I
Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.
âWALLACE STEGNER, THE SPECTATOR BIRD
Amelia
February 2007
My whole life, Iâve never been on a vacation. Iâve never even left New Hampshire, unless you count the time that I went with you and Mom to Nebraskaâand even you have to admit that sitting in a hospital room for three days watching really old Tom and Jerry cartoons while you got tested at Shriners was nothing like going to a beach or to the Grand Canyon. So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out that our family was planning to go to Disney World. We would go during February school vacation. Weâd stay at a hotel that had a monorail running right through the middle of it.
Mom began to make a list of the rides we would go on. Itâs a Small World, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Peter Panâs Flight.
âThose are for babies,â I complained.
âThose are the ones that are safe,â she said.
âSpace Mountain,â I suggested.
âPirates of the Caribbean,â she answered.
âGreat,â I yelled. âI get to go on the first vacation of my life, and I wonât even have any fun.â Then I stormed off to our room, and even though I wasnât downstairs anymore, I could pretty much imagine what our parents were saying: There Amelia goes, being difficult again.
Itâs funny, when things like this happen (which is, like, always), Mom isnât the one who tries to iron out the mess. Sheâs too busy making sure youâre all right, so the task falls to Dad. Ah, see, thereâs something else that Iâm jealous about: heâs your real dad, but heâs only my stepfather. I donât know my real dad; he and my mother split up before I was even born, and she swears that his absence is the best gift he could ever have given me. But Sean adopted me, and he acts like he loves me just as much as he loves youâeven though thereâs this black, jagged splinter in my mind that constantly reminds me this couldnât possibly be true.
âMeel,â he said when he came into my room (heâs the only one Iâd ever let call me that in a million years; it makes me think of the worms that get into flour and ruin it, but not when Dad says it), âI know youâre ready for the big rides. But weâre trying to make sure that Willow has a good time, too.â
Because when Willowâs having a good time, weâre all having a good time. He didnât have to say it, but I heard it all the same.
âWe just want to be a family on vacation,â he said.
I hesitated. âThe teacup ride,â I heard myself say.
Dad said heâd go to bat for me, and even though Mom was dead set against itâwhat if you smacked up against the thick plaster wall of the teacup?âhe convinced her that we could whirl around in circles with you wedged between us so that you wouldnât get hurt. Then he grinned at me, so proud of himself for having negotiated this deal that I didnât have the heart to tell him I really couldnât care less about the teacup ride.
The reason it had popped into my head was because, a few years ago, Iâd seen a commercial for Disney World on TV. It showed Tinker Bell floating like a mosquito through the Magic Kingdom over the heads of the cheery visitors. There was one family that had two daughters, the same age as you and me, and they were on the Mad Hatterâs teacup ride. I couldnât take my eyes off themâthe older daughter even had brown hair, like I do; and if you squinted, the father looked a lot like Dad. The family seemed so happy it made my stomach hurt to watch it. I knew that the people on the commercial probably werenât even a real familyâthat the mom and dad were probably two single actors, that they had most likely met their fake daughters that very morning as they arrived on set to shoot the commercialâbut I wanted them to be one. I wanted to believe they were laughing, smiling, even as they were spinning out of control.
⢠⢠â˘
Pick ten strangers and stick them in a room, and ask them which one of us they feel sorrier forâyou or meâand we all know who theyâll choose. Itâs kind of hard to look past your casts; and the fact that youâre the size of a two-year-old, even though youâre five; and the funny twitch of your hips when youâre healthy enough to walk. Iâm not saying that youâve had it easy. Itâs just that I have it worse, because every time I think my life sucks, I look at you and hate myself even more for thinking my life sucks in the first place.
Hereâs a snapshot of what itâs like to be me:
Amelia, donât jump on the bed, youâll hurt Willow.
Amelia, how many times have I told you not to leave your socks on the floor, because Willow could trip over them?
Amelia, turn off the TV (although Iâve only watched a half hour, and youâve been staring at it like a zombie for five hours straight).
I know how selfish this makes me sound, but then again, knowing somethingâs true doesnât keep you from feeling it. And I may only be twelve, but believe me, thatâs long enough to know that our family isnât the same as other families, and never will be. Case in point: What family packs a whole extra suitcase full of Ace bandages and waterproof casts, just in case? What mom spends days researching the hospitals in Orlando?
It was the day we were leaving, and as Dad loaded up the car, you and I sat at the kitchen table, playing Rock Paper Scissors. âShoot,â I said, and we both threw scissors. I should have known better; you always threw scissors. âShoot,â I said again, and this time I threw rock. âRock breaks scissors,â I said, bumping my fist on top of your hand.
âCareful,â Mom said, even though she was facing in the opposite direction.
âI win.â
âYou always win.â
I laughed at you. âThatâs because you always throw scissors.â
âLeonardo da Vinci invented the scissors,â you said. You were, in general, full of information no one else knew or cared about, because you read all the time, or surfed the Net, or listened to shows on the History Channel that put me to sleep. It freaked people out, to come across a five-year-old who knew that toilets flush in the key of E-flat or that the oldest word in the English language is town, but Mom said that lots of kids with OI were early readers with advanced verbal skills. I figured it was like a muscle: your brain got used more than the rest of your body, which was always breaking down; no wonder you sounded like a little Einstein.
âDo I have everything?â Mom asked, but she was talking to herself. For the bazillionth time she ran through a checklist. âThe letter,â she said, and then she turned to me. âAmelia, we need the doctorâs note.â
It was a letter from Dr. Rosenblad, saying the obvious: that you had OI, that you were treated by him at Childrenâs Hospitalâin case of emergency, which was actually pretty amusing since your breaks were one emergency after another. It was in the glove compartment of the van, next to the registration and the ownerâs manual from Toyota, plus a torn map of Massachusetts, a Jiffy Lube receipt, and a piece of gum that had lost its wrapper and grown furry. Iâd done the inventory once when my mother was paying for gas.
âIf itâs in the van, why canât you just get it when we drive to the airport?â
âBecause Iâll forget,â Mom said as Dad walked in.
âWeâre locked and loaded,â he said. âWhat do you say, Willow? Should we go visit Mickey?â
You gave him a huge grin, as if Mickey Mouse was real and not just some teenage girl wearing a big plastic head for her summer job. âMickey Mouseâs birthday is November eighteenth,â you announced as he helped you crawl down from the chair. âAmelia beat me at Rock Paper Scissors.â
âThatâs because you always throw scissors,â Dad said.
Mom frowned over her list one last time. âSean, did you pack the Motrin?â
âTwo bottles.â
âAnd the camera?â
âShoot, I took it out and left it on the dresser upstairsââ He turned to me. âSweetie, can you grab it while I put Willow in the car?â
I nodded and ran upstairs. When I came down, camera in hand, Mom was standing alone in the kitchen turning in a slow circle, as if she didnât know what to do without Willow by her side. She shut off the lights and locked the front door, and I bounded over to the van. I handed the camera to Dad and buckled myself in beside your car seat, and let myself admit that, as dorky as it was to be twelve years old and excited about Disney World, I was. I was thinking about sunshine and Disney songs and monorails, and not at all about the letter from Dr. Rosenblad.
Which means that everything that happened was my fault.
⢠⢠â˘
We didnât even make it to the stupid teacups. By the time our flight landed and we got to the hotel, it was late afternoon. We drove to the theme park and had just walked onto Main Street, U.S.A.âCinderellaâs Castle in full viewâwhen the perfect storm hit. You said you were hungry, and we turned into an old-time ice-cream parlor. Dad stood in line holding your hand while Mom brought napkins over to the table where I was sitting. âLook,â I said, pointing out Goofy pumping the hand of a screaming toddler. At exactly the same moment that Mom let one napkin flutter to the ground and Dad let go of your hand to take out his wallet, you hurried to the window to see what I wanted to show you, and you slipped on the tiny paper square.
We all watched it in slow motion, the way your legs simply gave out from underneath you, so that you sat down hard on your bottom. You looked up at us, and the whites of your eyes flashed blue, the way they always do when you break.
It was almost like the people at Disney World had been expecting this to happen. No sooner had Mom told the man scooping ice cream that youâd broken your leg than two men from their medical facility came with a stretcher. With Mom giving orders, the way she always does around doctors, they managed to get you onto it. You werenât crying, but then, you hardly ever did when you broke something. Once, I had fractured my pinkie playing tetherball at school and I couldnât stop freaking out when it turned bright red and blew up like a balloon, but you didnât even cry the time you broke your arm right through the skin.
âDoesnât it hurt?â I whispered, as they lifted up the stretcher so that it suddenly grew wheels.
You were biting your lower lip, and you nodded.
There was an ambulance waiting for us when we got to the Disney World gate. I took one last look at Main Street, U.S.A., at the top of the metal cone that housed Space Mountain, at the kids who were running in instead of going out, and then I crawled into the car that someone had arranged so Dad and I could follow you and Mom to the hospital.
It was weird, going to an emergency room that wasnât our usual one. Everyone at our local hospital knew you, and the doctors all listened to what Mom told them. Here, though, nobody was paying any attention to her. They said this could be not one but two femur fractures, and that might mean internal bleeding. Mom went into the examination room with you for the X-ray, which left Dad and me sitting on green plastic chairs in a waiting room. âIâm sorry, Meel,â he said, and I just shrugged. âMaybe itâll be an easy one, and we can go back to the park tomorrow.â There had been a man in a black suit at Disney World who told my father that we would be comped, whatever that meant, if we wanted to return another day.
It was Saturday night, and the people coming into the emergency room were much more interesting than the TV program that was playing. There were two kids who looked like they were old enough to be in college, both bleeding from the same spot on their foreheads and laughing every time they looked at each other. Th...