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now. That’s my point. She went throughtrauma, she recovered, now she’s getting on with life.” There it was: Boo!
    “That was your point? You didn’t even know about her trauma until I just told you.”
    “What does that have to do with getting on with life?” She switched into German.
“I lived through a war. I spent my childhood in bomb shelters. I was supposed to be an artist, go to the art institute, but
     that was bombed, too. Instead I sewed in a factory and starved. But I managed to fall in love and marry your father. I started
     a business, had children. Got on with life.”
    “Now that you mention it, Mom, the minister who spoke at Tim’s funeral was kind of cute. The whole time he was praying I kept
     wondering what he looked like naked.”
    Mother stuffed some popcorn in her mouth and muttered, “Sure, you’re a doctor. Therefore you already know everything there
     is to know.”
    “You know, Mom…” I started, but ran out of interest in what I was going to say. Blah, blah, blah. There was no point to this
     conversation. Mom was trying to be helpful because she felt helpless and I was being pissy because I felt pissy. We both turned
     to the TV and let it absorb our mood.
    Jenny’s guest, a chubby black woman, was sobbing and hollering at another chubby black woman who, when they were both in junior
     high school, stole her panties from gym class and gave them to her boyfriend to tape up in the boys’ lav. All the boys stuck
     their chewing gum to the crotch. At the end of the day the bully dropped them on the crying girl’s desk in study hall, the
     wads of multicolored chewing gum lining the crotch like those bright neon pebbles in fish bowls. Very festive. The wronged
     woman was screaming in the bully’s face and the audience was applauding her. The bully was not remorseful: “We were just kids,
     get over it.” Someone in the audience stood up andpointed at the bully: “You just don’t have any morals.” Someone else jumped up and said, “What about your children? Is this
     how you want them to be treated?”
    The doorbell rang. It was a delivery. A huge assortment of fresh fruit in a hand-carved mahogany bowl so fancy it had a little
     printed card attached explaining the history of the wood and the mythical significance of the carvings. It was from an ER
     buddy of Tim’s: condolences, etc., for my loss. I pulled off the yellow cellophane wrapping. “Kiwis. This even has kiwis.”
     I showed a kiwi to Mom. “You want one?”
    She looked at the popcorn, then at the kiwi. She shook her head.
    “Look at this. A whole pineapple. What the heck is this thing? Guava? Makes me want to sit down and immediately write a thank-you
     note: ‘Dear Stan, Thanks for the fruit. The guava really took the edge off Tim’s homicidal rampage and death.’ ”
    “Your friends are just being supportive. Just letting you know that even though Tim is dead, you’re still among the living.
     Among them. It’s a token of life.”
    I wanted to dump the can of popcorn over Mom’s head, just for the hell of it. Just to see the puffy nuggets of popcorn stick
     in her gray hair like Christmas tree ornaments. Instead I sat on the sofa next to her, took her hand in mine, even though
     I had to wrench it from the popcorn bin and her fingers were sticky with caramel and cheese dust. “Mom, it’s like this. I
     do not know what I want to do next. I know I don’t want to practice medicine right away, not right away.”
    “No one’s talking medicine. I don’t care about medicine. I’m just saying, as a form of therapy if nothing else, you need to
     keep busy. Do something, anything. Have a purpose.”
    “Keeping busy is not the same as having a purpose.”
    “If you have a purpose then you’re automatically busy. Common sense.”
    “I have no idea what that means.” I sighed. “Mom, look at my life. My baby is dead, my fiancé is dead, my cat is dead. Doesn’t
     it have the feel of some