Typical American by Gish Jen

owner. Ralph doubled up his blankets and slept to one side of the bed.
    Helen pulled Theresa into the hall closet. "What should we do?"
    Theresa blinked in the green darkness. What are we doing here among the hangers? she wanted to know; but instead, responded carefully — "Whatever we can" — and when Helen didn't say what that was, thought hard. Her relationship with Helen had always depended on silence. Restraint. Only now did she appreciate how much it depended on sight as well. How else, after all, to know how to read those silences? For instance, this one, now, coalescing in the air like a queer humidity. She considered, trying to ignore the jangling hangers, with their cold, quick touch. Then, experimentally, she said, "You know, I've been thinking of getting married"
    "Really!" said Helen. Her voice burst with surprise. All the same, it was a response; Theresa sensed herself on the right track.
    "Do you think that will make a difference?"
    Helen couldn't help but agree.
    Later, though, Helen clopped down to the basement in wonder. All she'd wanted had been for them to throw up their hands together. At Ralph; at the cold; at the rain. It had been a feeling she'd been after, a convivial solidarity; she'd hoped to murmur to one another, as if sitting at the edge of one of their beds. But instead look what had happened. She gripped her flashlight tightly, fitting her fingers to its ribs, though in fact she didn't need it at all. The basement, it turned out, had a light switch. And what lights! A paradise of bulbs. Flames and rods and tubes and circles, not to say ordinary bulbous bulbs of every size and wattage and color, dangled like fruit from an ecstatic entangle-

    ment of wire vines. Helen was transfixed. There were no shadows in the room. She blinked. What else didn't they know about Pete? Had they in fact known anything at all? And how warm it was here! She could feel the heat of the lights on her face as she continued down. She unbuttoned her coat a little, squinting. Her eyes watered. She shaded them with her hand, turned, glanced back up. Was there a way to shut some of the lights off?
    Just the one switch.
    Down some more. The wooden steps were bouncy, with a loose railing to one side. Careful, the baby. A few steps more. She was relieved to feel the hard concrete floor through her slippers. The boiler was straight ahead, a giant, white, curvaceous beast, with a rough asbestos hide. She circled it, feeling as though she were in a movie. A what — a Western. She tried to focus. Gauges, with spindly needles all at zero. And, on the beast's belly, a door. Bold, she unlatched it. Leapt back. No flames. She leaned in a little, careful. Nothing, just a cavernous bowl. Dark. She clanked the door shut, circled again, more surely this time. On top of the furnace, a pile of paper plates, some with scallop-edged pizza crusts. And attached to a pipe with a bit of shoelace tied to a piece of wire tied to a length of string — a grimy, coffee-splashed booklet, its edges soft with age. In English, naturally: owner's information manual — series zoo
    OIL BOILERS — RETAIN THESE INSTRUCTIONS FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.
    She read.
    Ralph was dreaming hard. He wanted to sit up, but could not sit up. He wanted to move, but could not move. It was as if the gravitational pull of the earth had been multiplied; or as if he lay on the bottom of the ocean, all the massive waves weighing on him. He kicked off his covers. Too warm. Back to sleep. Then, awake. Warm? "Is the heat back on?"

    Helen nodded.
    "Heat" marvelled Ralph. He reached out, questioned the radiator with his hand. "Is Pete back?" "Not yet" said Helen.
    "We have heat" He wiggled his toes. "Heat." A miracle!
    "How did you do it?" Theresa wanted to know.
    Helen haltingly described how big the boiler was, how intimidating. How she found the instruction manual. How complicated it was. How many terms she didn't understand. She savored the details.
    "You fixed it?"
    "Then I