one!”
The side of my face was throbbing. It felt like the flesh was being squeezed by a giant, invisible fist, a hand that would never let me go. A tear leaked out of the corner of my right eye and trailed underneath to soak the bandage.
“I wish I had food poisoning,” the girl said. “I’d throw up if someone would give me my very own new bike. I’d throw up everywhere.”
Rage swelled inside me. I found myself suddenly furious at this girl, at her desire to be sick, to be here, and furious at her brother, who, I knew from experience and eavesdropping, would puke and poop for a few days and then go home a few pounds lighter, essentially fine. I was beginning to suspect that I would not ever be essentially fine. My face might never stop hurting, and, even if it did, it would probably never look right, no matter what the doctors kept saying
Just then, a woman pushed through the curtain, coming to collect the little girl. Her gaze touched my face; then she quickly looked away. “Katie, are you being a pest?”
Katie, who had clearly already decided that the universe was a cruel and unjust place, screwed up her face in preparation for a tantrum. “I’m not bothering her, I’m just telling her about how stupid Jared got stupid food poisoned!”
The woman gave her daughter a tight smile, then gripped her shoulders and looked at me . . . or, rather, looked in my direction without looking at me directly. It was something I’d noticed grown-ups doing a lot that summer—some of the nurses, most of the parents of my roommates. “I’m sorry if she disturbed you, honey.”
“’S okay,” I said as clearly as I could with the half of my mouth that moved. Distaste flickered across the woman’s face. I could see it before she turned away. I thought about how I must look, my head like a baseball, white and round, with stitches; my hair, normally long and pretty, in two greasy pigtails that lay limp and curled and crusted with blood and the reddish-gold stuff that oozed from my drains, because the doctors hadn’t yet given Grandma permission to wash it. It’s human nature, Grandma had told me, when I asked her why people looked at me the way they did, why their eyes went cold and disgusted, like they were insulted by my face, like it was my fault. People don’t like to see things that aren’t perfect. It reminds them of what could go wrong in their own lives, I guess. Their own mortality. When I’d asked what mortality meant, she had told me. We’re all going to die, but some people—most people—don’t want to think about that. They want to think they’ll live forever, but nobody does. Grandma did not believe, as she said, in sugarcoating things for me. Life was hard. I’d learned that much already.
“We’ll leave you alone, then,” the woman said, and steered Katie back through the curtains, where I could hear the new-bike-owning Jared entertaining the crowd with details of how he’d been stricken. “I started feeling sick in fifth period, and I thought I could make it to the bathroom, but then . . .” He made an extremely realistic retching noise. “All over the hallway! Right in front of Mr. Palley’s room!”
Everyone laughed. I closed my eyes, falling into a doze, waking to the click-click of Grandma’s heels in the hallway, at six o’clock sharp. It was dinnertime. Every night, a nurse would place my meal on my table, removing the tan plastic cover to reveal whatever the cafeteria had deemed appropriate fare for patients on a soft diet: grayish-brown meatloaf, gummy mashed potatoes, overcooked canned carrots and peas, all of it whirled in a blender and reduced to a paste . . . and, every night, Grandma would replace the lid, take the tray, and carry it back out into the hall. Her reasoning was that I was suffering enough that I deserved to have only my favorite things for dinner, and so that’s what she would bring me: macaroni and cheese, mashed by hand, matzoh-ball soup with the
The side of my face was throbbing. It felt like the flesh was being squeezed by a giant, invisible fist, a hand that would never let me go. A tear leaked out of the corner of my right eye and trailed underneath to soak the bandage.
“I wish I had food poisoning,” the girl said. “I’d throw up if someone would give me my very own new bike. I’d throw up everywhere.”
Rage swelled inside me. I found myself suddenly furious at this girl, at her desire to be sick, to be here, and furious at her brother, who, I knew from experience and eavesdropping, would puke and poop for a few days and then go home a few pounds lighter, essentially fine. I was beginning to suspect that I would not ever be essentially fine. My face might never stop hurting, and, even if it did, it would probably never look right, no matter what the doctors kept saying
Just then, a woman pushed through the curtain, coming to collect the little girl. Her gaze touched my face; then she quickly looked away. “Katie, are you being a pest?”
Katie, who had clearly already decided that the universe was a cruel and unjust place, screwed up her face in preparation for a tantrum. “I’m not bothering her, I’m just telling her about how stupid Jared got stupid food poisoned!”
The woman gave her daughter a tight smile, then gripped her shoulders and looked at me . . . or, rather, looked in my direction without looking at me directly. It was something I’d noticed grown-ups doing a lot that summer—some of the nurses, most of the parents of my roommates. “I’m sorry if she disturbed you, honey.”
“’S okay,” I said as clearly as I could with the half of my mouth that moved. Distaste flickered across the woman’s face. I could see it before she turned away. I thought about how I must look, my head like a baseball, white and round, with stitches; my hair, normally long and pretty, in two greasy pigtails that lay limp and curled and crusted with blood and the reddish-gold stuff that oozed from my drains, because the doctors hadn’t yet given Grandma permission to wash it. It’s human nature, Grandma had told me, when I asked her why people looked at me the way they did, why their eyes went cold and disgusted, like they were insulted by my face, like it was my fault. People don’t like to see things that aren’t perfect. It reminds them of what could go wrong in their own lives, I guess. Their own mortality. When I’d asked what mortality meant, she had told me. We’re all going to die, but some people—most people—don’t want to think about that. They want to think they’ll live forever, but nobody does. Grandma did not believe, as she said, in sugarcoating things for me. Life was hard. I’d learned that much already.
“We’ll leave you alone, then,” the woman said, and steered Katie back through the curtains, where I could hear the new-bike-owning Jared entertaining the crowd with details of how he’d been stricken. “I started feeling sick in fifth period, and I thought I could make it to the bathroom, but then . . .” He made an extremely realistic retching noise. “All over the hallway! Right in front of Mr. Palley’s room!”
Everyone laughed. I closed my eyes, falling into a doze, waking to the click-click of Grandma’s heels in the hallway, at six o’clock sharp. It was dinnertime. Every night, a nurse would place my meal on my table, removing the tan plastic cover to reveal whatever the cafeteria had deemed appropriate fare for patients on a soft diet: grayish-brown meatloaf, gummy mashed potatoes, overcooked canned carrots and peas, all of it whirled in a blender and reduced to a paste . . . and, every night, Grandma would replace the lid, take the tray, and carry it back out into the hall. Her reasoning was that I was suffering enough that I deserved to have only my favorite things for dinner, and so that’s what she would bring me: macaroni and cheese, mashed by hand, matzoh-ball soup with the
Similar Books
