I fling myself onto the bus back to the Family Care Home, anger punching at the undersides of my skin. Surgery—they’re just going to shove me under the knife without even asking me about it?
Mom and Darlington have it all planned out. My fingers shake when I pull out my phone to distract myself.
For her part, Mom is calm. She’s made the first hard choice for me because that’s what always happens. This visit, this plan, is the first real answer we’ve had. There’s still a lot to go through before surgery can happen. Doctors, tests, not to mention the worst enemy of all: insurance.
There’s a click to my left and I see Mom with her phone out taking a photo. “How you feelin’, kiddo?” Mom asks. The nickname is supposed to be loving. A rope to string us together, remind me that we have an unbreakable bond, and all I want to do is hack it to pieces. There’s nothing Mom wouldn’t do for me, but sometimes I just want her to chill.
Words swim in my mouth, but I can’t catch the right ones. How am I supposed to talk about the absolute cold dread that’s taken my body hostage? When she wants to show this fear inside of me to the world?
And just like that, I’m drowning in the past. Walls flash between the pale green of the OR. A strange smell like permanent markers coats the air and a sweat breaks out over my body. I’m fighting through the memory of being alone, strapped down, knowing pain awaits me when I wake up. The memory is so overwhelming that I freeze up.
Messages from Jack blink up at me, a lifeline. His questions puncture the dread, bringing back the dream of my normal life—friends, speech tournaments, classes—my life-life. My fingers hover over the keys. The last thing I want to do is have to explain why I am this way, to lay bare all the remnants of surgery that aren’t bound by scar tissue.
“Ellie?” Mom asks.
“I’m fine,” I say, trying to pin down the chaos inside me, ball it up, and shove it away. Jack’s texts are like a siren’s call. I can’t look away, and more than anything I want to go back to the place where it’s just us. Normally I can manage something—a few lines, an emoji, just a tap back. Enough to let him know I’m alive, but not enough where he feels the need to pry up the boards and discover my hospital secrets. Now, it feels too raw. His texts are just a reminder that I’m stuck here.
Caitlin’s open with her boyfriends, and look how that turns out. Heartbreak.
I delete Jack’s texts, unable to look at them any longer. Even his mundane tasks remind me that I am somewhere I shouldn’t be. I belong there—at school, with him. That is my life and this—hospital existence—is just limbo.
I flip over to my conversation with Caitlin. The tightness in my chest loosens as I settle into something I can do. Caitlin needs me, and if there’s one way to avoid my problems, it’s to fix someone else’s.
Ellie
Almost back—where you at?
Nothing. Come on, Caitlin, I will her text bubbles to appear.
Ellie
Caitlin.
I’m coming up to your room when I get back.
The plan is already forming in my mind, pushing out thoughts of Darlington, surgery, and Mom’s blog—I’ll soothe Caitlin’s broken heart and forget whatever just happened in that doctor’s office.
Hang on, Caitlin, I’m coming.
“Ellie,” Mom says, pulling me close so I can see her phone screen. “Say hi to your dad.”
She FaceTimed him? I must look shocked because concern replaces exhaustion in Dad’s eyes. His smile is strong but sags on his tired face. I can tell his day has been stressful. He’s in the middle of a major project at work and that means long hours, which is why he couldn’t get time off to come be with us on this trip. Besides, Coffman has always been a Mom and me thing.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says quietly. If Mom is the one who’s always put together, always ready for the audience, my father is the stage manager—never meant to be seen but secretly keeping the whole thing running.
She fills Dad in on the appointment. The plan. Through it all I smile, but it’s a sickle carving me up internally. The fear of surgery has not left, the cold realization that brings with it the phantom smell of Sharpies—what the inside of an anesthesia mask smells like. I start to freeze up again.
“What do you think, Ellie?” Dad interrupts Mom’s eager TED Talk. I don’t know if it’s the distance between him and the hospital, but he seems to remember this is all happening to me. He gets it.
Now all eyes focus on me.
Just say something.
Anything.
“I don’t want it.” The last time I had surgery it ruined everything, and I don’t think we’re moving again anytime soon. Dad is not surprised by my response, while Mom tries to shake off what she heard. No ignoring it this time.
“Ellie, this is what Dr. Darlington is suggesting. He thinks it will alleviate your symptoms.”
“Did you hear anything that you just said? Alleviate my symptoms—not fix me. Not ensure this fuckery doesn’t happen again.”
“Ellie,” Mom hisses. Cursing’s approved for hospital floors only, and even then the door must be closed.
The phone can’t hide Dad’s warning look. Parents gonna parent, I guess. “Back up for a second, I wasn’t there, but I do have some questions.”
Coughs bubble out of me like water from a fountain. My lungs to the rescue! Mom rubs my back, adding a few hard thumps to dislodge mucus that isn’t there. I double over and hate myself.
Dad grimaces; worry hangs on him like an old sheet, just making me feel worse than I already do.
Great. Just great.
I force out a few more coughs, not ready to face them yet. Dad just gives me a look like he knows I’m faking. Mom scoots closer. I’m boxed in, nowhere to run.
“We held a date for the surgery,” Mom says.
“No.” I cross my arms over my chest and pull away from Mom. “Can’t we get a second opinion or try a steroid?” I’m grasping at treatment plans. This is sixth grade all over again, when Mom said it was going to fix everything and it tore apart my life.
“Darlington is the second opinion,” Mom says.
The bus lurches to a stop and I fly down the aisle and out as fast as I can, not caring that I left my parents hanging.
“Eleanor Ruby Haycock.” My full name snakes down my spine, turning it to rock and planting me straight into the ground. I don’t want to talk about it. Not what Darlington said about me. Not about the surgery he proposed. Unless it’s about me cheering up my best friend, I just don’t want to hear it.
I turn around.
Mom studies me like cleaning our house, trying to find the next task to tackle. We’re going to talk about the surgery. I’m sure she and Dad will be all about getting on the same page about my health. Being underage is great.
“Mom, please?” I deploy an underhanded move. My voice even cracks when I need it to. I focus on the ground, as if I’m trying to be brave to hide my nonexistent tears. She wraps her arms around me, and I shrink away, pry myself free.
“I know this is scary,” she says.
She hangs there in space, her arms holding on to a ghost me. Her face darkens, but only for a moment before she realizes, hopefully, that maybe I need a friend right now. “Ellie, we should—”
“Caitlin and I are hanging out,” I say, pushing through the doors to the House. As the words leave my mouth, I can feel the ice in my body start to melt. She frowns but leaves me to it, heading up to our room alone. My stomach does flips, trying to dislodge the dread Mom has put there.
I tuck that problem away for later and turn to the desk. My luck is nonexistent today. Perky Volunteer Girl’s smile is pressed in place and as brilliant as ever. Did she not just see what happened? Could she tone it down?
“How was the dinner last night?” Perky asks. I glare at her, but she’s undeterred. “It smelled delicious,” she presses on. I’ve known too many girls like Perky. There’s always at least one every visit to the Home. The ones who offer advice without a medical degree, who think organic vegetables and scented oils can reorganize the body to its proper state. People who make themselves feel better by caring about sick individuals.
“It’s been a really terrible day. Dinner was fine. I just want to check out some movies, okay?” I use the same voice I use with nurses and doctors at our local hospital. The ones who still have to Wikipedia “VACTERLs” every so often.
Perky’s smile falters like I’ve slapped her, but she recovers. “Of course.” Her voice is apologetic and it doesn’t even touch my heart or make me feel bad. She motions for me to come around the desk.
I wave her away when she tries to come open the cabinet. I know where all this stuff is. She hovers and I can almost hear her thoughts churning in her head. Should I apologize? What did I do wrong?
Ignore her, I tell myself, and open the doors to the display of movies. There’s the full collection of Disney movies for the little ones and then plenty of teen movies and current blockbusters.
Perky sits back at the desk and I try to focus on my task, but a scent carries through the air and I freeze, my hand tightening on the cabinet door. I feel the faint impression of a mask, the one used to funnel anesthesia into my body for surgery.
I turn and see Perky at the desk working on flyers with a large permanent marker.
“Could you—” Perky turns around, the offending marker half ready to spring into action. “Cap that, please?”
She looks at her marker, then back at me. This feels stupid, ridiculous, but the panic racing through my blood is real. I can practically feel the chilled OR air creep in around me.
I grab Caitlin’s favorites and sign them out, wanting nothing more than to sink into the floor and disappear.
“I … are you okay?” Perky asks. Her voice has lost its helpful edge, lost that sheen of happiness. This is probably the voice she uses to talk to her friends.
I look her in the eyes. “If I was okay, I wouldn’t be here.” No chink in my armor—nuh-uh. I’m supposed to be some brave soul—at least that’s what all my teachers and adults in my life-life say. If only they could see me now.
She flinches as if I slapped her. She reminds me so much of Brooke at that moment, who just wants to know what to do and what to say to not step on an emotional land mine. There is no rule book on how to be a friend to a person like me.
A deep breath clears my lungs of any remaining marker fumes. It was just an irrational reaction, I tell myself. Focus on the things you can do. Movies. Ice cream. Caitlin. “It was a really bad day,” I say, not sure why I open up to her of all people. “And I got some terrible news from my doctors, and my friend here—her boyfriend broke up with her. So she’s devastated and I have to pick up the pieces while telling both my parents and my doctor that I don’t want surgery.”
Perky dives under the desk and I can’t believe I actually made her run for cover, but a moment later she comes up with her backpack and digs through her books, coming up with a bar of specialty chocolate.
“Here, I can’t … I can’t fix the surgery thing, but breakups should always have chocolate.”
“Thanks.” Now I feel bad because she’s being nice. Less shiny and showy than her volunteer nice. It’s a nice that has heard me, seen me, and just wants to offer a place for me to rest. Not to push me up and make me into a poster for her to look at later.
“And…” She looks around and then pulls a key from under the desk. “Follow me.”
I follow her around the desk and down a hallway where all the staff offices are. The hallway is dark because everyone’s gone home for the day. Perky inserts the key into a door and shoves it open.
I anticipate a kill room, plastic sheeting, scalpels … I dunno. Instead, there are just shelves of quilts and blankets.
“Take one. Take two, in fact.”
“What … what are these?”
“We’re supposed to only give them to new families, but we have so many they won’t miss two.”
“Why are you doing this?” I don’t step into the room, unsure how to treat this shift. She’s not responding how the commenters do—she doesn’t just want to view, she might do something that’s actually useful.
“I’m just trying to help.” There it is, that volunteer edge to her voice.
“Cool.” I pick out two quilts with wild color patterns and Perky shuts off the lights and ushers me back down the hall. I collect the movies and chocolate, trying to keep everything in my arms, but I can’t and the movies clatter to the ground and the bottom quilt spills out from its neat folds.
I curse and Perky sprints around the desk.
“I’ve got it,” I snap, and our uneasy truce is over. She backs up and I collect my stuff. The chocolate goes in my pocket and the DVDs fit in the large pocket on the chest of my coat. Wrap the second blanket around the first and force my arms to grab it. Sometimes I have to position my right arm around objects, and because it lacks normal bones and muscle groups, it just snaps back into place like a clip.
“Need any help?” Perky asks.
My arms are full of blanket and Perky is standing there like a scolded child. I don’t want another person feeling anything toward me today. Mom, the doctors, I swear I can feel the prickle of Dad’s reaction all the way from home. “Can you get the elevator for me?”
She leaves the desk again and we cross the lobby to the elevator. “I’m Veronica, by the way.”
“Ellie.”
“Have a better night.” Her turn of phrase catches me off guard. Like she understood that all these words, all this pressure to help us, can’t actually fix us or make it even bearable.
I nod my thanks and the elevator closes, separating us again. I fail to suppress the urge to block the door to invite her up, wanting another partner to face Caitlin with, another person to field questions that I’m not great at answering.
It pops open. “Hey,” I call out, “I don’t know when you’re done, but if it’s before seven—come up and join us on the third floor. We have ice cream.”
“My replacement should be here in thirty minutes,” she says hopefully. There’s no trace of Perky here. I smile at her, feeling like we could be anywhere—and not two kids on the opposite sides of a hospital line.
“See you then.”
At least with Veronica there, all the focus can be on Caitlin and not my surgery.