A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

My mother’s hands are veiny and strong. Her neck has veins. Her back has freckles. She used to do a trick where it looked like she would be pulling off her thumb when in fact, she was not. Do you know this trick? Part of one’s right thumb is made to look like part of one’s left hand and then is slid up and down the index finger of the left finger – attached, then detached. It’s an unsettling trick and more so when my mother used to do it because she did it in a way where her hands sort of shook, vibrated, her necks veins protruding with the strain plausibly attendant to pulling off one’s finger. As children, we watched with both glee and terror.