A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (6 page)

“
Hey
hey!
”
he had said when he installed it, sliding it right in, with no more than a centimeter of give on either side.
“
Hey
hey!
”
was something he said, and to our ears it sounded a little too Fonzie, coming as
it
did from a gray-haired lawyer wearing madras pants.
“
Hey hey!
”
he would say after such miracles, which were dizzying in their quantity and wonderment—in addition to the Miracle of the New Fish-tank Fitting, there was, for example, the Miracle of Getting the TV Wired Through the Cool New Stereo for True Stereo Sound, not to mention the Miracle of Running the Nintendo Wires
Under
the Wall-to-Wall Carpet So as Not to Have the Baby Tripping Over Them All the Time Goddammit. (He was
devoted to Nintendo.) To bring attention to each marvel, he would stand before whoever happened to be in the room and, while grinning wildly, grip his hands together in triumph, over one shoulder and then the other, like the Cub Scout who won the Pinewood Derby. Sometimes, for modesty
’
s sake, he would do it with his eyes closed and his head tilted. Did / do
that}

“
Loser,
”
we would say.

“
Aw, screw you,
”
he would say, and go make himself a nice tall Bloody Mary.

The ceiling in one corner of the living room is stained in concentric circles of yellow and brown, a souvenir from heavy rains the spring before. The door to the foyer hangs by one of its three hinges. The carpet, off-white wall-to-wall, is worn to its core and has not been vacuumed in months. The screen windows are still up—my father tried to take them down but could not this year. The family room
’
s front window faces east, and because the house sits beneath a number of large elms, it receives little light. The light in the family room is not significantly different in the day and the night. The family room is usually dark.

I am home from college for Christmas break. Our older brother, Bill, just went back to D.C., where he works for the Heritage Foundation—something to do with eastern European economics, privatization, conversion. My sister is home because she 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. On the TV an accountant from Denver is trying to climb up a wall before a bodybuilder named Striker catches
him and pulls him off the wall. The other segments of the show can be tense—there is an obstacle course segment, where the contestants are racing against each other and also the clock, and another segment where they hit each other with sponge-ended paddles, both of which can be extremely exciting, especially if the contest is a close one, evenly matched and with much at stake— but this part, with the wall climbing, is too disturbing. The idea of the accountant being chased while climbing a wall... no one 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. Striker wants to grab and pull the accountant down—he lunges every so often at the accountant
’
s legs—all he needs is a good grip, a lunge and a grip and a good yank—and if Striker and his hands do that before the accountant gets to ring the bell... it
’
s a horrible part of the show. The accountant climbs quickly, feverishly, nailing foothold after foothold, and for a second it looks like he
’
ll make it, because Striker is so far below, two people-lengths easily, but then the accountant pauses. He cannot see his next move. The next grip is too far to reach from where he is. So then he actually
hacks up,
goes down a notch 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 the wall, but suddenly Striker is there, out of nowhere—
he wasn
’
t even in the screen!
—and he has the accountant
’
s leg, at the calf, and he yanks and it
’
s over. The accountant flies from the wall (attached by rope of course) and descends 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 and recount blind dates that they have all enjoyed or suffered through with the same man. For months, Beth and Mom have watched the show, every night. Sometimes the show
’
s participants have had sex with one another, but use funny
words to describe it. And there is the funny host with the big nose and the black curly hair. He is a funny man, and has fun with the show, keeps everything buoyant. At the end the show, the bachelor picks one of the three with whom he wants to go on another date. The host then does something pretty incredible: even though he
’
s already paid for the three dates previously described, and even though he has nothing to gain from doing anything more,
he still gives the bachelor and bachelorette money for their next date.

Mom watches it every night; it
’
s the only thing she can watch without falling asleep, which she does a lot, dozing on and off during the day. But she does not sleep 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 it doesn
’
t feel like it. The night is way, way too long to stay awake the whole way through. I mean, there have been times when I was pretty sure I had stayed up all night, like when I was sure the vampires from
Salem
’
s Lot
—do you remember that one, with David Soul and everything? With the people impaled on the antlers? I was afraid to sleep, so I would stay up all night, watching that little portable TV on my stomach, the whole night, afraid to drift off, because I was sure they
’
d be waiting for just that moment, just when I fell asleep, to come 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 of those bug-eyed goldfish with elephantiasis, died weeks ago. The water, still lit from 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 wondering what the water would
taste like. Like a nutritional shake? Like sewage? I think of asking my mother:
What do you think that would taste like?
But she will 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, the doctor had said the last time this had happened, so, he said, we can have no bleeding. Any bleeding could be the end, he said. Yes, we said. We were not worried. There seemed to be precious few opportunities to draw blood, with her living, as she did, on the couch.
I
’
ll keep sharp objects out of proximity,
I had joked to the doctor. The doctor did not chuckle. I wondered if he had heard me. I considered repeating it, but then figured that he had probably heard me but had not found it funny. But maybe he didn
’
t hear me. I thought briefly, then, about supplementing the joke somehow, pushing it over the top, so to speak, with the second joke bringing the first one up and creating a sort of one-two punch.
No more knife fights,
I might say.
No more knife throwing,
I might offer, 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 is our job to listen to the doctors, and after listening to the doctors, Beth usually asks the doctors specific questions—
How often will she have to take that? Can
’
t we just add that to the mix in the IV?
—and sometimes I ask a question, and then we might add some levity with a witty aside. I know that I should joke in the face of adversity; there is always humor, we are told. But in the last few weeks, we haven
’
t found much. We have been looking for 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.
“
What?
”

“
I can
’
t get the Sega 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, my father was in his suit, a gray suit, dressed for work. Beth paused in the entrance between the kitchen and the family room and watched. The trees in the yard across the street were huge, gray-trunked, high-limbed, the short grass on the lawn yellowed, spotted with fall leaves. He did not move. His suit, even with him kneeling, leaning forward, was loose on his shoulders and back. He had lost 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 area if I remember correctly, but even with the removal of so much thereabouts, she looks pregnant. You can see it, the bulge, even under the blanket. I
’
m assuming it
’
s the cancer, but I haven
’
t asked my mother, or Beth. Was it the bloating of the starving child? I don
’
t know. I don
’
t ask questions. Before, when I said that I asked questions, I lied.

The nose has at this point been bleeding for about ten minutes. She had had one nosebleed before, two weeks ago maybe, and Beth
could not make it stop, so she and Beth had gone to the emergency room. The hospital people had kept her for two days. Her oncologist, who sometimes we liked and sometimes we did not, came and visited and glanced at stainless steel charts and chatted on the side of the bed—he has been her oncologist for many years. They gave her new blood and had 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, was finished with hospitals, did not want—

She had come out feeling defeated, stripped, and now, safely at home, she did not want to go back. She had made me and Beth promise that she would never have to 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 and pliable.

She spits. She is used to the spitting, but still makes strained, soft vomiting noises.

“
Does it hurt?
”
I ask.

“
Does what hurt?
”

“
The spitting.
”

“
No, it feels good, stupid.
”

“
Sorry.
”