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Show wrong move on my part would leave him fingerless or dead. While my dad soldered, welded, or sawed, I imagined what would happen if I failed to hold the boards the way - they needed to be held or let the two wires touch-a slip of the saw meant red blood fountaining from a fingerless hand and my father screaming in pain while I tried to locate the missing fingers amid the inch-thick layer of sawdust that covered the garage floor. This is no different. Lying on the doctor's table, fighting the urge to move and knowing I will fail once the needle goes in, I contemplate remaining in this fetal position for life, like the girl in the cast, only it will not be plaster that imprisons me but my own inability to keep still. Moving his hand along my spine, the doctor tells me he is about to insert the needle. I look toward my stomach, expecting the head of the needle to emerge from my back side. When the pain comes, I remain as still as death. My mother brings me projects to do while I remain in the hospital; the art therapy sessions once a week on the Children's Ward are not frequent enough. The key to healing, my mother implies by the shear weight of her crafts bag, is in keeping mind and hands engaged. Sitting in bed, in new pink pajamas with tiny flowers that vine around the neck, I wind God's eyes out of yarn scraps and glue popsicle stick furniture while she tells me stories about my brothers and reads the get well cards sent by my relatives. The girl in the cast has been moved to another room or has been released. No one tells me which. There are several empty beds, so we have plenty of space to work. My God's eyes come out crooked again and again, the cross pieces far from perpendicular. I cannot tell if it is my vision or my hands that cause them to bend and turn, but the result suggests 81 |
