Pogo

     I half-tried to sit up. “Yeah. Better call.”

     “Good going, Sis.” My brother half-smiled down at me. 

     One Lab sniffed my foot; another gave my cheek an encouraging lick.

     “Get them away.” Mom shoved the larger dog with her knee. “Where’s the third one?” 

     My brother pounded up the stairs, followed by the kids and other dogs. “Ah, Jeez!” Sounds of a scuffle above. “No! Put that down!”

     “The ham?” Mom was at the bottom of the steps, torn between me and her culinary extravaganza.

     “Yeah. I’ll put the dogs in the garage, Mom. Sorry.” 

     I started to laugh and, just as fast, everything hurt – so I stopped. Someone draped a mildewy blanket over me. I recognized half of the concerned faces, these people who’d celebrate Christmas Eve together shortly while I’d be in the ER. 

     Maybe I wouldn’t be back in New York for New Year’s Eve. Not that I went to Times Square these days, but I looked forward to celebrating with my chosen family of transplants. So great was my despair that I sobbed, quaking under the smelly blanket, but no one noticed. 

     “They’re sending someone. Maybe ten minutes,” Dad squatted near my head and brushed the hair out of my face. “Sorry, kiddo.”

     I lay on the floor. Everyone talked over me. Mom picked up the pogo stick and put it out of reach. Dad’s friends asked about the sports equipment and dusty trophies. Someone spotted a shelf of old board games. “Battleship, Aggravation, Mousetrap.” Mom had kept them all.

     Time had moved on while I was away. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was a middle-aged adult, flirting with old age and possible senility. Who would jump onto a pogo stick on a whim after thirty-five years? Stupid. Really stupid. 

     The ambulance crew arrived and maneuvered a stretcher down the rickety steps. After twenty questions answered by everyone at once and a thorough check of my vitals and spinal alignment, they strapped me down, draped me in a clean blanket, and hoisted me up to the kitchen. I greedily inhaled the heady aromas of the dinner I’d miss. 

     My brother followed me outside, pressing my phone and wallet into my good hand. He volunteered to accompany me, but I insisted he stay and help Mom with the dinner. None of the others would. The EMTs dispensed with the sirens. We rode in silence.

***

Twenty minutes later, the attendants rolled me into the ER to join the sizeable crowd awaiting first aid. These were my people – who’d also made poorly considered decisions during holiday celebrations, resulting in bloodshed, broken bones, and tears. Each held body parts in distress – heads, legs, arms, stomachs. Mostly, they sat in pairs, one hunched in pain, the other with the dead eyes of boredom, anticipating the long evening ahead. 

     “You’re here on your own?” asked the ER manager, searching beyond me like I wasn’t welcome solo. “Any family?”

     “I told them to stay and enjoy their dinner. Christmas Eve and all.”

     “From the area?” she asked, wedging her clipboard onto my pallet.

     “I grew up here. I live in New York now.”

     I was gripped with an odd stirring. At first, I thought it was hunger pains, but that wasn’t it. It felt like the time Mom and Dad left me at Girl Scout Camp. I missed my family but acted like I didn’t. 

     I spent time in radiology having my wrist, hips, knees, and shoulder X-rayed. A few hours later, a weary doctor set my wrist in a hard cast, bubblegum pink. He worked without conversation and released me with a scowl and a blister-Pac of pain pills. I’d bruised several body parts but miraculously hadn’t broken anything else. I decided to Uber home, avoiding an accusatory car ride with Mom or a silent one with Dad.

***

“Welcome back,” Mom half-looked up from her knitting. She seemed to knit constantly, like Madame Defarge, though I never saw the final product of her efforts. Maybe it was a record of our lives or a journal of her feelings. “There are leftovers if you’re hungry. Ask Dad to make you a sandwich.”

     Normally, she’d make me a sandwich. I guessed she was offended by my accident. As if I’d intentionally destroyed the special dinner she’d spent hours preparing. Because of me, the compliments for her meal were diluted by speculation on the extent of my injuries. I suspected she wouldn’t forgive me for a long time. Dad would be making sandwiches for the foreseeable future.

     In the kitchen, I found him wolfing down cherry pie like it was a secret. Since he stopped drinking, he’d become addicted to sweets, though the extra calories seemed to land on Mom’s hips instead. 

     He raised his eyebrows. “How about I make you a turkey sandwich with everything on it?” Lightly, he touched my cast. “Does it hurt a lot?”