American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 114

96
FICTION

on floating through my classes, and then spending all of my extracurricular hours at Jack’s house, which was on a farm, a place where
I liked being more than home. There I was treated to home-cooked
meals prepared with vegetables fresh from the plots down the hill.
The Larkins lived far enough from the highway that when I looked
at the sky from their porch at night, I could actually see stars.
When I called my mother to tell her about my jaw, she went on
for a while about her boss Lonnie’s difficult travel arrangements—
three hotels, three nights!—and how she couldn’t get the people at
the Sunset Express to call her back. When I told her what happened,
she said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can. As soon as I finish this
payroll.” Her voice caught as if she might cry, and I hung up. My
mother wanted life to be more than it was, as if we were characters
in a sad story that could move others to tears. She used to channel
her passion into the ballads she sang at Shenanigans, a sports bar
off Route 50, but since the shopping center was razed in favor of
deluxe condominiums, she no longer had an outlet.
Dr. Fuller came in smiling, and for a moment I thought he
might have good news. “Well!” he said. “I’ve got bad news.” He
clipped an X-ray to the light box and pointed at the little sparks
shooting into black around my jaw hinge, my ruined cartilage. “You’ll
need surgery immediately,” he said. “And six weeks of mandatory
sealed rehabilitation.” I asked him what that was, and he said my
jaw would be wired shut, that he would wind little metal fibers
around my braces.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You will still be a beautiful young woman.”
I didn’t believe him. Would my jaw be centered, as it was? Or
would it hang low and loose? Would I talk funny? I saw myself:
slack-jawed and unlovable. Kissing me would be like kissing a dog.
When my mother arrived, her face was pink and salt-streaked.
“The traffic was god-awful,” she said. “It was backed up for miles
and miles. It moved an inch at a time. Literally an inch. I thought
I was going to die.” She sat down beside me and looked out the
window at the glaring sun. To her, it was raining. “I don’t know how
we’re going to get through this,” she continued. “I barely have any
vacation days left. There goes Ocean City. There goes summer.”