one, Liliput?”
“No, one certainly cannot.”
“Your door, is it locked? To your bedroom?” Grandmother shook her head. “Are you still living with those bums, those two who cannot keep their sink clean? Yes, your father told me about his visit to your abode. He told me what a sty it was. I want you to find a new place, Lil. Find a new place. I’ll pay the realtor fee.”
Lily was staring at her grandmother with such confusion that for a moment she actually wondered if perhaps she’d never spoken of her living arrangements with her grandmother, or whether there had been too many residential changes for her grandmother to keep track of.
“Grandma,” she said slowly. “I haven’t lived with those bums, as you like to call them, in years. I’ve been living with Amy, in a different apartment, remember? On 9th Street and Avenue C?” She looked at her grandmother with concern.
Her grandmother was lost in thought. “Ninth Street, Ninth Street,” she muttered. “Why does that ring a bell … ?”
“Um, because I live there?”
“No, no.” Claudia stared off into the distance. Suddenly her gaze cleared. “Oh yes! Last Saturday, same day as the old woman’s battery and rape, a small piece ran in the Daily News. Apparently three weeks ago there was a winning lottery ticket issued at a deli on the corner of 10th and Avenue B, and the winner hasn’t come to claim it yet.”
Lily was entirely mute except for the whooshing sound of her blinking lashes, sounding deafening even to herself. “Oh, yeah?” she said and could think of nothing else. The sink faucet tapped out a few water droplets. The sun was bright through the windows.
“Can you imagine? The News publishes the numbers every day in hopes that the person recognizes them and comes forward. Eighteen million dollars.” She tutted. “Imagine. By the way, they publish the numbers so often I know them by heart. Some of the numbers I could have chosen myself. Forty-nine, the year I came to America, thirty-nine, the year my Tomas went to war. Forty-five, my Death March.” She clucked with delight and disappointment. “Do you go to that deli?”
“Um—not anymore.”
“Maybe it’s lost,” said Claudia. “Maybe it’s lying unclaimed in the gutter somewhere because it fell out of the winner’s pocket. Watch the sidewalks, Liliput, around your building. An unsigned lottery ticket is a bearer bond.”
“A what what?”
“A bearer bond.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said Claudia, “that it belongs to the bearer. You find it, it’s yours.”
Why did Lily immediately want to go home and sign her ticket? “What are the chances of finding a winning lottery ticket, Grandma?”
“Better than the chances of winning one,” replied Claudia in a no-nonsense voice. “So how is that Amy? She’s the one who spent last Thanksgiving with us instead of that no-good boyfriend of yours? How is he?”
Are there any men who are not no-good? Lily wondered but was too sheepish to ask, since it appeared that her grandmother
