A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (73 page)

We would wave.
Hi Mom!

She would wave back.

She couldn
’
t make the walk down to the field, couldn
’
t make the trip down to the beach the last time we were out here, when Beth graduated and I flew out, when after the ceremony she, Beth and Toph and I drove down the coast, through Monterey, and when we got to the beach in Carmel we told her we
’
d be back and ran down the high dune, ran down to the water, Toph only seven then, his first time in California. Beth and I pretended that we were throwing him in the ocean. We hit each other with long stretches of brown, rubbery seaweed. We looked up at the car and we waved.

She waved back, high above the beach, overlooking. And after we rolled around more, and poured sand on Toph
’
s hair and made Beth kiss a dead jellyfish, we walked back up, knowing our mother had seen everything, was so proud of us all, watching from above.

But when we climbed the dune and were closer to the car it almost looked like she was asleep.

She was asleep. Her hands in her lap.

She had not waved.

So today the wind is perfect. There
’
s hardly any at all. This beach, Black Sands, usually has some kind of wind coming from the water, which fucks things up, sending the frisbee deep into that frigid water, forcing me to wade in in my shorts stiff-legged to retrieve it. But today there is no wind, and there is almost no one else here, which means we have most of the beach, or at least our part of it, to ourselves, which is really something, even if for an hour.

We
’
ve gotten so much better. I mean, we started out really good, when he was smaller, when we first came out here—he was years ahead of anyone his age, would dominate games of Ultimate at his summer camp, they worshiped him, the other kids—you should have seen the younger kids crowd around him, oh and when he would take off his baseball hat and let his long blond hair fall forward—this one time a boy was awestruck:
“
You shouldn
’
t wear a hat,
”
he said,
“
your hair is amazing.
”
This little boy, I was right there, it was Parents
’
Day. But so throwing-wise Toph didn
’
t used to have the range he does now, and the tricks, he can do tricks— and I
’
ve always had the tricks I can do, like the one where I run up to the frisbee as it
’
s coming at about chest level, and when I
’
m almost there I jump at it, do kind of a 180 in the air—it
’
s probably a 360, actually, when you think of it, because I— Yeah, so I spin around in midair, coming at the frisbee as it
’
s coming toward me and when I
’
m perfectly— When I have my back to the frisbee in midspin, that
’
s when I catch it, so it
’
s like a behind-the-back catch, in midair, but ideally, with the spinning and all, I land— get this—facing Toph. A 360. That
’
s a pretty cool trick when you can get it to work, which is only so often, for me, even though I
’
m really fucking good— So the point is that Toph does that one now,
and he
’
s way more consistently good at it than I am. He still fucks it up a lot of the time, bats the frisbee away, which makes me cringe because we break our frisbees every couple months, and it
’
s always something like that, a batting of the frisbee that cracks the thing right in half, always happens right when we get to the beach, or wherever. It
’
s thick plastic, too, of course—we use only the really heavy frisbees—

But so he does that trick, which is a cool one to watch, but he also does, almost prefers, all these stupid tricks, really stupid fucking tricks, tricks that aren
’
t really tricks at all, they
’
re just stupid things, because he
’
s always been more interested in doing goofy stupid shit than doing things normally, keeping score, that sort of thing— So he
’
s got one trick where, when the frisbee
’
s coming, he
’
ll just lay down on his stomach for as long as he can, and then, at the last possible moment, he
’
ll stand up and then...take a few steps and go catch the frisbee. That
’
s it. It
’
s a pretty stupid fucking trick, right? I mean, it makes no sense at all, when you think about it, it
’
s the most unspectacular thing in the world. But he cracks himself up with that one, truly. Laughing like an idiot—

The morphine was taking her under, but her breathing was still strong. It was erratic, but you should have heard the breathing—when it came, it was strong, forceful, it was a yanking of air. Her limbs weren
’
t moving anymore, now she was still, her head back, and just the breathing, like a sort of uneven snoring. More and more like snoring, the grinding, the gasping. We stayed up all day and night because you did not know. We moved chairs close, curled in them and slept, held her hand, and soon the tide came in. It started with a different sound in the snoring. Something rounder, more liquid. Then almost a gurgling. Her breaths became more strained, pulling both air and also these bubbles—what
was
that sound?—and Beth and I were there, on either side, and the breaths were pulling, yanking at something like a boat still tied to a dock, the motor revving but something holding, holding. The breaths
were pulling more and more. And the gurgling, the bubbles became more prominent in the breathing, she was pulling at a tub of water, or fluid, then a lake, a sea, an ocean, pulling at it— The fluid kept coming, the tide inside her rising, rising, her breaths shorter, like someone being filled as the water climbs and there is no longer anywhere to— But there was intelligence in that breathing, and passion in that breathing, everything there, we could take that breathing and hold its hand, sit on its lap while watching TV, the breaths were quicker and shorter and quicker and shorter and then shallow, shallow and that
’
s when I loved her as much as any other time, when I knew her as I thought I knew her—oh she was out, she was gone, a week into the morphine maybe, and she could go any minute, her systems were falling apart or gone, no one had any idea what was keeping her going but she was sucking in that air, she was breathing so erratically, weakly, but she was doing it so desperately, each breath taking all that she had, her small person, with her beautiful tanned skin shiny, Beth and I draped over her, not knowing when— But she would just breathe, and breathe, suddenly, anxiously, unyielding— And I only hope it wasn
’
t regret, that there wasn
’
t regret there, in those breaths, though I know there was, I dream there was, when I hear the breaths, I can hear the anger— She could
not fucking believe
this was actually happening. Even while sleeping under the morphine and when we were only waiting, expecting, she would snap back, would rise suddenly and say something, cry out, a nightmare— furious about this bullshit, that something like this was actually happening, that she was leaving all of us, Toph— She was not ready, not even close, was not resolved, resigned, was not ready— And while we
’
re throwing there
’
s a naked man walking, I first see him as he walks right past me, between me and the water. He
’
s about my height, skinny, pale, bony butt, and he walks past me, down the shore toward Toph. At first I
’
m worried about Toph having to see this man, not just his butt but his whole frontal action
happening, this man, walking toward Toph, unabashed, proud even, and for a while, for fifty yards at least, as he approaches, I watch Toph, watch him to see if he looks, or laughs, or is disgusted at this human nakedness, all pale and unadorned, pathetic and silly and maybe desperate, maybe needing something, needing to be looked at by strangers—and God knows what kind of freaky looks the naked guy
’
ll be giving him, the kinds of freaky looks naked guys are always giving— But then I
’
m watching Toph
’
s face, and he doesn
’
t even look at the man. He does his best to avoid him, overconcentrating on his throws, looking serious, like this throw is so insurmountably important that he could never be bothered by this naked man—it
’
s funny, actually, impressive, really—and then the man is past him, is gone, walking on toward the end of the shore, toward that spooky cliff jutting into the breaking waves, and Toph will never have to see the naked man again—

And we will be ready, at the end of every day will be ready, will not say no to anything, will try to stay awake while everyone is sleeping, will not sleep, will make the shoes with the elves, will breathe deeply all the time, breathe in all the air full of glass and nails and blood, will breathe it and drink it, so rich, so when it comes we will not be angry, will be content, tired enough to go, gratefully, will shake hands with everyone, bye, bye, and then pack a bag, some snacks, and go to the volcano—

Toph does another trick where, okay: First, I throw the fris-bee to him, and he catches it normally. And then, while he
’
s standing there, he just, he just slowly and methodically puts the frisbee in his mouth, like a dog. And then once he
’
s got it in his mouth, he does a little jump, like that
’
s how he caught it. Catch, put in mouth, then little hop. It
’
s hardly even funny, that one, it
’
s just sorry, it
’
s so dumb. And he does it in front of other people, which is the tragic thing, he thinks people
’
ll laugh, which is just so— He laughs, of course, loves it. But he still can
’
t do—I
’
m not even sure he
’
s tried it—my big trick, the one where I cartwheel and
catch the frisbee with one hand while I
’
m upside down. That
’
s a great trick, a crowd-pleaser, but he hasn
’
t tried it and I
’
m not sure why. But he throws well, and you have to throw well to make the cartwheel trick work, you have to throw it low, two or three feet off the ground, and not too fast, and not too floaty—just a nice even throw. And it has to go to my right, because I can
’
t do the trick going to my left. So even though he can
’
t do the trick, he
’
s essential to my doing it, because he
’
s the only one who can throw it the right way, consistently, which is okay for now, but he
’
ll do it soon enough, he
’
s doing everything earlier than I ever did, beats me in every sport, basketball I cannot
get
a shot off anymore, they come back in my face and he revels, he yells in triumph, is already almost my height, is six inches taller than I was at his age, will surpass me within the year.

It
’
s never too gusty on this beach, it
’
s just balmy, the air waving around, loopy and soft, which makes you wonder why anyone ever goes to Ocean Beach, which is always insanely windy, pointless for anything, and you can
’
t swim there either, and the wind just destroys any kind of throw you want to do unless you
’
re just standing next to each other and dinking it back and forth like a couple of pussies. To throw and have it be any fun we need some calm, because we need to
wing
that fucker. And of course people stop and watch us, we
’
re so fucking good. People young and old, whole families, gather to ooh and ahh, thousands of people, they
’
ve brought picnics, binoculars—

Not like we
’
re frisbee geeks—we don
’
t wear fucking headbands or anything— We
’
re just good, so good— We throw it high and far. We just
get
as far apart as we think we can get— And so we sent flowers and Lance, who was always closest to her, wanted to go out for the funeral but just came back from New York— And so we sent a wreath from all of us, and never had to see her embalmed and cold, could just think of— And everything that seemed possible at twenty-four, twenty-five, is now just such
a joke, such a ridiculous fiction, every birthday an atrocity— And we now keep the gold tin on the kitchen counter, and inside are my father
’
s business cards, and a tiny sweater my mother knitted for a teddy bear, and some change, and some pens, and a cap to something, maybe a camera lens, that we haven
’
t been able to match with its mother and—