bedtime stories

Before I loved Nicole for The History of Love, I loved her husband Jonathan for his book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Book. Basic premise (taken from book dust cover):

"In a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key...

The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open?

So begins the quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. but will it take him any closer to, or even further away from, his lost father?"

Like History of Love, I've read and reread this book too many times to remember. The writing is so simple but it fills you with this amazingly beautiful ache. Here's my favorite part which makes me tear up every. single. time.

" I cried some more. I wanted to tell her all of the lies that I'd told her. And then I wanted her to tell me that it was OK, because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good. and then I wanted to tell her about the phone. And then I wanted her to tell me that Dad still would have been proud of me.
She said, "Dad called me from the building that day."
I pulled away from her.
"What?"
"He called me from the building."
"On your cell phone?"
She nodded yes, and it was the first time since Dad died that I'd seen her not try to stop her tears. Was she relieved? Was she depressed? Grateful? Exhausted?
"What did he say?"
"He told me he was on the street , that he'd gotten out of the building. He said he was walking home."
"But he wasn't"
"No."
Was I angry? Was I glad?
"He made it up so you wouldn't worry."
"That's right."
Frustrated? Panicky? Optimistic?'
"But he knew you knew."
"He did."
I put my fingers around her neck, where her hair started.
I don't know how late it got.
I probably fell asleep, but I don't remember. I cried so much that everything blurred into everything else. At some point she was carrying to my room. Then I was in bed. She was looking over me. i don't believe In God, but I believe that things are extremely complicated and her looking over me was as complicated as anything could be. but it was also incredibly simple. In my life, she was my mom, and I was her son.
I told her, "It's OK if you fall in love again."
She said, "I won't fall in love again."
I told her, "I want you to."
She kissed me and said, "I'll never fall in love again."
I told her, "You don't have to make it up so I won't worry."
She said, "I love you."
I rolled onto my side and listened her walk back to the sofa.
I heard her crying. I imagined her wet sleeves. Her tired eyes.
I felt in the space between the bed and the wall and found Stuff That Happened to Me. It was compeltely full. I was going to have to start a new volume soon.

...

I grabbed the flashlight from my backpack and aimed it at the book. I saw maps and drawings, pictures from magazines and newspapers and the Internet, pictures I'd taken with Grandpa's camera. The whole world was in there. Finally, I found the pictures of the falling body.
Was it Dad?
Maybe.
Whoever it was, it was somebody.
I ripped the pages out of the book.
I reversed the order, so the last one was the first, and the first was last.
When I flipped through them, it looked like he man was floating up through the sky.
And if I had more pictures, he would've flown through a window back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the whole that the plane was about to come out of.
Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away form him, all the way to Boston.
He would've takent he elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor.
He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop.
Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left.
He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor.
He would've gotten back into bed, the alarm would've run backward, he would've dreamt backward.
Then he would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day.
He would've walked backward to my room, whistling "I am Am the Walrus" backward.
He would've gotten into bed with me.
We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes.
I'd have said "Nothing" backward.
He'd have said "Yeah, buddy?" backward.
I'd have said "Dad?" backward, which would have sounded the same as "Dad" forward.
He would have told me the story of ht eSixth Borough, form the voice in the can at the end to the beginning, from "I love you" to "Once upon a time..."
We would have been safe."