Chapter One
Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy,the trees calligraphic. Exhaust from the dryer billows clumsily out from thehouse and up, breaking apart while tumbling into the white sky.
The house is a factory.
I put my pants back on and go back to my mother. I walk down the hall, past thelaundry room, and into the family room. I close the door behind me, muffling therumbling of the small shoes in the dryer, Toph's.
"Where were you?" my mother says.
"In the bathroom," I say.
"Hmph," she says.
"What?"
"For fifteen minutes?"
"It wasn't that long."
"It was longer. Was something broken?"
"No."
"Did you fall in?"
"No."
"Were you playing with yourself?"
"I was cutting my hair."
"You were contemplating your navel."
"Right. Whatever."
"Did you clean up?"
"Yeah."
I had not cleaned up, had actually left hair everywhere, twisted brown doodlesdrawn in the sink, but knew that my mother would not find out. She could not getup to check.
My mother is on the couch. At this point, she does not move from the couch.There was a time, until a few months ago, when she was still up and about,walking and driving, running errands. After that there was a period when shespent most of her time in her chair, the one next to the couch, occasionallydoing things, going out, whatnot. Finally she moved to the couch, but even then,for a while at least, while spending most of her time on the couch, every nightat 11 p.m. or so, she had made a point of making her way up the stairs, in herbare feet, still tanned brown in November, slow and careful on the green carpet,to my sister's old bedroom. She had been sleeping there for years — the roomwas pink, and clean, and the bed had a canopy, and long ago she resolved thatshe could no longer sleep with my father's coughing.
But the last time she went upstairs was weeks ago. Now she is on the couch, notmoving from the couch, reclining on the couch during the day and sleeping thereat night, in her nightgown, with the TV on until dawn, a comforter over her, toeto neck. People know.
While reclining on the couch most of the day and night, on her back, my momturns her head to watch television and turns it back to spit up green fluid intoa plastic receptacle. The plastic receptacle is new. For many weeks she had beenspitting the green fluid into a towel, not the same towel, but a rotation oftowels, one of which she would keep on her chest. But the towel on her chest, mysister Beth and I found after a short while, was not such a good place to spitthe green fluid, because, as it turned out, the green fluid smelled awful, muchmore pungent an aroma than one might expect. (One expects some sort of odor,sure, but this.) And so the green fluid could not be left there,festering and then petrifying on the terry-cloth towels. (Because the greenfluid hardened to a crust on the terry-cloth towels, they were almost impossibleto clean. So the green-fluid towels were one-use only, and even if you usedevery corner of the towels, folding and turning, turning and folding, they wouldonly last a few days each, and the supply was running short, even after weplundered the bathrooms, closets, the garage.) So finally Beth procured, and ourmother began to spit the green fluid into, a small plastic container whichlooked makeshift, like a piece of an air-conditioning unit, but had beenprovided by the hospital and was as far as we knew designed for people who do alot of spitting up of green fluid. It's a molded plastic receptacle,cream-colored, in the shape of a half-moon, which can be kept handy and spitinto. It can be cupped around the mouth of a reclining person, just under thechin, in a way that allows the depositor of green bodily fluids to either raiseone's head to spit directly into it, or to simply let the fluid dribble down,over his or her chin, and then into the receptacle waiting below. It was a greatfind, the half-moon plastic receptacle.
"That thing is handy, huh?" I ask my mother, walking past her, toward thekitchen.
"Yeah, it's the cat's meow," she says.
I get a popsicle from the refrigerator and come back to the family room.
They took my mother's stomach out about six months ago. At that point, therewasn't a lot left to remove — they had already taken out [I would use themedical terms here if I knew them] the rest of it about a year before. Then theytied the [something] to the [something], hoped that they had removed theoffending portion, and set her on a schedule of chemotherapy. But of course theydidn't get it all. They had left some of it and it had grown, it had come back,it had laid eggs, was stowed away, was stuck to the side of the spaceship. Shehad seemed good for a while, had done the chemo, had gotten the wigs, and thenher hair had grown back — darker, more brittle. But six months later she beganto have pain again — Was it indigestion? It could just be indigestion,of course, the burping and the pain, the leaning over the kitchen table atdinner; people have indigestion; people take Tums; Hey Mom, should I get someTums? — but when she went in again, and they had "opened her up" — aphrase they used — and had looked inside, it was staring out at them, at thedoctors, like a thousand writhing worms under a rock, swarming, shimmering, wetand oily — Good God! — or maybe not like worms but like a millionlittle podules, each a tiny city of cancer, each with an unruly, sprawling,environmentally careless citizenry with no zoning laws whatsoever. When thedoctor opened her up, and there was suddenly light thrown upon the world ofcancer-podules, they were annoyed by the disturbance, and defiant. Turn off.The fucking. Light. They glared at the doctor, each podule, though a cityunto itself, having one single eye, one blind evil eye in the middle, whichstared imperiously, as only a blind eye can do, out at the doctor. Go. The.Fuck. Away. The doctors did what they could, took the whole stomach out,connected what was left, this part to that, and sewed her back up, leaving thecity as is, the colonists to their manifest destiny, their fossil fuels, theirstrip malls and suburban sprawl, and replaced the stomach with a tube and aportable external IV bag. It's kind of cute, the IV bag. She used to carry itwith her, in a gray backpack — it's futuristic-looking, like a synthetic icepack crossed with those liquid food pouches engineered for space travel. We havea name for it. We call it "the bag."
My mother and I are watching TV. It's the show where young amateur athletes withday jobs in marketing and engineering compete in sports of strength and agilityagainst male and female bodybuilders. The bodybuilders are mostly blond and areimpeccably tanned. They look great. They have names that sound fast andindomitable, names like American cars and electronics, like Firestar and Mercuryand Zenith. It is a great show.
"What is this?" she asks, leaning toward the TV. Her eyes, once small, sharp,intimidating, are now dull, yellow, droopy, strained — the spitting gives thema look of constant exasperation.
"The fighting show thing," I say.
"Hmm," she says, then turns, lifts her head to spit.
"Is it still bleeding?" I ask, sucking on my popsicle.
"Yeah."
We are having a nosebleed. While I was in the bathroom, she was holding thenose, but she can't hold it tight enough, so now I relieve her, pinching hernostrils with my free hand. Her skin is oily, smooth.
"Hold it tighter," she says.
"Okay," I say, and hold it tighter. Her skin is hot.
Toph's shoes continue to rumble.
A month ago Beth was awake early; she cannot remember why. She walked down thestairs, shushing the green carpet, down to the foyer's black slate floor. Thefront door was open, with only the screen door closed. It was fall, and cold,and so with two hands she closed the large wooden door, click, and turned towardthe kitchen. She walked down the hall and into the kitchen, frost spiderwebbedon the corners of its sliding glass door, frost on the bare trees in thebackyard. She opened the refrigerator and looked inside. Milk, fruit, IV bagsdated for proper use. She closed the refrigerator. She walked from the kitcheninto the family room, where the curtains surrounding the large front window wereopen, and the light outside was white. The window was a bright silver screen,lit from behind. She squinted until her eyes adjusted. As her eyes focused, inthe middle of the screen, at the end of the driveway, was my father, kneeling.
It's not that our family has no taste, it's just that our family's taste isinconsistent. The wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom, though it came with thehouse, is the house's most telling decorative statement, featuring a pattern offifteen or so slogans and expressions popular at the time of its installation.Right On, Neat-O, Outta Sight! — arranged so they unite and abut inintriguing combinations. That-A-Way meets Way Out so that the A inThat-A-Way creates A Way Out. The words are hand-rendered instylized block letters, red and black against white. It could not be uglier, andyet the wallpaper is a novelty that visitors appreciate, evidence of a familywith no pressing interest in addressing obvious problems of decor, and alsoproof of a happy time, an exuberant, fanciful time in American history thatspawned exuberant and fanciful wallpaper.
The living room is kind of classy, actually — clean, neat, full of heirloomsand antiques, an oriental rug covering the center of the hardwood floor. But thefamily room, the only room where any of us has ever spent any time, has alwaysbeen, for better or for worse, the ultimate reflection of our true inclinations.It's always been jumbled, the furniture competing, with clenched teeth and sharpelbows, for the honor of the Most Wrong-looking Object. For twelve years, thedominant chairs were blood orange. The couch of our youth, that which interactedwith the orange chairs and white shag carpet, was plaid — green, brown andwhite. The family room has always had the look of a ship's cabin, wood paneled,with six heavy wooden beams holding, or pretending to hold, the ceiling above.The family room is dark and, save for a general sort of decaying of itsfurniture and walls, has not changed much in the twenty years we've lived here.The furniture is overwhelmingly brown and squat, like the furniture of a familyof bears. There is our latest couch, my father's, long and covered withsomething like tan-colored velour, and there is the chair next to the couch,which five years ago replaced the bloodoranges, a sofa-chair of brownish plaid,my mother's. In front of the couch is a coffee table made from a cross sectionof a tree, cut in such a way that the bark is still there, albeit heavilylacquered. We brought it back, many years ago, from California and it, like mostof the house's furniture, is evidence of an empathetic sort of decoratingphilosophy — for aesthetically disenfranchised furnishings we are like thefamilies that adopt troubled children and refugees from around the world — wesee beauty within and cannot say no.
One wall of the family room was and is dominated by a brick fireplace. Thefireplace has a small recessed area that was built to facilitate indoorbarbecuing, though we never put it to use, chiefly because when we moved in, wewere told that raccoons lived somewhere high in the chimney. So for many yearsthe recessed area sat dormant, until the day, about four years ago, that ourfather, possessed by the same odd sort of inspiration that had led him for manyyears to decorate the lamp next to the couch with rubber spiders and snakes, puta fish tank inside. The fish tank, its size chosen by a wild guess, ended upfitting perfectly.
"Hey hey!" he had said when he installed it, sliding it right in, with nomore than a centimeter of give on either side. "Hey hey!" was somethinghe said, and to our ears it sounded a little too Fonzie, coming as it did from agray-haired lawyer wearing madras pants. "Hey hey!" he would say aftersuch miracles, which were dizzying in their quantity and wonderment — inaddition to the Miracle of the Fish-tank Fitting, there was, for example, theMiracle of Getting the TV Wired Through the Stereo for True Stereo Sound, not tomention the Miracle of Running the Nintendo Wires Under the Wall-to-WallCarpet So as Not to Have the Baby Tripping Over Them All the Time Goddammit. (Hewas addicted to Nintendo.) To bring attention to each marvel, he would standbefore whoever happened to be in the room and, while grinning wildly, grip hishands together in triumph, over one shoulder and then the other, like the CubScout who won the Pinewood Derby. Sometimes, for modesty's sake, he would do itwith his eyes closed and his head tilted. Did I do that?
"Loser," we would say.
"Aw, screw you," he would say, and go make himself a Bloody Mary.
The ceiling in one corner of the living room is stained in concentric circles ofyellow and brown, a souvenir from heavy rains the spring before. The door to thefoyer hangs by one of its three hinges. The carpet, off-white wall-to-wall, isworn to its core and has not been vacuumed in months. The screen windows arestill up — my father tried to take them down but could not this year. Thefamily room's front window faces east, and because the house sits beneath anumber of large elms, it receives little light. The light in the family room isnot significantly different in the day and the night. The family room is usuallydark.
I am home from college for Christmas break. Our older brother, Bill, just wentback to D.C., where he works for the Heritage Foundation — something to do witheastern European economics, privatization, conversion. My sister is home becauseshe has been home all year — she deferred law school to be here for the fun.When I come home, Beth goes out.
"Where are you going?" I usually say.
"Out," she usually says.
I am holding the nose. As the nose bleeds and we try to stop it, we watch TV. Onthe TV an accountant from Denver is trying to climb up a wall before abodybuilder named Striker catches him and pulls him off the wall. The othersegments of the show can be tense — there is an obstacle course segment, wherethe contestants are racing against each other and also the clock, and anothersegment where they hit each other with sponge-ended paddles, both of which canbe extremely exciting, especially if the contest is a close one, evenly matchedand with much at stake — but this part, with the wall climbing, is toodisturbing. The idea of the accountant being chased while climbing a wall...noone wants to be chased while climbing a wall, chased by anything, by people,hands grabbing at their ankles as they reach for the bell at the top. Strikerwants to grab and pull the accountant down — he lunges every so often at theaccountant's legs — all he needs is a good grip, a lunge and a grip and a goodyank — and if Striker and his hands do that before the accountant gets to ringthe bell...it's a horrible part of the show. The accountant climbs quickly,feverishly, nailing foothold after foothold, and for a second it looks likehe'll make it, because Striker is so far below, two people-lengths easily, butthen the accountant pauses. He cannot see his next move. The next grip is toofar to reach from where he is. So then he actually backs up, goes down anotch to set out on a different path and when he steps down it is unbearable,the suspense. The accountant steps down and then starts up the left side of thewall, but suddenly Striker is there, out of nowhere — he wasn't even in thescreen! — and he has the accountant's leg, at the calf, and he yanks andit's over. The accountant flies from the wall (attached by rope of course) anddescends slowly to the floor. It's terrible. I won't watch this show again.
Mom prefers the show where three young women sit on a pastel-colored couch andrecount blind dates that they have all enjoyed or suffered through with the sameman. For months, Beth and Mom have watched the show, every night. Sometimes theshow's participants have had sex with one another, but use funny words todescribe it. And there is the funny host with the big nose and the black curlyhair. He is a funny man, and has fun with the show, keeps everything buoyant. Atthe end the show, the bachelor picks one of the three with whom he wants to goon another date. The host then does something pretty incredible: even thoughhe's already paid for the three dates previously described, and even though hehas nothing to gain from doing anything more, he still gives the bachelorand bachelorette money for their next date.
Mom watches it every night; it's the only thing she can watch without fallingasleep, which she does a lot, dozing on and off during the day. But she does notsleep at night.
"Of course you sleep at night," I say.
"I don't," she says.
"Everyone sleeps at night," I say — this is an issue with me — "even if itdoesn't feel like it. The night is way, way too long to stay awake the whole waythrough. I mean, there have been times when I was pretty sure I had stayed upall night, like when I was sure the vampires from Salem's Lot — do youremember that one, with David Soul and everything? With the people impaled onthe antlers? I was afraid to sleep, so I would stay up all night, watching thatlittle portable TV on my stomach, the whole night, afraid to drift off, becauseI was sure they'd be waiting for just that moment, just when I fell asleep, tocome and float up to my window, or down the hall, and bite me, all slow-like..."
She spits into her half-moon and looks at me.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
In the fireplace, the fish tank is still there, but the fish, four or five ofthose bug-eyed goldfish with elephantiasis, died weeks ago. The water, still litfrom above by the purplish aquarium light, is gray with mold and fish feces,hazy like a shaken snow globe. I am wondering about something. I am wonderingwhat the water would taste like. Like a nutritional shake? Like sewage? I thinkof asking my mother: What do you think that would taste like? But shewill not find the question amusing. She will not answer.
"Would you check it?" she says, referring to her nose.
I let go of her nostrils. Nothing.
I watch the nose. She is still tan from the summer. Her skin is smooth, brown.
Then it comes, the blood, first in a tiny rivulet, followed by a thick eel,venturing out, slowly. I get a towel and dab it away.
"It's still coming," I say.
Her white blood cell count has been low. Her blood cannot clot properly, thedoctor had said the last time this had happened, so, he said, we can have nobleeding. Any bleeding could be the end, he said. Yes, we said. We were notworried. There seemed to be precious few opportunities to draw blood, with herliving, as she did, on the couch. I'll keep sharp objects out ofproximity, I had joked to the doctor. The doctor did not chuckle. I wonderedif he had heard me. I considered repeating it, but then figured that he hadprobably heard me but had not found it funny. But maybe he didn't hear me. Ithought briefly, then, about supplementing the joke somehow, pushing it over thetop, so to speak, with the second joke bringing the first one up and creating asort of one-two punch. No more knife fights, I might say. No moreknife throwing, I might say, heh heh. But this doctor does not joke much.Some of the nurses do. It is our job to joke with the doctors and nurses. It isour job to listen to the doctors, and after listening to the doctors, Bethusually asks the doctors specific questions — How often will she have totake that? Can't we just add that to the mix in the IV? — and then wesometimes add some levity with a witty aside. From books and television I knowto do this. One should joke in the face of adversity; there is always humor, weare told. But in the last few weeks, we haven't found much. We have been lookingfor funny things, but have found very little.
"I can't get the game to work," says Toph, who has appeared from the basement.Christmas was a week ago, and we got him a bunch of new games for the Sega.
"What?"
"I can't get the game to work."
"Is it turned on?"
"Yes."
"Is the cartridge plugged all the way in?"
"Yes."
"Turn it off and on again."
"Okay," he says, and goes back downstairs.
...
Through the family room window, in the middle of the white-silver screen, myfather was in his suit, a gray suit, dressed for work. Beth paused in theentrance between the kitchen and the family room and watched. The trees in theyard across the street were huge, gray-trunked, high-limbed, the short grass onthe lawn yellowed, spotted with fall leaves. He did not move. His suit, evenwith him kneeling, leaning forward, was loose on his shoulders and back. He hadlost so much weight. A car went by, a gray blur. She waited for him to get up.
You should see the area where her stomach was. It's grown like a pumpkin. Round,bloated. It's odd — they removed the stomach, and some of the surrounding areaif I remember correctly, but even with the removal of so much thereabouts, shelooks pregnant. You can see it, the bulge, even under the blanket. I'm assumingit's the cancer, but I haven't asked my mother, or Beth. Was it the bloating ofthe starving child? I don't know. I don't ask questions. Before, when I saidthat I asked questions, I lied.
The nose has at this point been bleeding for about ten minutes. She had had onenosebleed before, two weeks ago maybe, and Beth could not make it stop, so sheand Beth had gone to the emergency room. The hospital people had kept her fortwo days. Her oncologist, who sometimes we liked and sometimes we did not, cameand visited and glanced at stainless steel charts and chatted on the side of thebed — he has been her oncologist for many years. They gave her new blood andhad monitored her white blood cell count. They had wanted to keep her longer,but she had insisted on going home; she was terrified of being in there, wasfinished with hospitals, did not want —
She had come out feeling defeated, stripped, and now, safely at home, she didnot want to go back. She had made me and Beth promise that she would never haveto go back. We had promised.
"Okay," we said.
"I'm serious," she said.
"Okay," we said.
I push her forehead as far back as possible. The arm of the couch is soft andpliable.
She spits. She is used to the spitting, but still makes strained, soft vomitingnoises.
"Does it hurt?" I ask.
"Does what hurt?"
"The spitting."
"No, it feels good, stupid."
"Sorry."
A family walks by outside, two parents, a small child in snowpants and a parka,a stroller. They do not look through our window. It is hard to tell if theyknow. They might know but are being polite. People know.
My mother likes to have the curtains open so she can see the yard and thestreet. During the day it is often very bright outside, and though thebrightness is visible from inside the family room, somehow the light does nottravel effectively into the family room, in terms of bringing to the family roomany noticeable illumination. I am not a proponent of the curtains being open.
Some people know. Of course they know.
People know.
Everyone knows.
Everyone is talking. Waiting.
I have plans for them, the nosy, the inquisitive, the pitying, have developedelaborate fantasies for those who would see us as grotesque, pathetic, oursituation gossip fodder. I picture strangulations — Tsk tsk, I hearshe's-GURGLE! — neck-breakings — what will happen to that poor littlebo-CRACK! — I picture kicking bodies as they lie curled on the ground,spitting blood as they — Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ, I'm sorry, I'msorry! — beg for mercy. I lift them over my head and then bring them down,break them over my knee, their spines like dowels of balsa. Can't you see it? Ipush offenders into giant vats of acid and watch them struggle, scream as theacid burns, breaks them apart. My hands fly into them, breaking their skin — Ipull out hearts and intestines and toss them aside. I do head-crushings,beheadings, some work with baseball bats — the variety and degree of punishmentdepending on the offender and the offense. Those whom I don't like or my motherdoesn't like in the first place get the worst — usually long, drawn-outstrangulations, faces of red then purple then mauve. Those I barely know, likethe family that just walked by, are spared the worst — nothing personal. I'llrun them over with my car.
We are both distantly worried about the bleeding nose, my mother and I, but arefor the time being working under the assumption that the nose will stopbleeding. While I hold her nose she holds the half-moon receptacle as it restson the upper portion of her chest, under her chin.
Just then I have a great idea. I try to get her to talk funny, the way peopletalk when their nose is being held.
"Please?" I say.
"No," she says.
"C'mon."
"Cut it out."
"What?"
My mother's hands are veiny and strong. Her neck has veins. Her back hasfreckles. She used to do a trick where it looked like she would be pulling offher thumb, when in fact she was not. Do you know this trick? Part of one's rightthumb is made to look like part of one's left hand, and then is slid up and downthe index finger of the left finger — attached, then detached. It's anunsettling trick, and more so when my mother used to do it, because she did itin a way where her hands sort of shook, vibrated, her neck's veins protrudingand taut, her face gripped with the strain plausibly attendant to pulling offone's finger. As children, we watched with both glee and terror. We knew it wasnot real, we had seen it dozens of times, but its power was never diminished,because my mother's was a uniquely physical presence — she was all skin andmuscles. We would make her do the trick for our friends, who were also horrifiedand enthralled. But kids loved her. Everyone knew her from school — shedirected the plays in grade school, would take in kids who were going throughdivorces, knew and loved and was not shy about hugging any of them, especiallythe shy ones — there was an effortless kind of understanding, an utter lack ofdoubt about what she was doing that put people at ease, so unlike some of themothers, so brittle and unsure. Of course, if she didn't like someone, that kidknew it. Like Dean Baldwin, the beefy, dirty-blond boy up the block, who wouldstand in the street and, unprovoked, give her the finger as she drove by. "Badkid," she would say, and she meant it — she had an inner hardness that under nocircumstances did you want to trifle with — and would have him struck from herlist until the second he might say sorry (Dean unfortunately did not), at whichtime he would have gotten a hug like anyone else. As strong as she wasphysically, most of the power was in her eyes, small and blue, and when shesquinted, she would squint with a murderous intensity that meant, unmistakably,that, if pushed, she would deliver on her stare's implied threat, that toprotect what she cared about, she would not stop, that she would run right overyou. But she wore her strength casually, had a trusting carelessness with herflesh and muscles. She would cut herself while slicing vegetables, cut theliving shit out of her finger, usually her thumb, and it would bleed everywhere,on the tomatoes, the cutting board, in the sink, while we watched at her waist,awed, scared she would die. But she would just grimace, wash the thumb cleanunder the tap, wrap the thumb in a paper towel and keep cutting, while the bloodslowly soaked through the paper towel, crawling, as blood crawls, outward fromthe wound's wet center.
Beside the TV there are various pictures of us children, including one featuringme, Bill, and Beth, all under seven, in an orange dinghy, all expressionspanicked. In the picture, we seem surrounded by water, for all anyone knows,miles from shore — our expressions certainly indicate that. But of course wecouldn't have been more than ten feet out, our mother standing over us,ankle-deep, in her brown one-piece with the white fringe, taking the picture. Itis the picture we know best, the one we have seen every day, and its colors —the blue of Lake Michigan, the orange of the dinghy, our tan skin and blond hair-- are the colors we associate with our childhoods. In the picture we are allholding the side of the little boat, wanting out, wanting our mother to lift usout, before the thing would sink or drift away.
"How's school?" she asks.
"Fine."
I don't tell her I've been dropping classes.
"How's Kirsten?"
"She's good."
"I always liked her. Nice girl. Spunky."
When I rest my head on the couch I know that it's coming, coming like somethingin the mail, something sent away for. We know it is coming, but are not surewhen — weeks? months? She is fifty-one. I am twenty-one. My sister istwenty-three. My brothers are twenty-four and seven.
We are ready. We are not ready. People know.
Our house sits on a sinkhole. Our house is the one being swept up in thetornado, the little train-set model house floating helplessly, patheticallyaround in the howling black funnel. We're weak and tiny. We're Grenada. Thereare men parachuting from the sky.
We are waiting for everything to finally stop working — the organs and systems,one by one, throwing up their hands — The jig is up, says the endocrine;I did what I could, says the stomach, or what's left of it; We'll getem next time, adds the heart, with a friendly punch to the shoulder.
After half an hour I remove the towel, and for a moment the blood does not come.
"I think we got it," I say.
"Really?" she says, looking up at me.
"Nothing's coming," I say.
I notice the size of her pores, large, especially those on her nose. Her skinhas been leathery for years, tanned to permanence, not in an unflattering way,but in a way interesting considering her Irish background, the fact that shemust have grown up fair —
It begins to come again, the blood thick and slow at first, dotted with theblack remnants of scabs, then thinner, a lighter red. I squeeze again.
"Too hard," she says. "That hurts."
"Sorry," I say.
"I'm hungry," says a voice. Toph. He is standing behind me, next to the couch.
"What?" I say.
"I'm hungry."
"I can't feed you now. Have something from the fridge."
"Like what?"
"I don't care, anything."
"Like what?"
"I don't know."
"What do we have?"
"Why don't you look? You're seven, you're perfectly capable of looking."
"We don't have anything good."
"Then don't eat."
"But I'm hungry."
"Then eat something."
"But what?"
"Jesus, Toph, just have an apple."
"I don't want an apple."
"C'mere, sweetie," says Mom.
"We'll get some food later," I say.
"Come to Mommy."
"What kind of food?"
"Go downstairs, Topher."
Toph goes back downstairs.
"He's scared of me," she says.
"He's not scared of you."
In a few minutes, I lift the towel to see the nose. The nose is turning purple.The blood is not thickening. The blood is still thin and red.
"It's not clotting," I say.
"I know."
"What do you want to do?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean, nothing?"
"It'll stop."
"It's not stopping."
"Wait awhile."
"We've been waiting awhile."
"Wait more."
"I think we should do something."
"Wait."
"When's Beth coming back?"
"I don't know."
"We should do something."
"Fine. Call the nurse."
I call the nurse we call when we have questions. We call her when the IV isn'tdripping properly, or when there's a bubble in the tube, or when bruises thesize of dinner plates appear on our mother's back. For the nose the nursesuggests pressure, and keeping her head back. I tell her that I have been doingjust that, and that it has not yet worked. She suggests ice. I say thank you andhang up and go to the kitchen and wrap three cubes of ice in a paper towel. Ibring them back and apply them to the bridge of her nose.
"Ah!" she says.
"Sorry," I say.
"It's cold."
"It's ice."
"I know it's ice."
"Well, ice is cold."
I still have to apply pressure to the nose, so with my left hand I applypressure, and with my right I hold the ice to the bridge of her nose. It'sawkward, and I can't do both things while sitting on the arm of the couch andstill be in a position to see the television. I try kneeling on the floor nextto the couch. I reach over the arm of the couch to apply the ice with one hand,and pressure with the other. This works fine, but after a short while my neckgets sore, having to turn ninety degrees to see the screen. It's all wrong.
I have an inspiration. I climb onto the top of the couch, above the cushions, ontop of the back of the couch. I stretch out on the top, the cushions shhhing asI settle my weight upon them. I reach down so my head and arms are both aimingin the same direction, with my arms just reaching her nose and my head restingcomfortably on the top of the couch, with a nice view of the set. Perfect. Shelooks up at me and rolls her eyes. I give her a thumbs up. Then she spits greenfluid into the half-moon receptacle.
My father had not moved. Beth stood in the entranceway to the family room andwaited. He was about ten feet from the street. He was kneeling, but with hishands on the ground, fingers extended down, like roots from a riverbed tree. Hewas not praying. His head tilted back for a moment as he looked up, not to thesky, but to the trees in the neighbor's backyard. He was still on his knees. Hehad gone to get the newspaper.
The half-moon container is full. There are now three colors in the half-mooncontainer — green, red, and black. The blood, which is coming through her nose,is also coming through her mouth. I study the container, noting the way thethree fluids do not mix, the green fluid being more viscous, the blood, thisblood so thin, just swishing around on top. There is some black liquid in thecorner. Maybe that is bile.
"What's the black stuff?" I ask, pointing to it from my perch above her.
"That's probably bile," she says.
A car pulls into the driveway and into the garage. The door connecting thegarage to the laundry room opens and closes and then the door to the bathroomopens and closes. Beth is home.
Beth has been working out. Beth likes it when I am home from college for theweekends because then she can work out. She needs her workouts, she says. Toph'sshoes continue to rumble. Beth comes into the room. She is wearing a sweatshirtand spandex leggings. Her hair is up though it's usually down.
"Hi," I say.
"Hi," Beth says.
"Hi," Mom says.
"What are you doing on top of the couch?" Beth asks.
"It's easier this way."
"What is?"
"Nosebleed," I say.
"Shit. How long?"
"Forty minutes maybe."
"Did you call the nurse?"
"Yeah, she said to put ice on."
"That didn't work last time."
"You tried ice before?"
"Of course."
"You didn't tell me that, Mom."
"Mom?"
"I'm not going back in."
My father, a man of minor miracles, had done something pretty incredible. Thisis what he did: six months or so ago, he had sat us down, Beth and I — notBill, Bill was in D.C., and not Toph, who for reasons that are obvious enoughwas not invited — in the family room. Our mother was not there for some reason,I can't remember exactly where she was — but so we were there, sitting as faraway as possible from the customary cloud of smoke around him and his cigarette.The conversation, if it had followed the standard procedure for such things,would have included warm-up talk, some talk of things generally, and how what hewas about to say was very difficult, etcetera, but we were just settling in,kind of well obviously not expecting —
"Your mother's going to die."
...
I have Beth take my place, holding the ice and squeezing the nose. Eschewing myinnovation, she sits on the arm of the couch instead of on the top of the couch.The towel is soaked. The blood is warm and wet against my palm. I go to thelaundry room and toss the towel into the washbasin, where it lands with a slap.I shake the cramps out of my hands and get another towel, and Toph's shoes, outof the dryer. I give the towel to Beth.
I go downstairs to check on Toph. I sit on the stairs, which afford a view ofthe basement, a rec room converted into a bedroom and then converted again intoa rec room.
"Hi," I say.
"Hi," Toph says.
"How's it going?"
"Fine."
"Are you still hungry?"
"What?"
"Are you still hungry?"
"What?"
"Pause the stupid game."
"Okay."
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Are you listening?"
"Yes."
"Do you still want food?"
"Yeah."
"We'll get some pizza in a while."
"Okay."
"Here's your shoes."
"Are they dry?"
"Yeah."
I go back upstairs.
"We need to empty this," Beth says, indicating the half-moon receptacle.
"Why me?"
"Why not you?"
I slowly lift the half-moon receptacle over Mom's head and walk it to thekitchen. It is full to the brim. It is swishing forward and back. Halfway intothe kitchen I spill most of it down my leg, immediately wondering how acidic thecontents of the half-moon receptacle are, with the bile and all. Will thefluid burn through my pants? I stand still and watch to see if it burnsthrough, like acid, expecting to see smoke, a gradually growing hole — ashappens when one spills alien blood.
But it does not burn. I decide to change my pants anyway.
Beth holds the nose for a while. She sits on the arm of the couch, next to Mom'shead. From the kitchen, I turn up the volume on the TV. It's been an hour.
With the nose still bleeding, Beth meets me in the kitchen.
"What are we going to do?" she whispers.
"We have to go in, right?"
"We can't."
"Why?"
"We promised."
"Oh c'mon."
"What?"
"This can't be it."
"It could be it."
"I know it could be it, but it shouldn't be it."
"She wants it to be it."
"No, she doesn't."
"I think she does."
"No she doesn't."
"She said so."
"She didn't mean it."
"I think she might."
"No way. That's ridiculous."
"Did you hear her?"
"No, but even so."
"What do you think?"
"I think she's scared."
"Yeah."
"And I think she's not ready. I mean, are you ready?"
"No, of course not. You?"
"No. No, no."
Beth goes back to the family room. I wash out the half-moon receptacle, my headstruggling with the logistics. So. Okay. At this rate, with the blood coming outslowly but continuously, how long would it actually take? A day? No, no, less —it's not all the blood, well before all the blood was gone it would be —We wouldn't actually be waiting for all the blood to drain; rather, after awhile, things would break down, would — Jesus, how much blood? A gallon?Less? We could find out. We could call the nurse again. No, no, we can't. If weask someone they'll make us bring her in. And if they knew we needed to bringher in, and we didn't bring her in, we'd be murderers. We could call theemergency room, ask hypothetically: "Hi, I'm doing a report for school aboutslow blood leakage and..." Fuck. Would we have enough towels? God no. We coulduse sheets, we have plenty of sheets — It might be only a few hours. Would thatbe enough time? What's enough time? We would talk a lot. Yes. We would sum up.Would we be serious, sober, or funny? We would be serious for a few minutes —Okay okay okay okay. Fuck, what if we ran out of things to say and — We'vealready made the necessary arrangements. Yes, yes, we wouldn't need to talkdetails. We'd have Toph come up. Would we have Toph come up? Of course, but...ohhe shouldn't be there, should he? Who wants to be there at the very end? No one,no one. But for her to be alone...of course she won't be alone, you'll be there,Beth'll be there, dumb-ass. Fuck. We'd have to get Bill on the phone. Who else?Which relatives? No grandparents, her parents long gone, in-laws gone, hersister Ruth gone, her sister Ann not dead but gone, out of touch, hiding, thathippie freak — Fuck. Some of those people hadn't called in years. Friends then.Which? The ones from volleyball, from Montessori — Shit, we'll definitelyforget some people...Hell, we'll forget some people, people will understand,they'll have to — Fuck it, we're leaving anyway, we're moving away after allthis, fuck it — A conference call? No, no — tacky. Tacky but practical,definitely practical, and it might also be fun, people chatting, lots of voices,we could use noise and distraction, not quiet, not quiet, quiet not good — neednoise. We'd have to prime them, warn them, but shit, what to say? "Things arehappening quickly" — something like that, vague but clear enough, do itquietly, everything implicit, get on the kitchen extension, out of earshot, saysomething before Mom gets on the phone — That would do the trick, all thepeople on the line at once — I'll have to call the phone company, get some kindof hookup — Are we already signed up for that kind of thing? Call-waiting,sure, but conference calling — probably not, definitely not, fuck — We need aspeakerphone is what we need. That would do it, a speakerphone — I could go getone, I'd have to go all the way up to Kmart, take Dad's car even, faster thanMom's, much faster — Is that a stick? No, no, automatic, I can drive it,haven't driven it before but could drive it, no problem, fast car, open it upthere on the highway — But fuck, it's easily twenty minutes here and back, plusshopping time and what if they didn't have — I could call first, of course I'dcall, dumbshit, ask them if they have the speakerphone...I'd have to know whatkind of phone I've got here, for compatibility, okay, Sony and then — But whythe fuck should I go? Beth's been here all year, had all the extra time,Beth should go, of course Beth, Beth'll go Beth'll go — But she won't think thespeakerphone is necessary, she'll say forget it — Fuck, maybe we should justscrew it — Screw it. Screw it. Screw it. Would the speakerphone really make iteasier? Of course not, we'd still need the conference-call hookup deal — We'llcall Bill and Aunt Jane and the cousins, Susie and Janie, Ruth's daughters.That's it. So the phone call would be twenty minutes maybe, then we'd bring Tophupstairs for a while, a little visit, again, casual, light, fun, loose, loose,fun, light — So twenty minutes or so of Toph upstairs, then — All right, allright, wait: how much time total are we talking? How long for the nose? Twohours maybe, easily more, for sure, could be a day — Jesus, does anyone knowthis? — the conservative estimate would be two hours — Wait. I can stop thenosebleed. I will stop the nosebleed. Yes. I will find a way. More ice.Rearrange her — a reverse incline; gravity, yes. I will hold the nose tighter,tighter this time; I probably wasn't holding tight enough before — Fuck. Whatif it doesn't work? It won't work. We shouldn't spend the last hours fightingit; no, we will know and let it go — turn the TV off right away, of course —But would that be too dramatic? Fuck, we can be dramatic here, we can — Well,we'd ask her, of course, dumbshit, it'd be up to Mom of course, the TV, whetherit was on or off — it's her show of course — that's a dumb way of putting it,"her show," so crass, such disrespect, you fucking dumbshit. Fuck. Okay, so we'dhave some time, we could sit there, hang out, just sit there, it'd be nice —Jesus, it's not going to be nice, not with the blood everywhere — Theblood is going to make it unbearable — But maybe not, it's so slow, the blood-- Oh, it'll be days, days before it drains, enough drains, but maybe that'll begood, natural, a slow draining, like a leeching — not like a leeching,asshole you sick fucking asshole — not a goddamn motherfucking leeching — Would we tell people how it happened? No, no. This would be a "died athome" thing, nice phrase, the phrase they used, come to think of it, for thatone guy from high school who shot himself after graduating, the guy from artclass with those Marty Feldman eyes. Also when that one woman, the one with bonecancer, locked herself in the house and burned it down. That was incredible. Wasit brave, or unhinged? Would that have made it easier, the burning ofeverything? Yes. No. "Died at home." That's how we'll do it, say nothing else.People will know anyway. No one'll say a thing. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.
I pour the contents of the container over the food collected inside thedisposal. I turn on the water, then the disposal, and it grinds everything up. Ican hear Beth in the family room.
"Mom, we should go in."
"No."
"Seriously."
"No."
"We have to."
"We do not."
"What do you want to do?"
"Stay here."
"We can't. You're bleeding."
"You said we would stay here."
"But, Mom. C'mon."
"You promised."
"This is crazy."
"You promised."
"You can't just keep bleeding."
"Call the nurse again."
"We already called the nurse again. The nurse said we had to go in. They'rewaiting for us."
"Call another nurse."
"Mom, please."
"This is stupid."
"Don't call me stupid."
"I didn't call you stupid."
"Who were you calling stupid?"
"No one. I said it was stupid."
"What's stupid?"
"Dying of a bloody nose."
"I'm not going to die of a bloody nose."
"The nurse said you could."
"The doctor said you could."
"If we go in, I'll never leave."
"Yes you will."
"I won't."
"Oh Jesus."
"I don't want to go back in there."
"Don't cry, Mom, Jesus."
"Don't say that."
"Sorry."
"We'll get you out."
"Mom?"
"What!"
"You'll get out."
"You want me in there."
"Oh, God."
"Look at you two, Tweedledum and Tweedledee."
"Huh?"
"You want to go out tonight, that's what it is."
"Jesus."
"It's New Year's Eve. You two have plans!"
"Fine, bleed. Sit there and bleed to death."
"Mom, please?"
"Just bleed. But we don't have enough towels for all the blood. I'll have to getmore towels."
"Mom?"
"And you'll ruin the couch."
"Where's Toph?" she asks.
"Downstairs."
"What's he doing?"
"Playing his game."
"What will he do?"
"He'll have to come with."
At the end of the driveway my father knelt. Beth watched and it was kind ofpretty for a second, him just kneeling there in the gray winter window. Then sheknew. He had been falling. In the kitchen, the shower. She ran and flung openthe door, threw the screen wide and ran to him.
I clear out the backseat of the station wagon and put a blanket down, then put apillow against the side door and lock it. I come back into the living room.
"How am I going to get in the car?" she says.
"I'm gonna carry you," I say.
"You?"
"Yeah."
"Ha!"
We get her jacket. We get another blanket. We get the half-moon receptacle. Weget the IV bag. Another nightgown. Slippers. Some snacks for Toph. Beth putseverything in the car.
I open the basement door.
"Toph, let's go."
"Where?"
"To the hospital."
"Why?"
"For a checkup."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Do I have to go?"
"Yes."
"Why? I can stay with Beth."
"Beth's coming with."
"I can stay alone."
"No, you can't."
"Why?"
"Because you can't."
"But why?"
"Jesus, Toph, get up here!"
"Okay."
I am not sure I can lift her. I don't know how heavy she'll be. She could be ahundred pounds, she could be a hundred and fifty pounds. I open the door to thegarage and come back. I move the table away from the couch. I kneel in front ofher. I put one arm under her legs, and the other behind her back. She has triedto sit up.
"You'll never get up if you're kneeling."
"Okay."
I get off my knees and crouch.
"Put your arm around my neck," I say.
"Be careful," she says.
She puts her arm around my neck. Her hand is hot.
I remember to use my legs. I keep her nightgown between my hand and the back ofher knees. I do not know what her skin there will feel like. I am afraid of whatis under her nightgown — bruises, spots, holes. There are bruises, softspots...where things have rotted through? As I stand up, she reaches her otherarm around to meet the one around my neck, and grabs one hand with the other.She is not as heavy as I thought she would be. She is not as bony as I fearedshe would be. I step around the chair next to the couch. I had once seen themboth, my mother and father, on the couch, both sitting there. I head toward thehallway to the garage. The whites of her eyes are yellow.
"Don't let my head hit."
"I won't."
"Don't."
"I won't."
We pass the first doorway. The wood molding cracks.
"Ow!"
"Sorry."
"Owwwwwooooooh."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry. You okay?"
"Mmmmm."
"Sorry."
The door to the garage is open. The air in the garage is frozen. She pulls herhead in and I clear the doorway. I think of honeymoons, the threshold. She ispregnant. She is a knocked-up bride. The tumor is a balloon. The tumor is afruit, an empty gourd. She is lighter than I thought she would be. I hadexpected the tumor to create more weight. The tumor is large and round. Shewears her pants over it, wore her pants over it, the ones with the elasticwaistband, the last time she wore pants, before the nightgowns. But she islight. The tumor is a light tumor, empty, a balloon. The tumor is rotten fruit,graying at the edges. Or an insects' hive, something festering and black andalive, fuzzy on its sides. Something with eyes. A spider. A tarantula, the legsfanning out, metastasizing. A balloon covered in dirt. The color is the color ofdirt. Or blacker, shinier. Caviar. Like caviar in color and also in the shapeand size of its components. She had had Toph late. She was forty-two then. Shehad prayed in church every day while pregnant. When she was ready, they cut herstomach open to get him but he was fine, perfect.
I step down into the garage and she spits. It is audible, the gurgling sound.She does not have the towel or the half-moon receptacle. The green fluid comesover her chin and lands on her nightgown. A second wave comes but she holds hermouth closed, her cheeks puffed out. There is green fluid on her face.
The car door is open and I aim her head in first. She shrugs her shoulders,tries to make herself smaller for an easier fit. I shuffle my feet, adjust mygrip. I move in slow motion. I am barely moving. She is a vase, a doll. A giantvase. A giant fruit. A prize-winning vegetable. I pass her through the door. Ilean down and place her on the seat. She is suddenly girlish in the nightgown,self-consciously pushing it down to cover her legs. She adjusts the pillowagainst the door, behind her, and slides back into it.
When she is settled she reaches for a towel on the floor of the car and bringsit to her mouth and spits into it and wipes off her chin.
"Thank you," she says.
I close the door and wait in the passenger seat. Beth comes out with Toph, whois in his winter coat and is wearing mittens. Beth opens the station wagon'shatchback and Toph climbs in.
"Hi, sweetie," Mom says, craning her head back, looking up at him.
"Hi," says Toph.
Beth gets in the driver's seat, turns around and claps her hands together.
"Road trip!"
You should have seen my father's service. People came, third-grade teachers,friends of my mother, a few people from my father's office, no one knew them,parents of our friends, everyone bundled up, huffing inside, glassy-eyed fromthe cold, kicking their snowy feet on the mats. It was the third week inNovember, and prematurely freezing, the roads covered with ice, the worst inyears.
All the guests looked stricken. Everyone knew my mother was sick, were expectingthis sort of thing from her, but this, this from him was a surprise. Noone knew what do to, what to say. Not that many people knew him — he didn'tsocialize much, at least not in town, had maintained only a handful of friends-- but they knew my mother, and they must have felt like they were at thefuneral for the husband of ghost.
We were embarrassed. It was all so gaudy, so gruesome — here we were, invitingeveryone to come and watch us in the middle of our disintegration. We smiled andshook hands with everyone as they walked in. Oh hi! I said to Mrs.Glacking, my fourth-grade teacher, whom I hadn't seen in easily ten years. Shelooked good, looked the same. Huddled together in the lobby, we were sheepishand apologetic, trying to keep things breezy. My mom, wearing a flower-printdress (it was the best thing she had in which she could conceal her intravenousapparatus), tried to stand and receive the comers, but she soon had to sit,grinning up at everyone, hello hello, thank you thank you, how are you? Ithought about sending Toph to another room, half for his own benefit and half sothe guests didn't have to see the whole horrific tableau, but then he went offwith a friend anyway.
The minister, a corpulent stranger in black and white and that churchy neongreen they wear, was at a loss. My father was an atheist, and thus thisminister, who knew my father only through what he had been told an hour before,talked about how much my father enjoyed his work (Did he? we wondered,having no idea one way or the other), and how much he enjoyed golf (he did, weknew that much). Then Bill got up. He was dressed well; he knew how to wearsuits. He made some jokes, bantered brightly, a little too brightly, perhaps, alittle too a-few-jokes-to-warm-up-the-crowd (he was at the time doing a lot ofpublic speaking). Beth and I nudged my mother a few times in solidarity,embarrassed further, always looking for fun at his expense, mocking the leavenedearnestness. And then we filed out, everyone watching our mother and her slowcareful steps, she smiling to all, happy to see everyone, all these people shehadn't seen in so long. We milled a little in the foyer, and then told everyonethat we'd be having a little party at home, we had so much food people hadbrought by, thanks by the way, if anyone wanted to come by.
Many came, my mother's friends, brother's, sister's, my friends from high schooland college, home for Thanksgiving, and with everyone there and it dark out andwinter, I spent much of the time trying to convert what was a sort of douraffair into something fun. I hinted that someone should get some beer —Someone should get a case, man, I whispered to Steve, a college friend —but no one did. I thought we should be getting drunk, not out of misery orwhatever, but just — it was a party, right?
Bill was out from D.C. with the girlfriend we didn't like. Kirsten got jealousbecause Marny, an old girlfriend of mine, was there. Sitting in the family room,we tried to play Trivial Pursuit, still dressed in jackets and ties, but itwasn't much fun, especially without the beer. Toph played Sega in the basementwith a friend. My mother sat in the kitchen while her old volleyball friendsstood around her, drinking wine, laughing loudly.
Les Blau came by. He was the only friend of our father's who we actually knew,who we had ever really heard anything about. Years ago, they had been at thesame downtown law firm, and even after they each left and went elsewhere theystill commuted into Chicago together occasionally. As Les and his wife weregathering their coats and scarves to leave, Beth and I met him at the door,thanked him. Les, a kind and funny man, meandered into talking about my father'sdriving.
"He was the best driver I've ever seen," said Les, marveling. "So smooth, so incontrol. He was incredible. He would see three, four moves ahead, would drivewith a only few fingers on the wheel."
Beth and I were eating it up. We had never heard anything about our father, knewnothing about him outside of what we'd seen ourselves. We asked Les for more,anything. He told us how our father used to call Toph the caboose.
"Yeah, I didn't even know his name for a long time," Les said, shaking hisshoulders into his coat. "Always 'the caboose.'"
Les was great, so great. We had never heard this term. It was not used in thehouse, not once. I pictured my father saying it, pictured him and Les at arestaurant off Wacker, him telling Les jokes about Stosh and Jon, the two Polishfishermen. We wanted Les to stay. I wanted Les to tell me what my father thoughtabout me, about us, the rest of us, if he knew he was in trouble, if he hadgiven up (why had he given up?). And Les, why was he still going to work, a fewdays before he expired? Did you know that, Les? That he was at work four daysbefore? When did you last talk to him, Les? Did he know? What did he know? Didhe tell you? What did he say about all this?
We ask Les if he'll come for dinner sometime. He says yes, of course. Just call,whenever.
I did not know that the last time I saw my father would be the last time I wouldsee my father. He was in intensive care. I had come up from college to visit,but because it had been so soon after his diagnosis, I didn't make much of it.He was expected to undergo some tests and treatment, get his strength back, andreturn home in a few days. I had come to the hospital with my mother, Beth, andToph. The door to my father's room was closed. We pushed it open, heavy, andinside he was smoking. In intensive care. The windows were closed and the hazewas thick, the stench unbelievable, and in the midst of it all was my father,looking happy to see us.
No one talked much. We stayed for maybe ten minutes, huddled on the far side ofthe room, attempting as best we could to stay away from the smoke. Toph washiding behind me. Two green lights on the machine next to my father blinked,alternately, on, off, on, off. A red light stayed steady, red.
My father was reclining on the bed, propped against two pillows. His legs werecrossed casually, and he had his hands clasped behind his head. He was grinninglike he had won the biggest award there ever was.
After a night in the emergency room and after a day in intensive care, she is ina good room, a huge room with huge windows.
"This is the death room," Beth says. "Look, they give you all this space, roomfor relatives, room to sleep..."
There is another bed in the room, a big couch that folds out, and we are all inthe bed, fully dressed. I forgot to change my pants before we left the house,and the stain from the spill is brown, with black edges. It is late. Mom isasleep. Toph is asleep. The foldout bed is not comfortable. The metal bars underthe mattress dig.
A light above her bed is kept on, creating a much-too-dramatic amber halo aroundher head. A machine behind her bed looks like an accordion, but is light blue.It is vertical and stretches and compresses, making a sucking sound. There isthat sound, and the sound of her breathing, and the humming from other machines,and the humming from the heater, and Toph's breathing, close and constant. Mom'sbreaths are desperate, irregular.
"Toph snores," Beth says.
"I know," I say.
"Are kids supposed to snore?"
"I don't know."
"Listen to her breathing. It's so uneven. It takes so long for every breath."
"It's terrifying."
"Yeah. It's like twenty seconds sometimes."
"It's fucking nuts."
"Toph kicks in his sleep."
"I know."
"Look at him. Out cold."
"I know."
"He needs a haircut."
"Yeah."
"Nice room."
"Yeah."
"No TV, though."
"Yeah, that's weird."
After most of the guests left, Kirsten and I had gone into my parents' bathroom.The bed would squeak, and we didn't really want to sleep there anyway, the wayit smelled, like my father, the pillows and walls soaked in it, the gray smellof smoke. The only reason any of us ever went in there was either to stealchange from his dresser or to go through their window to get onto the roof —you had to go through their window to get to the roof. Everyone in the house wasasleep, downstairs and in the various bedrooms, and we were in my parents'walk-in closet. We brought blankets and a pillow into the carpeted area betweenthe wardrobe and the shower, and spread the blanket on the ground, in front ofthe mirrored sliding closet doors.
"This is weird," Kirsten said. Kirsten and I met in college, had dated for manymonths, and for a long time we were tentative — we liked each other a greatdeal but I expected someone so normal and sweet-looking to find me out soonenough — until one weekend she came home with me, and we went to the lake, andI told her my mother was sick, had been given time parameters, and she told methat that was weird, because her mother had a brain tumor. I had known that herfather had disappeared when she was young, that she had been working,year-round, since she was fourteen, I knew she was strong but then there werethese new words coming from her face, these small shadowy words. From then on wewere more serious.
"Too weird," she said.
"No, this is good," I said, undressing her.
Everywhere people were sleeping — my mother in Beth's room, my friend Kim onthe living room couch, my friend Brooke on the family room couch, Beth in my oldroom, Bill in the basement, Toph in his room.
We were quiet. There was nothing left of anything.
Beth remembers first, with a gasp, in the middle of the night. We had beenvaguely conscious of it, in recent days, but then we had forgotten, until justnow, at 3:21 a.m., that tomorrow — today — is her birthday.
"Shit."
"Shh."
"He can't hear. He's asleep."
"What should we do?"
"There's a gift shop."
She will not know that we had almost forgotten.
"Yeah. Balloons."
"Flowers."
"Sign Bill's name."
"Yeah."
"Maybe a stuffed animal."
"God, it's all so gift-shoppy."
"What else can we do?"
"Ow!"
"What?"
"Toph just kicked me."
"He turns in his sleep. A hundred eighty degrees."
"Hear that?"
"What?"
"Listen!"
"What?"
"Shhh! She hasn't breathed."
"How long?"
"Seems like forever."
"Fuck."
"Wait. There she goes."
"God that's weird."
"It's terrible."
"Maybe we should wait until we get home before the birthday thing."
"No, we have to do something."
"I hate that this room is on the first floor."
"Yeah, but it's a nice room."
"I don't like the headlights."
"Yeah."
"Should we close the curtains?"
"No."
"What about in the morning?"
"No, why?"
At 4:20 Beth is asleep. I sit up and look at Mom. She has hair again. For solong she did not have hair. She'd had five wigs, at least, over a number ofyears, all of them sad in the way wigs are sad. One was too big. One was toodark. One was too curly. One was frosted. Still, most of them had looked more orless real. The odd thing was that her current hair was real, but had grown backmuch curlier than her original hair, and curlier even than her curliest wig. Anddarker. Her hair now looked more like a wig than any of the wigs.
"Funny how your hair grew back in," I had said.
"What's funny about it?"
"Well, how it's darker than before."
"It is not."
"Of course it is. Your hair was gray almost."
"No it wasn't. I had it frosted."
"That was ten years ago."
"It was never gray."
"Fine."
I lie back down. Beth's breathing is heavy, quiet. The ceiling looks like milk.The ceiling is moving slowly. The corners of the ceiling are darker. The ceilinglooks like cream. The metal bar that bisects and supports the bed's mattressdigs into our backs. The ceiling is fluid.
When my father was in intensive care, about a day and a half from throwing inthe towel, a priest was sent, presumably to administer last rites. After meetinghim and ascertaining the purpose of the visit, my father quickly dismissed him,sent him out. When the doctor related this story later — it had becomesomething of a legend on the floor — he made reference to the axiom that deniesthe existence of atheists in the proverbial trenches: "They say there are noatheists in the trenches," the doctor said, looking at the floor,"but...whew!" He wouldn't even let the man do some sort of cursoryprayer, Hail Mary, anything. The priest had come in likely knowing that myfather was not a churchgoer, not affiliated with any church at all. But thinkingthat he was doing my dad a favor, he offered some sort of chance at repentance,a one-in-a-thousand raffle ticket for redemption. But see, my father had as muchpatience for religion as he did for solicitors ringing the bell. To them, hewould open the door, grin his dopey grin, say no thanks quickly and brightly,then close the door firmly. Which is what he did with this poor, well-meaningpriest: He grinned his big grin, and, being unable to get up and show the poorman the business side of the door himself, just said, "No thanks."
"But, Mr. Eggers — "
"No thanks, goodbye."
We'll get her out in a few days. Beth and I have vowed to get her out, haveplanned to break her out, even if the doctors say no; we will hide her under agurney, will pose as doctors, will wear sunglasses and go quickly and will takeher to the car, and I will lift her and Toph will provide some distraction ifnecessary, something, a little dance or something; and then we'll jump in thecar and be gone, will bring her home, triumphant — we did it! we did it!-- and we'll get a hospital bed and put it in the living room, where the couchwas. We'll arrange for a nurse, twenty-four hours a day — actually, the bed andthe nurse will be arranged by a woman, Mrs. Rentschler, who used to live acrossthe street, in the house whose yard my father was looking at, on his knees, awoman who had moved away long ago, but only to another part of town, and thensuddenly she is again there, she is part of the hospital's hospice program, andshe will make the arrangements and she will hug us and we will like her thoughwe never knew her before. One of the nurses will be a large, middle-aged blackwoman from North Chicago who will speak with a southern accent and will bringher own Bible, and will cry sometimes, her shoulders shaking. There will be asullen younger woman from Russia who will show up angry and will perform herduties in a clipped, rushed manner and will nap when we aren't watching. Therewill be a nurse who comes one day and will not return the next. There will bewomen, our mother's friends, who will come and visit, in makeup and fur coats.There will be Mrs. Dineen, an old family friend, who will come out fromMassachusetts for a week, because she wants to be here, to see Mom again, andwill sleep in the basement and will talk about spirituality. It will snowprodigiously. The nurses will clean my mother when we are not in the room orawake. There will be vigils. We will enter the room at any hour of the day ornight and, if our mother is not awake, we will freeze, then get ready, then walkover and put our hands over her mouth to see if she's breathing. One day shewill let us summon her sister, Jane, and we will pay to fly her out, just intime. When Aunt Jane arrives at the bedside, after we have picked her up at theairport, our mother, who at this point will not have sat up in days, will shootup like a child from a nightmare, and will hold her sister, who will smile wideand close her eyes. There will be an endless stream of visitors, who will sitcasually at our mother's side and chat about recent happenings, because,because, a dying person doesn't want to talk about dying, would rather hearabout who's getting divorced, whose kids are in rehab or will be soon. Therewill be baked goods. There will be Father Mike, a young red-haired priestassigned to us — how do they assign the priests? I picture something like apolice dispatcher, barking commands — "O'Bannan, you've got the disaster onWaveland" — with the priests groaning once given their orders. Father Mike willmake it clear that he's not going to try to convert anybody, and will do Masswhile she stays in bed, will skip the wafer part for her lack of stomach, andMrs. Dineen will take communion too; I'll watch some of it as I'm cooking afrozen pizza in the kitchen. There will be the rosary fetched from the cabinetupstairs. We will light candles to stave off the smell that emanates from herpores after her liver stops working. We will sit next to the bed and hold herhands, which are hot. She will sit up suddenly in the middle of the night,talking loudly, incomprehensibly. All words will be considered her last, untilthey are followed by others. When Kirsten walks into the room one day she willrise suddenly and insist that Kirsten see the naked man in the fish tank. Wewill suppress laughs — she will have been insisting on the naked man for days-- and Kirsten, with a certain degree of seriousness, will actually go over tothe fish tank to look, a gesture Mom will take, with first a roll of the eyesand then a deeply satisfied smile, as vindication. Then she will lie back down,and in a few days her mouth will dry up, and her lips will chap and scab, andthe nurse will moisten them every twenty minutes with a Q-tip. There will bemorphine. Between her hair, which for some reason will continue to look oddlypert, fluffy, and her skin, shiny, tan-and-jaundiced, and her glossy lips, shewill look great. She will be wearing the satin pajamas Bill bought for her. Wewill play music. Beth will play Pachelbel and, when that seems a bit much, wewill put on sweeping New Age music produced by my father's sister, Aunt Connie,who lives in Marin County with a talking cockatoo. The morphine drip will not beenough. We will call again and again for more. Finally we will have enough, andwill be allowed to choose the dosage ourselves, and soon will administer itevery time she moans, by allowing it to flow through the clear tube and intoher, and when we do the moaning stops.
We will leave while they take her away and when we come back the bed will begone, too. We will move the couch back, against the wall, where it was beforethe bed came. A few weeks later a friend will arrange for Toph to meet theChicago Bulls, after they practice at that gym in Deerfield, and Toph will bringhis basketball cards, one or two of each of them, rookie cards mostly, thosebeing worth more, so the players can sign them and make them more valuable. Wewill watch them scrimmage through the window, then, after practice, there theyare, in their sweat suits — they come out specially, had been asked to — andScottie Pippen and Bill Cartwright will ask Toph, as they're signing his cardswith the permanent marker that he's brought, why he isn't in school, it being aWednesday or Monday or whatever day it will be, and he will just shrug — Bethand I will pull him from school from time to time that spring, when somethingcomes up or just whenever, because while we want to keep alive an air ofnormalcy, half the time we just say fuck it, and he's so happy, glowing to havemet the Bulls, now has all these ludicrously valuable cards, and on the way homewe will discuss getting them notarized to make sure people know that he wasthere. Bill will change jobs to be closer, will move from D.C. to L.A., justafter the riots, and will do his think-tanking there. He'll handle all themoney, from insurance and the house — there was nothing saved, nothing reallyat all — and Beth will handle the bills and forms and other paperwork and,because we're the closest in age and it was never really up for debate, Tophwill be with me. But first he'll finish third grade, and I'll drop some classesand, though whatever number of credits short, will go through the graduationceremony, with Beth and Toph and Kirsten there, dinner afterward but low-key,let's keep it low-key, no big thing. And afterward, a week at most, whilepeople, old people, are frowning and clicking their tongues and shaking theirheads, we will sell that house, will sell most of its contents, would haveburned the fucker down had we been able, and we will move to Berkeley, whereBeth will start law school and we'll all set up somewhere, a nice big house inBerkeley with all of us, with a view of the Bay, close to a park with abasketball court and enough room to run —
She stirs and her eyes open slightly.
I get out of the bed and it squeaks. The floor is cold. It is 4:40 a.m. Tophrolls into the spot on the bed I have been occupying. I step over to my mother.She is looking at me. I lean over her bed and touch her arm. Her arm is hot.
"Happy birthday," I whisper.
She is not looking at me. Her eyes are not open. They were open a slit, but arenot now open. I am not sure if they were seeing me. I walk to the window andclose the curtains. Outside, the trees are bare and black, quickly sketched. Isit in the taut pleather chair in the corner and watch her and the light-bluesuction machine. The light-blue suction machine, working rhythmically, seemsfake, a stage prop. I sink into the chair and lean back. The ceiling isswimming. It is milky, stuccoed in sweeping half-circles, and the half-circlesare moving, turning slowly, the ceiling shifting like water. The ceiling hasdepth or — the ceiling is moving forward and back. Or the walls are not solid.The room is maybe not real. I am on a set. There are not enough flowers in theroom. The room should be full of flowers. Where are the flowers? When does thegift shop open? Six? Eight? I bet myself. I bet it is six. All right, it's abet. I consider how many flowers I can buy. I do not know what they cost; I havenever bought flowers. I will see what they cost and then buy all the flowersthat they have that I can afford, move them from the gift shop to this room.Fireworks.
She will wake up and see them.
"What a waste," she will say.
She stirs and opens her eyes. She looks at me. I get up off the chair and standby the bed. I touch her arm. It is hot.
"Happy birthday," I whisper, smiling, looking down into her.
She does not answer. She is not looking at me. She is not awake.
I sit down again.
Toph is on his back, his arms splayed. He sweats when he sleeps, regardless ofthe room's temperature. When he sleeps, he moves and turns around and around,like the hand of a clock. His breathing is audible. His eyelashes are long. Hishand hangs over the foldout bed. As I am looking at him, he wakes up. He gets upand comes to me as I am sitting in the chair and I take his hand and we gothrough the window and fly up and over the quickly sketched trees and then toCalifornia.
Continues...
Excerpted from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geniusby Dave Eggers Copyright © 2001 by Dave Eggers. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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