Read Online A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - Free Book Online Page B

                                              21
    A car pulls into the driveway and into the garage. The door connecting the garage to the laundry room opens and closes and then the door to the bathroom opens and closes. Beth is home.
    Beth has been working out. Beth likes it when I am home from college for the weekends because then she can work out. She needs her workouts, she says. Toph ’ s shoes continue to rumble. Beth comes into the room. She is wearing a sweatshirt and 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. This is what he did: six months or so ago, he had sat us down, Beth and I—not Bill, Bill was in D.C., and not Toph, who for reasons that are obvious enough was 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 far away 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 he was 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 my innovation, 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 the laundry 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, out of the dryer. I give the towel to Beth.
    I go downstairs to check on Toph. I sit on the stairs, which afford a view of the basement, a rec room converted into a bedroom and then converted again into a 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 the kitchen. It is full to the brim. It is swishing forward and back. Halfway into the kitchen I spill most of it down my leg, immediately wondering how acidic the contents of the half-moon receptacle are, with the bile and all. Will the fluid burn through my pants? I stand still and watch to see if it burns through, like acid, expecting to see smoke, a gradually growing hole—as happens 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 ’ s head. 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.