1:31:01
Nothing happens.
1:31:03
I assume no one's there, but
I try again just to make sure.
1:31:07
I wait a little longer, and
just when I'm about to give up,
1:31:11
I hear someone shuffling to the door.
1:31:13
An old woman's voice asks, "Who's there?"
and I say I'm looking for Roger Goodwin.
1:31:21
Is that you, Roger? she says, and then she
undoes about fifteen locks and opens the door...
1:31:29
She has to be at least
eighty, maybe ninety years old,
1:31:33
and the first thing I notice
about her is she's blind.
1:31:39
I knew you'd come. Roger, she says. "I knew you wouldn't forget your Granny
Ethel on Christmas." And then she opens her arms as if she's about to hug me.
1:31:50
I don't have much time
to think, you understand.
1:31:52
I had to say something real fast,
and before I knew what was happening,
1:31:56
I could hear the words coming out of
my mouth. "That's right, Granny Ethel,"
1:32:00
I said. "I came back to
see you on Christmas."
1:32:05
Don't ask me why I did
it. I don't have any idea.
1:32:08
It just came out that way, and suddenly
this old woman's hugging me there
1:32:12
in front of the door,
and I'm hugging her back.
1:32:16
It was like a game we both decided to
play... without having to discuss the rules.
1:32:24
I mean, that woman knew
I wasn't her grandson.
1:32:27
She was old and dotty, but she wasn't so far gone that she couldn't
tell the difference between a stranger and her own flesh and blood.
1:32:35
But it made her happy to pretend, and since I had nothing
better to do anyway, I was happy to go along with her...
1:32:44
So we went into the apartment
and spent the day together.
1:32:46
Every time she asked me a question
about how I was, I would lie to her.
1:32:50
I told her I'd found a
good job in a cigar store.
1:32:53
I told her I was about to get married.
1:32:54
I told her a hundred pretty stories, and
she made like she believed every one of them.
1:32:58
That's fine, Roger, she would
say, nodding her head and smiling.