There isn’t much time for worrying about Mark the next day, because I go into the OR early for my operation. I don’t get general anesthesia this time—they just knock my leg out and go to town. There’s a kind of screen to stop me seeing what they’re doing; not that I’d mind, I’m not squeamish.
I don’t exactly know what they’re doing. Something to do with the bones in my foot. One of them needs to be moved, I think, back to its proper position.
Whatever it is, it takes a long time. I figure the architecture of the body must be pretty complicated down there; lots of ligaments and tendons, twisting and stretching without me knowing, to accomplish the simple task of walking.
That’s the main thing I worry about: what if they screw something up? What if I don’t walk again, with or without a CAM Walker?
But I try not to let it get to me. And anyway there’s another thought swirling around in there, in me. Where did Mark go?
When I’m wheeled back to my room, I’ve got stitches down from my ankle to nearly my toes. There’s going to be an impressive scar.
But I don’t mind about that. A scar is nothing to me. I mean, I already have a whole lot of them. They stretch from my waist right down to my knees—pockmarks, streaks, like a meteor storm, like the surface of the moon. I was two when it happened: I didn’t hear my mom shouting to me to stop, and I pulled a pan of hot oil from the stove, spilled it on myself. I was wearing a shirt that protected my stomach, but my legs were bare.
My dad was already dead—he passed away when I was tiny. So it was all on her, and she’s never let go of the guilt of it. Sometimes, when she looks at my legs, I see the tears in her eyes. Not even just when she sees the scars.
At the same time, she hates it when I feel embarrassed by them. She wishes I would go swimming with her. Mom says the scars are part of the story of me.
I say, in that case, the story of me is a freaking horror story.
I’d recommend at least a week’s bed rest, says Dr. Maklowitz.
But she could leave, right? says Mom.
Of course. If necessary. We’ll have to train her in using the CAM Walker before we can discharge her, though. And of course we’ll need a follow-up appointment to make sure everything is healing okay. Say two months?
So, a couple of hours later, the hospital pharmacy brings me my CAM Walker. A nurse shows me how to put it on—it’s exactly like an enormous, ugly boot. My one is white, just to add to the storm trooper vibe. There’s a sticker on the back of it that says PROPERTY OF PHOENIX GENERAL.
The nurse makes me practice walking on it, up and down the hospital room, until she’s satisfied that I have mastered the art of WALKING. Then she shows us how to take care of the stitches, tells us about covering them up with a plastic bag if I’m in the shower or something.
Then she sends us to the hospital pharmacy with a prescription for some hardcore painkillers—high-dose codeine, which Mom explains is a derivative of morphine, only not as strong. We walk down a blank corridor, its walls marked here and there with suspicious stains. It reminds me of a recurring dream I have, which freaks me out a bit. The child crying, the need to get to it, to save it.
Finally we arrive at the pharmacy. There are two counters, with what looks like bulletproof glass protecting the people walking behind it. Actually it probably is bulletproof glass. Phoenix is like the meth capital of America after all.
We go to the first counter and hand over the prescription sheet. The woman behind the counter—she has a faint mustache—hands a ticket with a number on it through the little slot that’s open at the bottom of the glass. It says 496 on it. I look up at a screen where the number 451 is displayed.
It’ll be a half hour, says the woman.
A full hour and a half later, our number comes up on the screen and we go to the second counter, where a tall young man in glasses hands us two bottles of pills.
Taken these before? he says.
I shake my head.
There’s sixty milligrams in each tab, he says. No more than six in one day. You may find they constipate you a little.
Ugh, I think. Super gross.
You find the pain is getting too much, try elevating the foot, he says. Then he nods at us and goes to grab some drugs for another patient.
Mom holds my hand to steady me and we walk back down the corridor, then take an elevator to the main reception hall. There are doctors going back and forth, having fast conversations, nurses running. A couple of receptionists are working on the phones and also trying to deal with walk-ins.
Mom leads me to the coffee table area with the magazines, then, weirdly, seems to wait till the place is especially busy before walking us up to the counter. There’s a Mexican girl there, and she holds up a hand to us as she finishes a conversation on the phone. She says something in Spanish, then turns to us.
Yes?
We’d, ah, we’d like to pay, says Mom. She hands over some paperwork. She’s all nervous again, folded in on herself, as if holding something important under her chin, which she has to protect.
Credit card?
Actually … uh … Dr. Maklowitz and me, we agreed a cash discount. Ten percent.
The girl nods. She shuffles the papers and keys something into the computer beside her. Paramedics rush in, a guy on a gurney hooked up to tubes, and run down the corridor, and she doesn’t even look up. She’s pretty—long black eyelashes that flick up from the screen.
ID, she says flatly.
Whose? says Mom, her hands fluttering, fidgeting. My daughter’s?
Both of you.
But …, Mom kind of stammers. But we’re paying cash. She’s uninsured, you guys know that already.
I can’t take a cash payment without ID. And we need ID for … Shelby, for our records.
Mom is flustered. I’m not surprised, if she’s got ten thousand dollars in her purse. She roots around in there for a second, then looks back at the girl. I don’t exactly carry around her birth certificate, she says.
The girl shrugs. You can bring Shelby’s when you come for the follow-up. But I need to take yours now.
Mom does this apologetic hand-opening thing. I just don’t—
I lean into her field of vision. Your driver’s license, I say. You keep it in your purse.
Mom smiles, though it almost seems like she grimaces first. Oh yes.
She takes out her license and hands it over, and the receptionist enters her details, then holds out her hand and Mom takes a surprisingly small wad of cash from her purse and gives her that too. But I guess if it’s hundred-dollar bills, you don’t need that many.
The receptionist prints Mom a receipt using one of those really old-fashioned printers that spit out thin pink paper, with holes down each side. It’s long—I guess it lists all the stuff that was done to me.
Uh, thanks, says Mom, but she’s already turning around, holding my hand, maneuvering me out of there in my slow hobbling way.
The girl gives a brisk nod and answers the phone.
In the parking lot, Mom takes a small black unit from her purse that I slowly recognize as a car key. She presses a button and the lights of a gray sedan flash.
Since when do we have a car? I ask.
Since I rented one, says Mom. The weird thing is—that whole looking-down shtick of hers, the nervousness, she’s doing it with ME now, as if I’m making her anxious by asking questions.
It’s enough to freak me out pretty seriously. Um, where are we going? I ask. What’s the deal? Why are you acting so weird?
We’re going on a trip, says Mom. A vacation.
A vacation? We never go on vacation.
Well, we are now.
She won’t meet my eye. It’s going to be a long vacation.
I put my hands on my hips—or try to, because I’m a little unbalanced by the CAM Walker, so as a maneuver it is pretty doomed to failure, and instead I do an ungraceful little jerky dance. Mom, I say. I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what’s going on.
She says nothing but helps me into the front seat, adjusts it so that I have enough room to stretch out my leg, then takes my hospital bag and puts it in the back seat of the car. I turn and see that there’s a load of other stuff in there too—bulging suitcases, piles of Scottish landscapes.
Mom? I ask again. Why have you got, like, all our stuff in the car?
Mom takes a deep breath. Okay, she finally says, looking up at me. There’s something I haven’t told you. See … ah …
Yes? I say, impatient.
It’s your father. He’s not really dead.