“That’s it?” Seymour asks, looking at the items spread on the kitchen table. He took the news of Sofar’s death as he takes all bad news, with stoic resignation. There’s nothing to be done.
“That’s it,” Morris says, standing opposite him.
Laid out before them are twelve one-hundred dollar bills and four unused tickets to a 1983 performance of the musical Cats. All that was in the envelope for Morris.
“What kind of suicide note is that?” Seymour says, frustrated.
“I don’t think it’s a suicide note.”
“It’s a suicide note,” Seymour says. “Of some kind.” Pausing a moment, he says, “Sofar got the tickets for us, wanted to take us out, his treat.”
“Back in August of 1983?” Morris asks, picking up one of the tickets. “Who was the fourth one for?”
“Your mom.”
Morris looks to his father to see if he’s joking. He’s not joking. “But,” Morris says, “she was dead by then.”
“That’s why we didn’t go,” he says.
Morris doesn’t understand.
“Your mom wasn’t doing well, was in the hospital,” Seymour says. “Sofar bought the tickets a good eleven months in advance, thinking—” He breaks off, swallows hard. “I don’t know what he was thinking,” he says.
Morris places the ticket next to the other three, aligns them, his fingers lingering. “It was probably his way of giving her something to look forward to,” Morris says. “Giving her a reason to hang on.”
Seymour keeps his head down, closes his eyes. “And the money?” he asks. “Why leave you the money?”
“I don’t know,” Morris says. The bills are lined-up like a Sunday morning brunch crowd. “I guess,” he says, “it’s Sofar’s way of giving me something to look forward to.”
Chapter 46