chapter sixteen

Hospital. Five a.m. It’s Halloween morning. A gruesome day for limb removal.

I wonder if Kristina is aware what day it is and if it will ruin Halloween for her forever. It’s always been her favorite holiday, the parties, dressing up. This is the first year since she was a little kid she hasn’t gone to at least two Halloween parties.

Dad reaches out to give me a hug. I let him squeeze hard and don’t let go. He hasn’t hugged me like that since I was a little girl, when it would make me feel one hundred percent safe. It doesn’t work like that anymore.

“I love you,” he whispers in my ear. Again. I went years without hearing it.

Mom paces the hallway, back and forth, like a caged lioness at the zoo. She strides in the same pattern, over and over.

Dr. Turner comes to the waiting room to talk to us and asks us to come see Kristina before they prep her for the operation. They’ve sedated her already and she’s groggy. I don’t say a word. I mean, what do you say?

The three of us return to the waiting room while they operate. Mom paces. Dad plays musical chairs. I have no idea how long we’ve waited when a nurse comes out and quietly updates us. It’s going well, no problems with bleeding or clotting, she says. They’ve removed the diseased bone and are beginning the second part of the operation, constructing a stump that allows for the use of prostheses.

A few bottles of Coke later, the nurse appears again and lets us know the operation is complete. Kristina has been moved to post-op. When her anesthetic wears off, we can see her.

“You can see her now,” a nurse says sometime later.

As we walk down the hallway toward Kristina, Mom’s heels click on the floor. Two feet. Click clack. Click clack. I wonder how it will sound when Kristina learns to walk. Click shuffle? For some stupid reason I wonder if she’ll be able to wear boots with a prosthetic leg.

We tiptoe inside her room. She’s lying on the bed, pale and small. I try not to look at the bottom of the sheets. Where one leg makes a much shorter indent than the other.

She’s dozing, but when Mom goes and rubs her shoulder, she opens her eyes and stares vacantly, and then she groans and squeezes them tight.

Her expression blocks air from my lungs. It hurts to breathe. Dad stands a few feet from the bed, not looking at Kristina or her leg. A nurse comes in and whispers for us to let her sleep. We walk out single-file, back to a waiting room. Before long, Kristina is pushed past us, down the hallway on a gurney back to her hospital room.

Mom and Dad are the only two allowed to see her. I sit cross-legged on the uncomfortable chairs and stare at the dirty beige walls in the waiting room. People come and go with various expressions of grief and relief. A little girl sits on her dad’s lap, sucking her thumb and holding a worn-out beige teddy bear. Her hair is the same color as Kristina’s. As it was. Staring at her, an image pops into my head.

Bending over, I grab my backpack from where it’s tucked under the seat and take out my sketch. My entry has been missing the special something that takes a piece from good to great.

In a fit of inspiration, I begin to draw a girl. My fingers fly, my mind transferring the images to the page through my hands. I work, transfixed, shading and contouring, and a girl emerges. Her hands are raised above her head as if she’s in flight. She is both brave and fragile, with her features shadowed but her intent clear.

She’s diving in. Straight into the erupting volcano.

When it’s complete, my body feels drained, but I know it’s done. I check my watch. There’s still time to postmark the entry before the deadline.