Made That Way

by Susan Ketchen

  “Tony, do you have to?” says Mom. Her voice is deep and gravelly like she hasn’t slept all night.

  “I’m just telling them I’ll be late coming in,” says Dad.

  “Late? You’re going in to your office today?” says Mom.

  Oh brother. You’d think that today of all days they wouldn’t be at each other.

  “I can’t book off like you can, Ev.”

  “Of course you can. You could if you wanted to.”

  I think about opening my eyes and pretending I don’t recognize them. That might change their priorities.

  “We can’t do anything anyway,” says Dad. “She’s in good hands here.”

  “Patients need an advocate,” says Mom.

  I remember her saying this all the time when Uncle Brian was in the hospital. My mom pretty well lived at the hospital when he was sick, and then he died anyway. This was before my mom went back to school and became a therapist, so she had more spare time.

  “Well you can be the advocate, and I’ll keep the home fires burning,” says Dad.

  “Oh right. . . ,” says Mom with a sarcastic tone that I’m never allowed to use.

  I’ve had enough. I open my eyes wide, smile at them and say hi.

  “Oh thank god!” says Mom. She looks awful. There are bags under her eyes and she hasn’t washed her hair. It’s lying flat against her scalp and I can see her roots.

  “Hey, Munchkin!” says Dad. He doesn’t look much better, although at least his hair looks okay because its got so much natural curl it almost never looks bad. He sits on my bed on the other side from Mom and grabs my foot.

  “How are you feeling?” says Mom. “How’s your head? They say you have a concussion.”

  “How can I have a concussion? I didn’t hit my head.”

  “You just don’t remember hitting your head,” says Dad.

  “I . . . did . . . not . . . hit . . . my . . . head,” I say very slowly and clearly so even they will understand. I remember telling the emergency room doctor the same thing.

  “Uh huh,” say Mom and Dad, exactly like the doctor said. No one believes me. I close my eyes in frustration and wipe my fingertips across my forehead . . . and feel a lump. Could I have hit my head? I was wearing my helmet, which would have protected me. I try to remember what happened. I remember putting my arms out to break the fall, I remember rolling to the side the way that Kansas told me I should do if I ever come off a horse . . . and then I remember Taylor. I remember the blood all over the place.

  I groan out loud. Big mistake.

  “Do you have pain?” says Mom. “We’ll get a nurse.” She grabs the call button from beside my pillow and I grab it back from her quickly before she can press the button.

  “No,” I say, “I do not have pain, other than the stupid pain I get from the growth hormone. I was remembering Taylor, bleeding at the side of the road.”

  My mom takes my hand. “You have to focus on your own recovery, Honey,” she says, but her eyes betray her for a fraction of a second and flick to the curtain separating my bed from the next one.

  “Taylor, are you in there?” I call through the curtain.

  Dad scoots up the bed then leans over and kisses me on the forehead. I flinch. How could I have hit my head and not remember? How could I have hurt myself if I was wearing an ASTM/SEI approved riding helmet like Kansas insists I wear all the time? The skin feels so tender. Dad doesn’t notice. “She’s not there right now, Munchkin, she’ll be back later. She’s down in surgery.”

  Mom shakes her head. “Tony,” she whispers as though I’m not even there, “I told you we should have paid extra for a private room. This is going to be much too upsetting for Sylvie.”

  “Upsetting?” I say. “What’s happened to her?”

  Dad says, “It’s a small thing. She injured her foot, that’s all.”

  That’s when I remember the toe and feel a surge of panic. “If she has to miss dance classes she’ll never forgive me.”

  A dark look passes between my parents. My mom opens her mouth to speak but Dad reaches over and squeezes her shoulder and she presses her lips back together.

  “What?” I say.

  “We’ll tell you later,” says Mom.

  “I hate it when you do this!” Maybe it’s really really bad what’s happened, maybe her whole foot had to be amputated after being damaged by my bike chain and she’ll never walk again, maybe that’s what they’re protecting me from.

  “We’ll tell you when you’re stronger, Snookie,” says Dad. “Right now you need your strength to get better.”

  “Get better? There’s nothing the matter with me! I’d be fine if I wasn’t taking the stupid growth hormone! Ask Dr. Cleveland. Kansas told her all about my getting headaches and throwing up and double vision. I don’t care if I’m short. I’m fine. What’s happened to Taylor?”

  My mom takes my hand. “Settle down, Honey. I know you’re upset, but it’s not appropriate to be demanding like this.”

  Dad says, “She lost her big toe.”

  “Thank Christ!” I say, and they look so shocked that I add, “Not her whole foot then?”

  Mom shakes her head. “Language, Sylvie. Just the toe.”

  “So she could still dance,” I insist.

  “They don’t think so,” says Dad. “Apparently the big toe is very important for dancing.”

  I press deep into my pillows and close my eyes. “Poor Taylor. That would be like me not being able to ride.” I cover my face with my arm.

  “She has to go off the growth hormone?” asks Dad. Now it’s his turn to act as though I’m not there. “They told us there weren’t any side effects.”

  “I’ll look into it,” says Mom. “I did bring the injector though, in case I needed to give her her medication.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I say.

  “You don’t mind if you stay short, Munchkin?” says Dad.

  “What’s so bad about being short, compared to being lame forever?” I sniff.

  “Honey, don’t talk through your arm,” says Mom, “we can’t hear you.”

  I flop my arm onto the bed and glare at my parents. I’m so ready to hate them, but then I see their concern and feel their pain on top of my pain and it’s too much so I have to close my eyes again. I hate being a kid. This will be the worst part of staying short—people will continue to treat me as though I’m six. I have to find a way of dealing with this or I’ll go out of my mind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kansas is sitting on my bed. Mom and Dad have gone home to “freshen up”, but the way they were looking at each other I think they were ready for one of their “making up” sessions that happen after they’ve had an argument. Whatever. At least I won’t be at home pretending I don’t notice anything.

  Kansas and I are whispering because Taylor is back from surgery and we don’t want to wake her. She’s hidden behind the curtain which is fine with me, I don’t want to see her foot or what’s left of it.

  I can see that Kansas isn’t comfortable in the hospital. Her shoulders are scrunched up around her ears and she jumps every time an announcement is made on the loudspeaker. Plus her eyes are shifty, which never ever happens at the barn.

  I know she’ll be more comfortable if she can talk about horses, so I ask her how Brooklyn is doing and she looks even more uneasy and she thinks a long time before she opens her mouth to say anything.

  “I think he’s very smart,” she says, and when she sees my big smile she adds, “which isn’t always a good thing.”

  “It’s good in people,” I say.

  “It took me fifteen minutes to get a halter on him this morning,” she says.

  “What field was he in? Was he out with Electra?”

  “He was in his stall.”

&
nbsp; I can’t imagine Kansas chasing a horse around a box stall for fifteen minutes. She won’t be feeling very good about herself. I don’t know what to say.

  “Then I lunged him,” says Kansas. “I swear he was sound at the beginning but after two minutes he was so lame he was almost falling over. Then I put him back in his stall and run-out paddock and he was sound again.”

  “Oh no. I thought Declan fixed him.” There is that small matter of the unicorn horn stuck in his foot that I don’t want to talk about.

  “That’s what I thought. But we have to get the vet out to do his teeth anyway, so maybe she can have a thorough look at him. Probably he’ll be fine. He’s just got a bruised sole.”

  She doesn’t sound convinced. I’m more and more sure she doesn’t even like him.

  I feel like I’m going to cry. Nothing is going right.

  “And Taylor lost her toe,” I say, sniffing. “She’ll never dance again.”

  I reach for Kansas’s hand. I’ve never held her hand before. It’s rough and calloused and strong, not like my mom’s or even my dad’s hand but maybe like my grandpa’s. For a second I think she’s going to cry, too. She stares at me like I’m an orphaned kitten. “Oh, Sylvia,” she says. “Everything will be okay. We’ll sort it all out. The vet will help.”

  “My dad will hit the roof about the vet. He already thinks horses are too expensive.”

  Kansas nods. “Let’s take it a stage at a time then. She won’t do an extensive workup without authorization anyway. I called her office. She could come tomorrow. Any chance you’ll be out by then?”

  I shrug.

  A croaky voice emanates from the other side of the curtain, “You better not be out by then. You have to stay in here with me.”

  “Taylor!” I yell. I grab the rail of my bed, lean out as far as I can and whip back the curtain. It slides two feet and stops. Kansas has to get up and open it the rest of the way.

  Taylor is lying flat out, her right leg propped on a pile of pillows. Fortunately her foot is so thickly wrapped with bandages that no one could tell there was a crucial piece missing. I wonder if Taylor remembers. A thin tube snakes from two bags on an IV pole and disappears under a patch of white tape on the back of her hand.

  “Taylor, how are you feeling?” I say.

  Taylor’s eyes are half-closed. “I dunno. The drugs are good I think.”

  Kansas is looking wide-eyed at Taylor’s foot, then mouths at me, “Does she know?” I give her a silent shrug.

  Taylor peers in Kansas’s direction. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Kansas, Sylvia’s riding . . . pal.”

  Taylor nods vaguely. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard all about you.” Then she squints, trying to focus on Kansas’s face. “Hey, weren’t you there yesterday? On the road?”

  Kansas nods.

  “I thought so,” says Taylor. She raises her leg, straight up from the mattress, with all the flexibility, strength and finesse of a dancer, and delicately repositions it on the pillows.

  “Oh god,” I moan.

  “Good drugs, but my toe still feels very weird,” says Taylor.

  I lock eyes with Kansas in a panic.

  Kansas says, “Maybe I should go.”

  She edges towards the door but stops dead in her tracks when I say quietly, “Don’t you dare.”

  Kansas resumes her perch on the very edge of my bed, still ready to flee at the first opportunity.

  I almost can’t believe it. I’ve somehow done a boss mare trick, on Kansas of all people, and prevented her from leaving. Of course, I’m desperate because if Taylor doesn’t know she’s lost her toe, I don’t want to be alone with her. I don’t want to be the one to tell her, and I know I can’t lie to Taylor. Sooner or later she will squeeze the truth out of me because Taylor is older and she’s always done that. She’s always been the one in charge.

  Though who knows? With my new-found boss mare skills, perhaps I could even manage Taylor.

  There’s a light tapping sound at the doorway, and Dr. Cleveland’s head appears around the edge. “Can I come in?” She says hi to Kansas then strides in between the two beds. “Sylvia, is it okay if I visit? Not everyone wants a psychiatrist in their room.”

  “We all know Sylvia sees a shrink,” says Taylor. Her words are slightly slurred, almost as though she’s drunk, and she’s speaking loudly as though she doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

  “Hey, that’s great. They put the both of you in one room,” says Dr. Cleveland. “How’re you doing, Taylor?”

  “Oh fine.” She sighs dramatically. “But my toe feels funny.” Then she giggles. “Actually everything feels funny.”

  Fine, I think. A medical professional can handle this. Better still that it be a psychiatrist.

  “That’s understandable,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  “No pain though, because I’m on some really good drugs apparently.” Taylor raises her hand with the IV needle then gently tucks it back at her side.

  “Very good drugs, I imagine,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  I wish Dr. Cleveland would say something more instead of blandly going along with everything. Doesn’t Taylor deserve to know the truth? This would be the perfect time to tell her because there are two adults present to deal with her fury and grief, and even more importantly, to protect me in case I get blamed for everything. I look to Kansas who is usually a confident straight-shooter type who tells things the way they are, but she is looking totally lost. I guess she isn’t comfortable here in the hospital like she is back on her farm, in the barn, surrounded by thousand-pound animals. This is more Dr. Cleveland’s territory, though of course Taylor isn’t her patient. Not yet anyway. Probably later she will be, when Taylor loses her mind about losing her toe and her future with the National Ballet.

  Maybe I should tell Taylor myself, and get it over with. It’s not exactly fair because I’m the youngest, but perhaps this is part of being a boss mare. Electra for example is small and has to deal with Hambone all the time and how fair is that?

  But then Taylor says, “I mean, I know it isn’t there any more, but it still feels like it’s there. It’s as though part of my brain doesn’t get it. And when I look at my foot, my toe still could be under all the bandages instead of lying in the dirt at the side of the road. It’s very weird. Very very weird.”

  “Your brain will adjust,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  “But I like the drugs,” says Taylor with a wobbly smile.

  I can’t think of what to say. I’m hugely relieved that I don’t have to break the news to Taylor, but don’t know how to approach the other matter.

  “Though I suppose my dancing days are done,” says Taylor with a small sniff. “And running, and basketball and volleyball—not that I liked any of those sports. I guess I’ll be stuck on my butt for the rest of my life. Oh well.”

  Oh well? That’s it? No drama, no My life is over? No I will never forgive Sylvia for doing this to me?

  Dr. Cleveland says, “Well, Taylor, you’ve lost a toe, not a leg. There are lots of sports left for you to try. Hey, you could even join our riding club.” She gestures to include me and Kansas.

  This is a ridiculous idea. Taylor is afraid of horses. Taylor is actually afraid of a lot of things. Surely there will be an eruption.

  “Right. Riding for the disabled. I’ve read about it,” says Taylor mildly.

  “You would hardly qualify,” says Dr. Cleveland. “Not to mention that we’re all disabled in some way. Right, Kansas?”

  Kansas nods her agreement but I don’t understand what they’re getting at. I understand my own disability, my shortness, but can’t imagine how Dr. Cleveland is disabled. She is perfect, and of course there’s not a thing wrong with Kansas. Or at least I’ve never thought so, not on the farm where Kansas is in her element. I conside
r the ratty jean jacket that Kansas is wearing, her hair held back with the blue elastic from the bunch of broccoli. I like this look on the farm. Here it does look a little weird.

  Dr. Cleveland says, “What do you think, Kansas, can people ride if they’re missing a big toe?”

  “Don’t see why not,” says Kansas. “All the weight-bearing is on the ball of the foot, though the idea is to get your weight into your heel, and on your thighs of course.”

  “Blah blah blah,” says Taylor, her voice fading. I hope she is going to sleep, but then she says, “Hey. You’re really a shrink?”

  “Mmm hmm,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  “Well how come you’re so tall?” Taylor giggles again. “Especially since you’re— what, Chinese?”

  She is so stoned. Though I’ve always wanted to know about Dr. Cleveland’s background and never thought it appropriate to ask.

  “My mother is Japanese-Canadian. My father is American-Basketballplayer,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  “That figures,” says Taylor. She laughs, then falls silent.

  “I think she’s asleep,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  “I thought she’d be more upset,” I say.

  “It’s difficult to be very upset about anything when you’re on the right amount of morphine,” says Dr. Cleveland. “How are you doing, Sylvia?”

  “I’m fine. My head doesn’t hurt so much. I want to go see Brooklyn.”

  “I’ve had a word with your pediatrician. He’ll be in to see you later. I expect he’ll be taking you off the growth hormone injections.”

  “And starting me on the estrogen treatment?”

  Dr. Cleveland glances at Kansas, but her face remains unreadable. My mom says that all psychiatrists are like this. She insists it has nothing to do with being an inscrutable Asian, which would be racist. I find it unsettling anyway.

  “I expect so, but probably not until you’re out of hospital,” says Dr. Cleveland.

  Kansas punches me lightly on the thigh. “They’re going to make a woman out of you one way or another.”

  I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I try to smile.