“That one’s for Uncle Tony,” I said as she slapped her hands together like, light work. “But I need to sit down too.” I pointed at the other chair. “And then you can sit on my lap.” Maddy trotted back to the other side of the room to get the other one, Uncle Tony plopping down in the first.
“Thank you, Maddy,” he said, winking at Momly.
“No problem. They not even that heavy for me,” Maddy boasted.
“Of course not,” I agreed, watching her lug the next chair. When she’d parked it beside the other, I sat down. “Girl, I’m so glad we got somebody strong in this family.” I patted my thighs, beckoning her to come take a seat so we could continue on with the visit and put the tears and scary stuff behind us. But, in true Maddy fashion, she wasn’t ready to sit yet. Oh no. I got her going. Got her all revved up. Next thing I know she was now explaining to the doctor that she was one of the strongest first graders he’d ever seen.
“It’s true,” Momly gurgled.
And when Dr. Lancaster asked, “Is that right?” Maddy ran up on him like a maniac, threw her arms around his legs, and tried to lift him!
“Wha . . . Whoa, whoa!” the doctor hooted.
“Maddy!” both Uncle Tony and Momly barked, clearly embarrassed. And me, well, I actually thought it was kind of awesome. I mean, think about it. Here we all are, sad about what happened to Momly—and what could’ve happened to Maddy—and somehow (thanks to me, ahem) we got from there to watching Maddy try to lift the doctor up off the floor.
“I . . . got it. I . . . can . . . do it!” she growled, yanking at the doctor’s legs, his pants lifting enough to see his yellow dress socks. The doctor looked at me. I looked at him. He smiled, and then raised slowly up on his tiptoes just enough.
“What? How did you . . . ?” Dr. Lancaster gasped. Maddy let him go, stood back up, breathing heavy and nodding like some kind of warrior.
“I told you,” she said to the doctor, then turned to the rest of us. “Told y’all.”
“Lord have mercy,” Momly muttered under her breath, shaking her head slightly. If only Ma had heard her, we would’ve had to go into a whole Sunday service right here in the hospital. “Okay, Maddy, that’s enough. You’ve . . . proven your point.”
But . . . she hadn’t. It was like she had roid rage. That’s what it’s called when you take steroids and get all jacked and then start flipping out, right? Roid rage. It was like she had that. Because you wouldn’t believe what she did next. She came back over to where me and Uncle Tony were sitting, and I thought she finally was going to hop up on my lap, but instead she turned toward Momly and grabbed the bed frame. “I can lift up this whole bed, with Momly in it!”
“NOOO!” everyone—everyone—shouted, and I sprang from my seat and grabbed Maddy before she could even try. Not that she would’ve really been able to lift it, but still, anything’s possible, and then one broken arm is two broken arms and a broken back.
But thankfully, nothing, at least nothing like that, happened.
What did happen was Dr. Lancaster finally explained to Uncle Tony that Momly would have to have surgery to set and pin the bone.
“And when is this surgery?” Uncle Tony asked.
“Well, we wanted to do it today, but like I said, we have to monitor the concussion. So we’ll need to do it tomorrow morning.”
We stayed at the hospital for a few more hours until finally Momly basically forced us to leave, saying we didn’t have to go back to school but that I could not miss track practice. I was surprised. Maybe she knew that I wouldn’t have been able to focus in class, probably resulting in me getting in trouble for finally letting one of them fake hair flippers have it. Or maybe she knew I needed practice. I needed to run.
And I did, even though, because yesterday’s practice had been rained out, this would be the last practice before the meet on Saturday. I was fully prepared for the hardest practice ever.
TO DO: Run forever (and then run some more)
WELL, NOT FULLY prepared.
Thursday. Long-run day. No surprise there. But because we were also training for relay races, Coach had to figure out how to combine both endurance and relay into the same workout. Which basically means, Coach had to figure out how to crush us.
“Patty, you okay?” Ghost whispered to me as we stretched—left-side toe touches. Aaron was counting down from ten.
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
“Six, five, four . . . ,” Aaron chanted.
“I’ono,” Ghost said, now mid-yawn. Said he stayed up all night watching some movie about Jesse Owens, which was fine for him since he didn’t have to go school. Spring break life. Ghost’s tongue was a weird shade of purple, dyed from something. Candy, I guessed. “You just seem . . . different.”
“Switch!” Aaron said. We all stretched to the right. With my eyes I followed my right arm, top part, elbow, bottom part, wrist, hand. All there. All working. I couldn’t help but have a flash of Momly. And even though I knew she’d be okay—at least I hoped she’d be okay—it was hard to not wonder how everything was going to get done now. Would Uncle Tony have to drive us everywhere? Drop us off at school, pick us up? Then pick me up from track? What about dinner? What about Ma? Who was going to take care of Ma? And how was she going to go get her blood cleaned? I couldn’t take her. I would if I could, but I can’t drive! It was impossible to not think about all these things. These things that I hadn’t really thought about because Momly always just . . . did them. Which I also never . . . really . . . thought about.
It was also impossible to just come to the track and pretend like I hadn’t just come from the hospital. The hospital has a way of sticking to your skin.
“Yeah, Patty, you do seem strange,” Lu added.
“Eight, seven, six, five . . .”
I turned to Sunny, trying to keep up my front. “Am I acting funny, Sunny?”
Sunny smiled at funny, Sunny.
“Switch! Down the middle!” Aaron now ordered.
“Funny?” Sunny asked, his noodle-y body bent over, hanging limp, his fingertips pressing the track. “Not funny. But yeah, kinda weird.”
“Told you,” Ghost said, low. I didn’t know what it was about these guys. Except for Lu, I had only known them for a few weeks, and they could already tell when something was going on with me. I mean, I could always tell when something was wrong with them, because something was always wrong with them. But the fact that they could pick me apart so easily was crazy.
“Above your head!” Aaron called out.
“It’s just that my—” I started to tell them, but Coach cut me off.
“Focus, newbies! We’re not talking, we’re stretching! It’s been an eventful week, and you four always seemed to be part of the events. So today, keep your heads in the lane.” Lu and Ghost had their arms up but tucked their chins, almost as if they were sniffing their pits, when really they were just sneak-looking at me. I gave them a yes, something’s going on and I’ll tell you later sort of nod.