A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

my mother was sick, had been given time parameters, and she told me that that was weird, because her mother had a brain tumor. I had known that her father had disappeared when she was young, that she had been working, year-round, since she was fourteen, I knew she was strong but then there were these new words coming from her face, these small shadowy words. From then on we were more serious.
    “ Too weird, ” she said.
    “ No, this is good, ” I said, undressing her.
    Everywhere people were sleeping—my mother in Beth ’ s room, my friend Kim on the living room couch, my friend Brooke on the family room couch, Beth in my old room, Bill in the basement, Toph in his room.
    We were quiet. There was nothing left of anything.
    Beth remembers first, with a gasp, in the middle of the night. We had been vaguely conscious of it, in recent days, but then we had forgotten, until just now, at 3:21 a.m., that tomorrow—today—is her birthday.
    “ Shit. ”
    “ Shh. ”
    “ He can ’ t hear. He ’ s asleep. ”
    “ What should we do? ”
    “ There ’ s a gift shop. ”
    She will not know that we had almost forgotten.
    “ Yeah. Balloons. ”
    “ Flowers. ”
    “ Sign Bill ’ s name. ”
    “ Yeah. ”
    “ Maybe a stuffed animal. ” “ God, it ’ s all so gift-shoppy. ” “ What else can we do? ” “ Ow! ” “ What? ”
    “ Toph just kicked me. ”
    “ He turns in his sleep. A hundred eighty degrees. ” “ Hear that? ” “ What? ” “ Listen! ” “ What? ”
    “ Shhh! She hasn ’ t breathed. ” “ How long? ” “ Seems like forever. ” “ Fuck. ”
    “ Wait. There she goes. ” “ God that ’ s weird. ” “ It ’ s terrible. ”
    “ Maybe we should wait until we get home before the birthday thing. ”
    “ No, we have to do something. ”
    “ I hate that this room is on the first floor. ”
    “ Yeah, but it ’ s a nice room. ”
    “ I don ’ t like the headlights. ”
    “ Yeah. ”
    “ Should we close the curtains? ”
    “ No. ”
    “ What about in the morning? ”
    “ No, why? ”
    At 4:20 Beth is asleep. I sit up and look at Mom. She has hair again. For so long she did not have hair. She ’ d had five wigs, at least, over a number of years, all of them sad in the way wigs are sad. One was too big. One was too dark. One was too curly. One was frosted. Still, most of them had looked more or less real. The odd thing was that her current hair was real, but had grown back much curlier than her original hair, and curlier even than her curliest wig. And darker. Her hair now looked more like a wig than any of the wigs.
    “ Funny how your hair grew back in, ” I had said.
    “ What ’ s funny about it? ”
    “ Well, how it ’ s darker than before. ”
    “ It is not. ”
    “ Of course it is. Your hair was gray almost. ”
    “ No it wasn ’ t. I had it frosted. ”
    “ That was ten years ago. ”
    “ It was never gray. ”
    “ Fine. ”
    I lie back down. Beth ’ s breathing is heavy, quiet. The ceiling looks like milk. The ceiling is moving slowly. The corners of the ceiling are darker. The ceiling looks like cream. The metal bar that bisects and supports the bed ’ s mattress digs into our backs. The ceiling is fluid.
    When my father was in intensive care, about a day and a half from throwing in the towel, a priest was sent, presumably to administer last rites. After meeting him and ascertaining the purpose of the visit, my father quickly dismissed him, sent him out. When the doctor related this story later—it had become something of a legend on the floor—he made reference to the axiom that denies the existence of atheists in the proverbial trenches: “ They say there are no atheists in the trenches, ” the doctor said, looking at the floor, “ hut...whew! ” He wouldn ’ t even let the man do some sort of cursory prayer, Hail Mary, anything. The priest had come in likely knowing that my father was not a churchgoer, not affiliated with any church at all. But