It’s quiet in here, the girls’ breathing and our hearts the only noise. I give them something they’ll recognize, Pachelbel’s Canon, and even though it’s never been a favorite of mine I see faces gathering in the window, Nurse Karen and then Nurse Angela peeking in to see where the music is coming from. My fingers breeze through it, the notes familiar. Between my own breaths I hear the other girls’ evening out.
I finish off and ease into Schumann’s “First Loss,” a simple but elegant piece in E minor. It’s always been a favorite of mine, and though it’s written for children, there’s a true sadness in this song, followed by what feels like a paroxysm of rage at the end, a denial of what will happen, or perhaps already has. This song is about death, and while I’ve always known that, I never played it like I understood. Until now.
I wet my lips at the end, tightening the mouthpiece and checking the reed. I have to take a break before I launch into the next song. I’m out of breath and nearly wheezing when Jo’s voice rises from the darkness, surprising me.
“Hey, do you know that one song that kinda goes like this . . .” She hums a few bars of “Memory” from Cats, which takes me totally off guard but I gladly play it, stumbling over the bridge because I don’t have any music in front of me. The Sasha Stone of a few months ago could have improvised the entire piece, but that was a different girl, one whose fingers would never be tired after only three songs. One who could have played for hours without gasping. I flex my hands, easing out a cramp at the end of Jo’s request.
“How about . . . uh, the song they always play at graduations,” Brandy says.
“‘Pomp and Circumstance’?” I ask, and riff a few bars for her.
“Yeah, I kinda like that.”
“Sure,” I say, and this comes easily, branded onto my memory since freshman year.
The requests come quickly after that, with lots of guesses on my part and humming on theirs, but we piece together music in that cold room, musty mats underneath us, the air around us heavy with darkness and minor keys. My mind is agile, my fingers keen to play, and as I claim back this small piece of my life, I begin to plan how I will claim it all, once again.
?sister? talk to ME.
I am —her-e
My answer, written so that she will understand.
U had y/our/ time (minetime). Over [no]w. I need a F(u)t(ur)e.
To Brooke
Thanks a lot.
???
You told Heath about Isaac
Yep But I told you about Heath & Lilly
Found a great subreddit with gifs of blisters bursting
Staying mad at Brooke is impossible. I want to throw my phone, but instead I end up texting her back about Heath coming to give me the official shove-off and asking her to send pics of some sheet music I know she has stashed away. She says she will in exchange for shots of Brandy’s stump if she’s cool with that.
I’m doing a silent walk-through of some Brahms I think would work well for our next meditation when Layla and Brandy burst into my room.
“Who’s the douche?” Brandy demands, taking the spinning chair while Layla takes the couch.
“The douche?”
“The guy who walks like he stores the family Christmas tree in his ass,” Brandy elaborates, spinning first one direction, then another.
“Oh, Heath.” I snap apart my clarinet and take my time doing it. I don’t know what to say about him. He’s a chapter in a book I’ve already read, but one I’d keep on my bookshelf for a rainy day if I were desperately bored.
“Uh, yeah, Heath,” Layla says, mocking me. “What’s the story there?”
“He’s the guy I fit with,” I say as I snap my case shut.
“Like fit, fit?” Brandy asks, making a fist with one hand and jamming her index finger in it.
“Ew, no,” I say automatically.
“Then you don’t fit,” Layla says. “I don’t care if your clothes match or what. If the thought of bumping uglies with him makes you barf a little, it’s a no-go.”
“Can we talk about something other than my ugly?” I ask.
“How about a crane falling across three lanes of traffic on the eastbound?” Brandy offers. “Probably a few possibilities there.”
I shake my head. “Doubt it. Any life-threatening injuries probably involve crushing, ribs puncturing organs, and so on.”
“Bummer,” Layla says, and picks up my nail file.
“Although I guess there could be amputee situations, possible bleed-outs . . .” I tap my fingers on the bed railing, my eyes drifting to Brandy’s prosthetic.
She stops spinning in the chair. “Look, I’m kind of over it. So if you want to ask me stuff about my foot, go ahead.”
Layla tosses aside the file and moves over to the bed to join me. “Is it weird?”
“At first, yeah,” Brandy says. “But you just get used to it. Like, you wear glasses, right?” She points at Layla, who nods. “So when you get up first thing in the morning, what do you do?”
“I put my glasses on so I can see,” Layla says. “Otherwise I’m blind.”
“Right, so same thing. I get up and put on my foot so I can walk.”
“Wait, do you get half off on pedicures?” Layla asks, and I whack her on the arm. “Ow! What? She said she’s over it.”
“Want to hear something cool?” Brandy asks.
“Yes,” Layla and I say at the same time.
“So I sleepwalk, like, a lot,” Brandy says. “And after the amputation it was this big problem. Dad lined the floor around my bed with pillows every night, because I’d forget I had only one foot, and I’d try to get out of bed in my sleep.”
“Sucks,” Layla says, but Brandy shakes her head.
“I only fell a few times before my brain figured it out. So now I put my foot on in my sleep. Except once I put it on backward and it got stuck, and we had to go to the ER. That was not awesome.”
“How did you even explain that?” Layla asks.
“Wait, so even in a semiconscious state you knew to put your foot on?” I ask, redirecting the conversation before they start trading ER stories, which I’ve learned can quickly become a thing in the cardiac center.
“Yeah, I guess it’s kind of like people putting on clothes before they walk outside even when they’re sleepwalking. They just know.”
“Does it hurt?” Layla asks. “Like your . . . I don’t know, do you call it a stump?”
“Yeah, stump,” Brandy says. “It doesn’t hurt so much, no. But my foot still does sometimes, which isn’t so bad. But the itching makes me crazy.”
“Itching?” Layla sits up. “The foot that isn’t there can itch still? And you can’t scratch it, like ever? That is the literal worst.”
“Yep,” Brandy says. “The doctors tried to explain it to me. Basically what happens is my brain still gets signals from that foot, even though it’s not there. So sometimes it’ll hurt, or itch, or burn. It took a while for insurance to come through with my fake foot, so they tried mirror therapy for me first.”
“Explain mirror therapy,” I say.
“So, it’s like a box,” Brandy says, rolling the tray table over to put it in between her and us. “And there’s an opening on each side, and one on the top. If you’ve got your right hand, you stick it in that hole, okay?”
She pretends to stick her right hand into the imaginary box and we both nod.
“And the inside of the box has mirrors facing each other, so if you’re missing your left hand and it itches, you stick your right hand in there and look down through the top and your brain sees two hands and you scratch the one that looks like your left hand.”