The World According to Garp

"Nobody's eaten," Garp said. "Unless you have."

"I can wait," she told him.

"So can I," Garp told her.

"I'll get the kids something," Helen offered, pushing Walt out of the bathroom. "There must be eggs, and cereal."

"For supper?" Duncan said. "That sounds like a great supper," he said.

"I just forgot, Duncan," Garp said.

"I want toast," Walt said.

"You can have toast, too," Helen said.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" Garp asked Helen.

She just smiled at him.

"God, even I can handle toast," Duncan said. "I think even Walt can fix cereal."

"The eggs are tricky," Helen said; she tried to laugh.

Garp went on drying between his toes. When the kids were out of the bathroom, Helen poked her head back in. "I'm sorry, and I love you," Helen said, but he wouldn't look up from his deliberate procedure with the towel. "I never wanted to hurt you," she went on. "How did you find out? I have never once stopped thinking of you. Was it that girl?" Helen whispered, but Garp gave all his attention to his toes.

When she had set out food for the children (as if they were pets! she would think to herself, later), she went back upstairs to him. He was still in fr

ont of the mirror, sitting naked on the edge of the tub.

"He means nothing; he never took anything away from you," she told him. "It's all over now, really it is."

"Since when?" he asked her.

"As of now," she said to Garp. "I just have to tell him."

"Don't tell him," Garp said. "Let him guess."

"I can't do that," Helen said.

"There's shell in my egg!" Walt hollered from downstairs.

"My toast is burnt!" Duncan said. They were plotting together to distract their parents from each other--whether they knew it or not. Children, Garp thought, have some instinct for separating their parents when their parents ought to be separated.

"Just eat it!" Helen called to them. "It's not so bad."

She tried to touch Garp but he slipped past her, out of the bathroom; he started to dress.

"Eat up and I'll take you to a movie!" he called to the kids.

"What are you doing that for?" Helen asked him.

"I'm not staying here with you," he said. "We're going out. You call that wimpish asshole and say good-bye."

"He'll want to see me," Helen said, dully--the reality of having it over, now that Garp knew about it, was working on her like Novocain. If she had been sensitive to how much she'd hurt Garp, at first, now her feelings for him were deadening slightly and she was feeling for herself again.

"Tell him to eat his heart out," Garp said. "You won't see him. No last fucks for the road, Helen. Just tell him good-bye. On the phone."

"Nobody said anything about 'last fucks,'" Helen said.