Lida started putting baking pans in among the yogurt.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I kept worrying about your refrigerator. I knew it would look like this. It always looked like this. But before you weren’t married. Now we all think you have a wife to make sure you eat, and she doesn’t even eat herself. I’ve got some manti in here. I made a hundred and six of them. More of them wouldn’t fit in the pan. Oh.” Lida got her shoulder bag and looked into it. A second later, she brought out a big plastic tub. “I’ve got some yaprak sarma, too. It’s not as much as I’d wanted to bring, but this was the biggest container I could find.”
“You got up in the middle of the night and cooked manti and yaprak sarma because you thought I wasn’t getting enough to eat?”
“There’s also imam biyaldi. I’m never happy with that. It doesn’t do as well in the microwave as some of the other things. But you need real food, Gregor. You can’t go running around on nothing but yogurt and green beans and expect to stay healthy.”
“This is insane,” Gregor said.
Lida looked at the things she had put in the refrigerator and checked that they wouldn’t fall out as soon as somebody opened the door. Then she closed up and sat down at the kitchen table.
“We’ve been worried about you,” she said. “I’ve been worried about you. Ever since old George died, you haven’t been yourself.”
Gregor sat down at the table, too. He pushed away some of the folders. “I’ve been entirely myself,” he said. “If you mean I haven’t been in a very good mood, that I could see.”
“Even Tibor is worried, Gregor. And I’m—well, we’ve known each other all our lives. I know what I’m talking about when I say you’re not yourself.”
“I’ve maybe been a little depressed.”
“No, Gregor. After Elizabeth died, you were depressed. You didn’t sleep. You didn’t eat. You didn’t respond to people when they talked to you. I was like that after Frank died. I know what that is. And that sort of thing is inevitable, I think. It is to be expected. But this is not that. It’s nothing like that.”
“No, it’s not the way I was feeling after Elizabeth died,” Gregor said.
“It makes no sense for you to be arguing with Tibor about God,” Lida said. “We know you’re not a believer. And those of us who didn’t know have guessed, I’m sure. But you seem to be arguing about—about the possibility—”
“About the logic of it,” Gregor said. “That’s all. I don’t see the logic of it. But I wasn’t trying to get Tibor to stop believing, or anything like that.”
“You couldn’t get Tibor to stop believing, or any of the rest of us. What you’re saying is entirely senseless to anybody who does believe. But I do not think it is a good sign for you.”
“I’m fine,” Gregor said. “I really am. And I can’t believe you stayed up all night to do this. Which doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it.”
“That is all right, Gregor. And part of me understands it, too. It’s all going now. The old neighborhood. It’s disappearing into dust.”
“You might say the old neighborhood went a long time ago,” Gregor said. “You remember what this street was like when we were growing up. There weren’t any town houses. There weren’t any floor-through apartments. The buildings were here, but they were run down, there wasn’t much heat, the apartments were small and everybody was crowded. And nobody had a three-quarter-length chinchilla coat.”
“The people were here,” Lida said. “Now the people are going. And I’m not saying that they’re going because they’re dying, like old George. None of us has children living on Cavanaugh Street except the Ohanians, and they won’t stay after they’ve finished college. Donna and Russ are thinking of moving out, did you hear that?”
“Bennis said something about it to me,” Gregor said. “But it’s not like they’re going next week. They’re mostly worried about what happens when Tommy gets ready for junior high school.”
“And they have to worry,” Lida said. “The schools are bad here, and the private schools are expensive. Were the schools as bad when we were in school, Gregor?”
“They were bad relative to the better neighborhoods of Philadelphia, yes,” Gregor said. “But it was a different era, with different priorities.”
“I don’t think it’s about death and dying, the things that are wrong. Going wrong. I don’t know what I’m saying. But I’m not like you. I grew up here, and I never wanted to leave here. I still don’t want to leave here. I suppose I’m being ridiculous.”