A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers Page A

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. ”
    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