AFTER BREAKFAST, WE TALKED ABOUT LAURENCE being dead while Tony and Mary and Pilar and Darnell and I worked in the kitchen with Conrad. I’d put down 4 slices of bread and plop a plastic spoon of mayonnaise on each slice and slide it around until the bread was wet and white to the edges. Mary pulled off a slice of ham and put 1 down each on 2 slices of bread. Tony would pull off a slice of orange cheese and lay it down on the other 2 slices. Then I’d flip the slice with ham over the slice with cheese and slide them back and forth until the edges matched. After
4 sandwiches were done, Conrad would put a hand on the top of a sandwich and slice the bread with a long knife.

“Why do you cut it across instead of up and down?”

Conrad thought for a moment.

“Because I think it shows a little extra care, Sal Gal,” he told me. “Don’t do just the least you can
do. Put some extra care in it. But you always do,” he told me. “You spread that mayo right to the edge. People get a little in every bite. You even up the slices. That’s why I like working with you, Sal. You do things right.”

I liked working with Conrad, too. Sometimes he told us stories about when he was the cook on a submarine.

“They had to like my cooking down there,” he said. “What they gonna do—swim out to a hot dog stand?”

“I know lots of dead people,” said Tony. Tony always knew a lot about everything.

“No big thing,” he told us. “Some people are alive, some people are dead.”

“But you don’t see dead people, right?” asked Mary.

“They see us,” said Tony. “They look over us all the time.”

“Ewww,” I told him. “All the time? In the bathroom?”

“They don’t care,” said Tony. “They’re dead.”

Mary pulled a slice of ham away from the pile and asked, “But where do dead people go?”

“Heaven,” said Tony. “Up there.”

“Up where?” asked Mary.

“In the sky,” I told her. “Above—way above—the sky.”

“Like… outer space?”

“Above that, even,” I told her.

“Heaven is a place all with clouds,” said Tony. “People sit on clouds, sleep on clouds, eat clouds. They look down at us and laugh, because down here, we need food, clothes, shoes. Up there, only clouds.”

“I don’t think I’d like that,” said Mary. “I’d get cold.”

“I’d like it,” said Darnell. “Swimming through clouds. Looking down. Just floating along.”

“Mrs. Byrne says we won’t see Laurence ’cause he’s dead,” said Tony. “Someone else will take his bed and clothes.”

“Doesn’t Laurence need them?” asked Darnell. “He’s gonna wear clouds?”

Conrad began to pick up sandwiches, 2 at a time, and put them on trays.

“Heaven is your reward,” he told us. “A reward for a life well-lived. It’s eternal life. Life forever.”

“I told you, dead people come back,” said Darnell.

“Not exactly, Darnell,” Conrad told him. “Dead people have lives up there. With God.”

“I don’t know God,” Darnell pointed out. “Why can’t I just stay here, with my friends?”

Conrad smiled and told him, “Well, my friend, I guess we’re not the ones who get to decide when we go to our reward.”

“A reward,” said Mary, as if she was hearing the word all over again. “I can’t wait for a reward.”

But Conrad turned around with his arms filled with sandwiches, blew some hairs from his forehead, and said, “No need to hurry, Mary Berry. Make the most of what we have right in front of us.”

When we finished the sandwiches for Conrad and he put them on the big table in the back of the room, next to the paper plates and bags of potato chips, I told him I had to go upstairs and use the bathroom. Mrs. Byrne was at our table and waved her hand for me to come over.

“You’ll pass Laurence’s room. Next to yours,” she reminded me. “We have to keep it closed until some people can look at it. Okay, Sal?”

So when I got upstairs, I walked down the hall 8 times 5 plus 3 steps until I was in front of the room next to ours. Laurence, Isaac, Pam, and Terri slept there. Marc and Vy were on the other side. It was strange to see the blue door closed—nobody ever really closed the door at Sunnyside Plaza—and for a moment I wondered if I turned the knob and looked in, I’d catch Laurence, hiding. Maybe he’d be in bed, under the covers, playing a joke. Maybe he’d pop out his head. “Surprise, Sal Gal! Surprise, everybody! Surprise! Look who’s here!”

But I was scared to turn the knob. I just stood in front of the blue door.

When I came back downstairs, Mrs. Byrne sat at the table with a lady who smelled like flowers. I began to walk by, but Mrs. Byrne put out her hand.

“Sally, do you think you could get a couple of cups of coffee from Conrad for us? This is—officer?”

“Detective Rivas. Esther Rivas,” said the lady.

“You smell like flowers,” I told her, and the lady named Esther let laughs burst out of her mouth. She wore black pants and a bright blue jacket. She had beautiful shiny black hair, like a bird.

“Well, thank you,” she said. “It says, ‘notes of rose and jasmine’ on the cologne bottle. I didn’t get your name.”

“This is Sally,” Mrs. Byrne told her. “Sal Gal, Sal Pal. Sally Miyake. Just next door in the hall from Laurence.”

The lady put out her hand to shake mine. She smiled.

“Nobody says I smell like roses,” said a man with a deep voice and who had a head that gleamed like a glass. He walked to the table from the hallway. “I’m her partner, Detective Bridges. London Bridges.”

“Really?” asked Mrs. Byrne.

“Really. But Lon, usually.” He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Miyake.”

“What happened to your hair?”

“Sal!” said Mrs. Byrne, but the detectives laughed.

“I wonder, too. It just left me, a little bit at a time. Now I shave it all off, so my hats fit better.”

“So where is your hat?” I asked, and Lon slapped the top of his head and said, “Darn, how did I forget my top hat again?”

Conrad kept a pot of coffee hot in the kitchen. I went through the door behind the table and fumbled to get 2 paper cups from a stack and put them down as I poured and listened to the voices outside.

“We have to ask some questions when someone dies alone,” I heard Esther say.

“Of course.”

“How did Mr. Fuller wind up here?”

“A birth defect,” said Mrs. Byrne, then her voice got a little quiet. “Like most everyone else here. Oxygen cut off to his brain during delivery. He was born with his disability.”

“And he came here…?”

“About nine years ago. He lived at home, but as his parents got older and had to take care of themselves more and more…”

I stopped pouring coffee when I heard Mrs. Byrne hold up on whatever words she had thought she would say. She finally told them, “Well, it’s hard to care for a grown-up child at home, too.”

“The parents are…?” asked Esther Rivas.

“Gone now. Both.”

“Anyone to contact?”

“An older brother. We left a message.”

I finished pouring coffee into the first paper cup and began to pour more into the other one.

Detective Lon asked, “Did the brother ever visit?”

“Now and then, yes,” said Mrs. Byrne. “A little more recently.”

“A little more?” asked Esther.

“I’ve seen that before. A younger sibling with challenges can take up a family’s time. The older brothers and sisters feel overlooked. They hold a grudge. They have no contact. Then one day, their parents are gone, and they want to make things better.”

I turned the corner with the 2 cups of coffee just as Mrs. Byrne finished saying, “I didn’t know the whole story. I was just happy for them both.”

“Well, me too,” said the lady named Esther Rivas. She had long light-pink fingernails, but I counted 1, 2, 3 that were chipped, and 1 that wasn’t pink at all.

I put the 2 cups of coffee on the table. Mrs. Byrne already had hers, so I put them in front of the detectives.

I asked them, “Are you married?”

Esther and Lon looked at each other—and laughed.

“No!” said Esther. “Not to each other. I’m married. A great guy named Robert.”

“Sal…,” Mrs. Byrne began, but Esther told her, “It’s fine.”

“Is he a detective?” I wanted to know.

“A lawyer. I put people in jail, he gets them out.”

“They got both ends covered,” Lon Bridges said. “I’m not married. I mean, Ms. Miyake, who’d ever marry a bald, smelly guy like me?”

I liked to hear London Bridges call me Ms. Miyake, so I told him, “I would.”

That sure made them laugh again. Mrs. Byrne said, “Sal Gal!” as if she was upset by what I’d said, but she laughed, too.

I wanted to sit down with them but knew I should get back to the kitchen. Conrad wanted me to take apples from the crate in the kitchen and rinse them under water before lunch. I put the first 8 in the sink and under the nozzle and sprayed them with water. Then I turned off the spray to let the water drip and heard Lon talking.

“There didn’t seem to be a lot up there when I looked. In his closet or table.”

“They don’t have much here,” Mrs. Byrne told him. “A couple shirts, sweaters, socks. If you don’t go outside much, slippers are fine. All donations. People get rid of what they don’t want. Then they think of us.”

“No letters, books? Cell phones?”

“Picture books sometimes. But our folks are usually with us because reading can be a little out of their grasp,” I heard Mrs. Byrne say softly. “Some might learn to recognize a few names, numbers, or signs. Sunnyside, 36 Broadway. Or Cheerios, Santa, M&M’s. There are lots of people with disabilities who can read, hold jobs in the outside world, and live on their own. Our folks are with us because they need a different level of care.”

There was a long pause and I waited until Esther began to speak to pick up the apples from the sink.

“And do you know what happens to Mr. Fuller
now?”

“Our notes in the office are for Laurence to be cremated,” said Mrs. Byrne. “The funeral homes on Clark usually help out when… this happens. They’ve told us that usually no one comes for the ashes. That’s why I’m glad it might be different for Laurence. He’s got a brother. Lots of our folks at Sunnyside Plaza have no family.”

Mrs. Byrne spoke a little more softly again.

“At least not a family that’s a part of their lives.”

I took the rinsed apples from the sink in both my hands, then put them onto the counter. Conrad tells me I should dry my hands on a towel, but it’s easier just to wipe them on the back of my pants. I went over to the crate for more apples and stopped a moment when I heard Lon’s voice, speaking a little louder.

I can’t read, but I see, I hear, and I notice things.

“The medical examiner should be able to review everything this afternoon,” said London Bridges. “It looks like Laurence took a standard pill for cholesterol. And…”

He seemed to take a slight breath, like before you jump, before trying to say the next word.

“Tri… flu… oper…”

“Trifluoperazine, yes.” Mrs. Byrne said the word without a pause or stumble, like she was saying “chair,” “cereal,” or “water.” “Almost every resident takes something. It’s hard to be as rambunctious as a six-year-old when you’re in the body of a twenty-, forty-, or sixty-year-old. It’s for their own safety.”

Lon’s voice slowed again.

“And… this… sele… gi? Selegiline?”

“Same. It calms them.”

The back door buzzed. Conrad opened it and let in George, the man who delivered cans of food to us. He had a box in his arms and the cans clinked in the box.

“Hey, how we doing?” George asked, and Conrad held a finger to his lips.

“Sad morning, George. One of our folks left us.”

George asked, “Just walked out the door?” and Conrad shook his head and lifted his hands up toward the ceiling.

“Out of life,” Conrad explained.

“Oh, wow, Connie,” said George. “Tough break. I’m sorry.”

I had begun to bend down to pick up another
8 apples when Conrad said to me, “The rest can wait awhile, Sallie Pallie. Why don’t you take a few out to our guests and Mrs. Byrne?”

So I filled my hands with 3 apples and went around the corner to the table in time to hear Esther say, “Forty-six. So young.”

“But it can be prime for a stroke,” said Mrs. Byrne.

“Believe me, we know,” said Lon Bridges. “We had a guy in the Nineteenth District, about the same age.”

“Thanks so much, Sal,” said Mrs. Byrne as she looked up from the table when I brought the apples.

“Thank you, Ms. Miyake,” said London Bridges. “May we call you Sally? Or do you like Sal?”

I felt a little hotness on my face.

“I love that,” I told them, and then turned around to smile.

“Being a police officer must be stressful,” Mrs. Byrne told the detectives. “Emergencies, sirens. Seeing things most people don’t. But living here can be hard work, too.”

I had turned the corner into the kitchen but held up a step so I could still hear them.

“It seems so nice,” I heard from Esther. “Sunnyside Plaza—an oasis of peace in the heart of the big, loud city.”

“Oh, it is,” said Mrs. Byrne. “But there comes a time, when folks here turn thirty or forty and realize…”

I took a couple more steps when I heard Mrs. Byrne stop and lower her voice. But I still listened.

“…realize they’ve kind of been cut off from things. The rest of the world goes to jobs, gets married, has a dog, cat, kids. They see all that on screens. They talk about it with each other. Then they look around and see that they’re… here. For good. We try to give them good lives,” Mrs. Byrne said almost in a whisper. “They eat, draw, paint, and help out. Musicians come in once a month or so, and they get to bang on drums. We take them to picnics, church concerts, Purim parties, Eid al-Adha, Easter Monday at St. Andrew’s. We treat them with love. They have fun. They help each other. I see amazing kindness in them every day. But one day, most folks here realize that a whole big world is out there. And they’re… here.”

I heard Mrs. Byrne, I think, push back in her chair, then 1 more, then another.

I heard Esther Rivas say, “I guess that would get me down, too.”

“Must take a lot of grit for them just to get through the day and try to be happy,” said Lon Bridges.

I heard the 3 of them get silent together and knew they shouldn’t know that I could hear them.

Most of us wound up in front of the television screen that night. A dog got lost but found its way home. A man fired a gun and blew up a car and everyone walked away. Low tonight five-four, high tomorrow seven-one, chance of rain around lunch. It’s a big world, somebody has to furnish it. The Bulls lost. San Antonio won. A mother and father argued about something silly and realized they really loved each other. Made with whole-grain goodness. Cooler near the lake. Frrrrom Holllywood… Gets rid of fine lines and wrinkles. These engines can’t take much more! And look—it vacuums tacks!

Matt looked straight ahead. I saw him lick his lips. Vy snorted.

Mark, a nurse who worked at night, came in to tell us it was time to brush our teeth and get into bed, and we did.

Jimmy said “birdie” one more time.

After Pilar, Mary, and Shaaran had gone to sleep, or pretended to, and Pilar had climbed in with Tony, I got out of bed and went to the window to look out. I could see the blinking red letters of a place we didn’t know, the white light of the laundry wash all over the sidewalk; the yellow lights of the deli with people laughing and drinking in the window; the silver light of the coffee shop with people dozing and sipping; the red, white, and blue bus stopping and starting and 2 little kids looking out the big back window as it rolled down the street toward the lake and the stars. I notice things.