A couple days later, I was over at Isaac’s house playing blind-people poker. I dealt each of us five cards, and Isaac picked up his cards and placed them into a special computerized card reader. The reader announced each of Isaac’s cards as it read it. TWO OF SPADES. JACK OF CLUBS. JACK OF SPADES. EIGHT OF DIAMONDS. ACE OF HEARTS.
“Hey,” Isaac said, “did Augustus ever give you that thing he was writing?”
“What thing?”
“He said he was working on something for you.”
“Do you know where it is?” I asked.
“No idea,” Isaac said. “Maybe on his computer?”
Isaac discarded three cards, took three new ones, and put them in the reader.
CONGRATULATIONS. FULL HOUSE.
***
There was still something of Augustus floating around, intended for me, and I needed to see it. I told Isaac I was going to Augustus’ house to check his computer.
I hurried out to my car, got in, and put the keys in the ignition. I looked in the mirror before backing out of the driveway, and nearly had a heart attack when I saw Peter Van Houten sitting in the back seat.
“WHAT THE FUCK???” I screamed.
“I apologize for alarming you,” Van Houten said. “My rental ran out of gas, and I was wondering if you could give me a ride to the nearest service station?” He held up an empty gas canister.
I sighed and started the car. After dropping off Van Houten at the gas station, I went to Augustus’ house and headed down to the basement. I walked past the unmade bed and the gaming chairs to the computer. It was still on. But there was nothing from the last few weeks, except like a hundred emails to Peter Van Houten.
Maybe he’d written something by hand? I checked his notebooks. Nothing. I’d pretty much given up hope when Augustus’ dad came down the stairs, holding a black moleskin notebook. “I don’t know if this means anything,” he said, “but when we were gathering the stuff from Augustus’ hospital room we found this notebook with the last few pages missing.” I looked at the book. The last four pages had been ripped out. He was working on it at the hospital, I thought. But Augustus’ dad said they hadn’t found any pages in the hospital room. So where were they?
My one thought was that maybe he’d brought them to the prefuneral on his Last Not Throwing Up Everywhere Day and forgotten to give them to me. So the next day, I headed over to the church twenty minutes before Support Group to search the anal cavity of Jesus.
But I found nothing. I really didn’t want to attend Support Group, but I couldn’t just ditch when everyone saw me there right before it started. So five minutes into Group I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and just never came back.
***
When I got home, Mom and Dad were at the kitchen table on their separate laptops, and the moment I walked in, Mom slammed her laptop shut.
“What’s on the computer?”
“Just some work stuff,” she said. “Would you like some lunch? Let me make something for you.”
“No thanks,” I said. I was bummed that my search for the missing pages had turned up empty, and just wanted to be alone for a while. “I’m gonna go lie down,” I said.
“Well you’ve got to eat something first,” she said.
“Mom, I am the opposite of hungry,” I said. I started to leave the kitchen but she cut me off.
“Hazel, you have to eat. Just some–”
“No.”
“Hazel,” Dad said, “you’re not going to starve yourself to death just because you’re upset about Augustus. You’ve got to stay healthy. You’re going to eat something.”
“NO!” I shouted. “I’m not eating dinner, and I can’t stay healthy, because I’m not healthy. I have cancer, remember? I’m dying. And soon I’ll die and leave you two here alone, and you’ll be depressed and stare at the walls all day and have no purpose in life and want to kill yourselves.”
I regretted it as soon as I said it. Both Mom and Dad were crying now.
After a minute, Mom looked at Dad, and he nodded. “Hazel,” she said, “that wasn’t work stuff on my computer.”
“It wasn’t?” I said. “Then what was it?”
Mom opened up her laptop and showed me the screen. It was the website for an international adoption agency, and there was a profile of a Hungarian girl that looked just like me.
“We’re adopting another daughter,” Mom said.
“Seriously? When?”
“We have it set for the day after your funeral,” Dad said. “Whenever that might be.”
“We don’t want you to think we’re imagining a world without you,” Mom said. “Just because Ekaterinka’s going to be with us one day doesn’t mean you should feel abandoned.”
“It’s important for you to know we will always be here for you, Hazel,” Dad said. “Every second. Until you die and Ekaterinka gets here.”
“This is great!” I said. “This is fantastic!” I was really smiling. “I’m so happy for you both!”
I ended up eating lunch, and even had seconds. Asparagus burgers had never tasted so not like shit.
