MOMLY WAS ALIVE. The nurse at the front desk told us she was banged up pretty bad, and had a mild concussion and a broken arm.
“And what about Maddy?” I asked before she’d even finished saying “broken arm.” My heart had turned into a frog trying to jump out my throat. My brain thinking bad things only. I’m sorry, but she didn’t make it . . . No. No, no, no. Don’t think that. Don’t think that. But I couldn’t help it. What if Maddy was . . . I tried not to think what I couldn’t stop myself from thinking. That Maddy, my mini-me, my Waffle, was . . . hurt. Was . . . gone. I tried to speak clear, my voice balling up like a piece of paper. “I mean, Madison. Madison Jones.”
“The little girl who was with her,” Uncle Tony made plain, his voice sharp. Almost too clear.
“Ah.” The nurse’s face brightened up. “Baby ain’t have a scratch on her.”
All the breath in my body left, and then came rushing back in. Filled me up with a bunch of thank goodness. The cannons stopped firing. And the boom-boom-boom became the beep-beep-beep coming though the crack in the door of the room Maddy and Momly were in. It was as if me and Uncle Tony had teleported there.
“Hello?” Uncle Tony cried out as he tapped on the door and crept in like we didn’t belong there, like we were afraid the doctor who was also in the room would think we had come to steal our family back.
“Patty!” Maddy jumped up from a chair and crashed against me. She squeezed, not like she was trying to lift me up, but like she was trying to melt into me. And I squeezed back like I was scared to let go.
Uncle Tony darted to the bed where Momly lay. Maddy and me weren’t far behind him. The first thing I noticed was Momly’s face. It was puffed up, so much purple on her pale skin. Bruises and lumps and knots, worse than a Barnaby beat-down. And then I noticed her arm. The broken one. It was swollen up to the shoulder, making the skin look like it was being stretched too tight. Compared to the other arm, it looked more like a leg, at least the top part did. The bottom part they had in some kind of sling-contraption thingy, to keep it from moving. But I could still see the imprint in the fabric where the bone jutted out, like a second elbow. Looked like it hurt like crazy.
“Come on in, y’all.” Momly’s voice was all grog. She waved us toward her with her good arm—her right arm—like she was hosting a party. “Dr. Lancaster, this is the rest of my family. Patty, and my husband, Tony.”
“Nice to meet you,” Uncle Tony said, immediately shaking the doctor’s hand.
“The pleasure’s mine,” Dr. Lancaster said, smooth. “Me and Maddy are just here making sure Mrs. Emily doesn’t fall asleep while she’s concussed.”
“What happened?” I asked, because how does someone who drove as safe as Momly, someone who didn’t even listen to music in her car, get in a crash?
“Yeah, Em, what in the world happened?” Uncle Tony followed up, gently stroking Momly’s hair.
Momly’s eyes were half-open, blinking super slow like windshield wipers on the low setting. Like when it’s just drizzling. “Someone ran a red light. Smacked right into us and kept going.”
“A hit-and-run?” Uncle Tony asked, his voice hardening in a way I’d never heard.
Momly nodded. “Yeah.” She tried to shift in the bed but was in too much pain to do so. Every little inch up or to the side made her show teeth. A pain smile. “But I’ll be fine,” she was telling us now, stroking Uncle Tony’s arm. “Right, doc? Concussions and broken bones heal. I’m just glad the strongest girl in the world’s not hurt.”
Maddy’s arm tightened around my waist. Down, tears. Down! Hold it together. You are Patina Jones. Daughter of Beverly Jones. No junk. No punk.
“I know,” I said, forcing a small smile and resting my cheek on the top of Maddy’s head. I figured I’d better put my face down somewhere before it split down the middle. Then Maddy reached over and took Momly’s hand, her chest heaving as she worked to fight back her own feelings, even though she had been there the whole time. It was like now that me and Uncle Tony showed up, she could let herself be scared.
“It’s okay, Maddy. I’m fine. I swear. It’s just a broken arm. Remember when Cotton broke her arm? She was better in no time! Nothing crazy.” Cotton broke her arm trying to prove she could do a handstand on the bathroom sink at Barnaby Elementary, but she slipped. She was lucky. Could’ve broke her neck. Or broke her life. But that would’ve been her own fault. This was different. “Hey . . . hey, Patty, I won’t be running any relays anytime soon, huh? No handoffs for me.” Momly was trying to lighten the mood, but it fell flat. I forced a fake laugh, because I got what she was trying to do. But jokes were Uncle Tony’s thing.
“But . . . but . . . I just don’t want them to anfiltrate it!” Maddy wasn’t distracted at all by the corny comedy. Momly refocused.
“They’re not gonna amputate it, baby. They’re gonna fix it,” she assured her. That voice, the one that usually only a mom has, even though . . . well, she’s our mom too, kicked in and seemed to calm the whole room down. But I knew Maddy. I could look in her face and see that she wasn’t so sure that things were going to be fine.
“Maddy, they’re not gonna take it,” I echoed. Then a better idea to chill Maddy out sprouted up in my mind, and I walked to the other side of the room to grab one of the two chairs that were there.
“We’re definitely not,” the doctor confirmed. And while he explained how bone healing works, and Maddy started getting into how our mother had had her legs cut off, I bent down and pretended to try to move the chair. I started grunting like I was constipated or something, just to draw attention. “Ughn . . . ughn.” I turned around and Maddy was still going on about how for our mom, first it was a toe, then it was a foot, then her legs—none of which she actually remembers—and how for Momly, what if it starts with one part of the arm, and the next thing you know half her body is cut off.
“What if she can’t drive with half a body?” she asked the doctor, who at this point looked somewhere between amused and confused.
“Maddy, can you come help me, please?”
“Help you what?” she asked, her voice still quavering.
“Help me move this chair. It’s too heavy.” The chair really was more like real furniture. Not some flimsy fold-up. Of course I could’ve moved it if I really wanted to. But I bent down again with a huge, “Ughn!”
“It’s just a chair, Patty,” Maddy said, skeptical but coming to my side anyway.
“Yeah, but I think hospital chairs be heavier for some reason.”
Maddy frowned, but then she grabbed the chair by the armrests and yanked it forward. I widened my eyes as Maddy backed the chair across the room, inch by inch, until it was at the foot of Momly’s bed.