It was sassy Chantelle who managed to lighten things up. “Girl,” she shrilled, grinning, “why didn’t you say ‘Fuck you’?”
My parents came that evening, as they did every evening. They came by subway from Brooklyn, and never got to the hospital before seven. My father looked tired, because he had worked hard all day. My mother looked lost. She missed her town, her family and friends, and couldn’t get used to this new country. I couldn’t tell my parents what had happened. I didn’t want to make them unhappy. Besides, I was too ashamed.
At last, the doctors decided to start by releasing a tendon in my right leg and scheduled me for surgery.
“Great! After the surgery, they’ll give you braces,” Rosa said.
I was wheeled down on a stretcher at 9:00 A.M. , smiling and waving good-bye to everyone. Audrey was still in bed. “Good luck!” she yelled from her room. I couldn’t see her, but I waved to her just the same. “Bye, Audrey!” I was not afraid. All the other kids had already had surgery; now I would be like everyone else.
I was taken to a floor that had a strange medicinal smell and left in front of a big closed door. When doctors and nurses wearing green gowns and masks went in and out, I tried to look through that door. All I could see was bright light.
Then a doctor and a nurse came over to me. The nurse held my arm and the doctor stuck a needle in my vein.
“Can you count backward from one hundred?” he asked.
I hadn’t learned to count that high in English, let alone count backward. I wanted to explain, but I fell asleep before I could say a word.
I woke up in a strange place, with glaring lights above me and weird beeps and humming noises all around me. It felt as if my leg were in a meat grinder, flesh and bones being crushed and chopped and mashed into a pulp. I could never have imagined such pain.
I cried “Aiuto!” meaning “help,” and called for my mother, “Mamma!”
The only words I could utter were in my native language. I couldn’t remember a single one of the hundreds of English words I’d learned. A nurse’s face appeared above me. She was talking to me, but I couldn’t understand her. She gave me a shot and I went back to sleep.
The next time I awoke, I was throwing up, my whole body seized with violent waves, heaving and retching the most foul-tasting green poison. I was still in the recovery room, my leg still in the meat grinder. I felt terribly thirsty. But the English word water was nowhere to be found in my brain.
“Acqua,” I cried. “Acqua,” I begged. But no one answered. No one came over to me.
Then I was back in my room and my parents were there. Was it evening already, or had they taken the day off from work? I was throwing up again and crying uncontrollably.
“Mamma! Mamma! Che male! How it hurts!”
My mother held me while I strained to bring up more foul-tasting green poison. She wiped my face with a cool, wet washcloth and put an ice chip in my mouth. And she cried right along with me. My father also seemed on the verge of tears.
Oh no! How could I make my parents so unhappy? They had been through so much for me already. I had to stop crying. I was a big girl, not a baby.
“Sto meglio,” I whispered, “I’m better,” and smiled to make sure my parents believed me.
When I woke up again, my parents were gone. But someone was holding my hand. I turned my head on the vomit-stained pillow and saw Audrey. I squeezed her hand but could only speak to her in my mind. Oh, Audrey, I’m so sorry. I forgot all the English words you taught me. But I’m so happy you’re here. My mother always told me there was a crippled girl like me living in another town. I didn’t know you lived so far away, in America. But I knew that, wherever you were, I would find you. Audrey, my lost sister, my beautiful crippled sister. I’m so happy I found you. I love you, Audrey.
The English words all came back to me within a few days. The pain gradually subsided. The nausea lasted a whole week. I chewed ice chips until my gums, my tongue, even my teeth were numb. When I finally could get out of bed and into a wheelchair, I was so thrilled that I went racing up and down the corridor, yelling “Hello, everybody!”
Then I heard the music coming from Audrey’s room. A few girls were in there, and others came in after me. Audrey had stolen some fat Magic Markers from the recreation room. With a red one, she wrote on the brand-new cast on my leg “LOVE, Audrey” as the girls crowded around, encircling me. They all signed their names and drew hearts and flowers, until my whole cast was covered.
The day before, my parents had brought me a box of chocolates. We passed it around as we listened to records. Some of the boys joined us, and soon we were all licking chocolate off our fingers and shimmying and bopping in our wheelchairs. My stomach got a bit queasy from the chocolate, and I felt kind of dizzy shaking my head to the music. But who cared? I was so happy to be with my friends. So happy to be in America. So happy my father had found the best hospital for me.
3
BLOOD SISTERS
About a month after the surgery, I was discharged from the hospital and given a wheelchair. Rosa had been wrong about my getting braces. The doctors told my father the next step was to release another tendon, this time in my left leg. After that, my ankles would need to be fused. And other surgeries would be necessary—it was hard to predict how many—before I could be taught to stand and walk. My father agreed to it all, happy that I was getting the best care.
I barely had time to get settled at home before I had to go back into the hospital for more surgery. But I was happy to go. More surgery meant more pain, but it also meant seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Best of all, it meant being with Audrey.
Audrey and I always tried to be in the hospital at the same time.
“Tell the doctors you can’t go in till next month. That’s when I’m having my surgery,” Audrey would say.
“Oh, please, see if they can do it earlier! I don’t want to wait that long!”
We were best friends, though we never got to see each other outside of the hospital. Audrey lived on Long Island. Her parents had a car and drove her places, but I guess my home in Brooklyn was too far. We were happy talking on the phone every day. Usually, I waited for her to call me, since a call to Long Island was long-distance and expensive. Audrey’s parents didn’t mind the high phone bills.
I’d made no friends outside of the hospital. I went out only with my parents and not very often. Our apartment without stairs still had one step at the front door. I couldn’t manage that step on my own in my wheelchair.
Audrey told me her house had a ramp, so she could go in and out without anyone’s help. I asked my father to build a ramp for me. He told me he couldn’t. Unlike Audrey’s parents, who owned their house, we rented our apartment, and the landlord would never agree to a ramp.
“Don’t worry, gioia, before long we won’t need that wheelchair.” Wasn’t that the reason we had come to America? Presto guarisci, presto cammini was the refrain I heard every day.
If I could have gone out in my wheelchair, I wouldn’t have gotten far, since none of the curbs had cuts, and there were steps going into most places. Besides, I wasn’t brave enough to venture out on my own. I was still the shy crippled girl from the little town of Riposto.
When I went out with my parents, it was to visit our cousins Vito and Concetta and their son, Vittorio, or Victor, who was a few years older than I. They lived only a block away in an apartment on the second floor. My father carried me up the stairs.
Cousin Concetta had found a job