A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (7 page)

A family walks by outside, two parents, a small child in snow-pants and a parka, a stroller. They do not look through our window. It is hard to tell if they know. They might know but are being polite. People know.

My mother likes to have the curtains open so she can see the yard and the street. During the day it is often very bright outside, and though the brightness is visible from inside the family room, somehow the light does not travel effectively into the family room, in terms of bringing to the family room any 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 developed elaborate fantasies for those who would see us as grotesque, pathetic, our situation gossip fodder. I picture strangulations—
Tsk tsk, I hear she
’
s-gurglel
—neck-breakings—
what will happen to that poor little
fo-crack!—I picture kicking bodies as they lie curled on the ground, spitting blood as they
—
Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ, Vm sorry, Vm sorry!
—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? I push offenders into giant vats of acid and watch them struggle, scream as the acid burns, breaks them apart. My hands fly into them, breaking their skin—I pull out hearts and intestines and toss them aside. I do head-crushings, beheadings, some work with baseball bats—the variety and degree of punishment depending on the offender and the offense. Those whom I don
’
t like or my mother doesn
’
t like in the first place get the worst—usually long, drawn-out strangulations, faces of red then purple then mauve. Those I barely know, like the family that just walked by, are spared the worst—nothing personal. I
’
ll run them over with my car.

We are both distantly worried about the bleeding nose, my mother and I, but are for the time being working under the assumption that the nose will stop bleeding. While I hold her nose she holds the half-moon receptacle as it rests on 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 people talk 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 has freckles. She used to do a trick where
it
looked like she would be pulling off her thumb, when in fact she was not. Do you know this trick? Part of one
’
s right thumb is made to look like part of one
’
s left hand, and then is slid up and down the index finger of the left finger—attached, then detached. It
’
s an unsettling trick, and more so when my mother used to do it, because she did
it
in a way where her hands sort of shook, vibrated, her neck
’
s veins protruding and taut, her face gripped with the strain plausibly attendant to pulling off one
’
s finger. As children, we watched with both glee and terror. We knew it was not 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 and muscles. We would make her do the trick for our friends, who were also horrified and enthralled. But kids loved her. Everyone knew her from school—she directed the plays in grade school, would take in kids who were going through divorces, knew and loved and was not shy about hugging any of them, especially the shy ones—there was an effortless kind of understanding, an utter lack of doubt about what she was doing that put people at ease, so unlike some of the mothers, so brittle and unsure. Of course, if she didn
’
t like someone, that kid knew it. Like Dean Borris, the beefy, dirty-blond boy up the block, who would stand in the street and, unprovoked, give her the finger as she drove by.
“
Bad kid,
”
she would say, and she meant it— she had an inner hardness that under no circumstances did you want to trifle with—and would have him struck from her list until the second he might say sorry (Dean unfortunately did not), at which time he would have gotten a hug like anyone else. As strong
as she was physically, most of the power was in her eyes, small and blue, and when she squinted, she would squint with a murderous intensity that meant, unmistakably, that, if pushed, she would deliver on her stare
’
s implied threat, that to protect what she cared about, she would not stop, that she would run right over you. But she wore her strength casually, had a trusting carelessness with her flesh and muscles. She would cut herself while slicing vegetables, cut the living 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 clean under the tap, wrap the thumb in a paper towel and keep cutting, while the blood slowly soaked through the paper towel, crawling, as blood crawls, outward from the wound
’
s wet center.

Beside the TV there are various pictures of us children, including one featuring me, Bill, and Beth, all under seven, in an orange dinghy, all expressions panicked. In the picture, we seem surrounded by water, for all anyone knows, miles from shore—our expressions certainly indicate that. But of course we couldn
’
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. It is 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 all holding the side of the little boat, wanting out, wanting our mother to lift us out, 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 something in the mail, something sent away for. We know it is coming, but are not sure when—weeks? months? She is fifty-one. I am twenty-one. My sister is twenty-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 the tornado, the little train-set model house floating helplessly, pathetically around in the howling black funnel. We
’
re weak and tiny. We
’
re Grenada. There are 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; /
did what I could,
says the stomach, or what
’
s left of it;
We
’
ll get em 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 skin has been leathery for years, tanned to permanence, not in an unflattering way, but in a way interesting considering her Irish background, the fact that she must have grown up so fair—

It begins to come again, the blood thick and slow at first, dotted with the black 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.
”

“
Its 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
’
t dripping properly, or when there
’
s a bubble in the tube, or when bruises the size of dinner plates appear on our mother
’
s back. For the nose the nurse suggests pressure, and keeping her head back. I tell her that I have been doing just that, and that it has not yet worked. She suggests ice. I say thank you and hang up and go to the kitchen and wrap three cubes of ice in a paper towel. I bring them back and apply them to the bridge of her nose.