Poor Shirley has a Very Bad Christmas

I was walking home from the playground at school when it happened. My friends and I had stayed late to play tag. I was ten years old. It was mid-January and the coldest day of the year. A recent snowfall and a sunny morning left a sheet of black ice on all the sidewalks. Darkness began to fall. Eager to make it home before my mother got mad, I ran down the stairs next to the playground, hit a patch of ice and fell to the ground with all the force of a falling tree. I lay there for a few moments, unable to move and attempting to assess my situation. All the while, a searing pain shot down my arm and settled around my elbow. With my good arm, I managed to stand up and walk the rest of the way homeward.

When my mother saw my bloodied dress and my face, red from crying and from the pain, she hollered, "Shirley Snively, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"My mother, who had never been too generous with anything remotely resembling caring, had me sit on a kitchen chair while she summed up my situation. She grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and cut the sleeve off my right arm, and as she did so, a look of horror enveloped her face. Reflexively, she grabbed the jacket I had not taken with me earlier, threw it at me and luggaged me into the car. She drove so fast that the houses zoomed by in a blur.

The next thing I knew, we were sitting in the emergency room, waiting for what seemed like forever for a doctor to see me. The doctor was nice, a smiling man older than my grandfather, who smelled like mints and rubbing alcohol. He gently twisted my arm this way and that and said to my mother, "Let's get her to x-ray and go from there."

A very fat man who smelled like aftershave and urine wheeled me to the x-ray room, a cold and sterile room at the far end of the basement hallway. It was so cold I began to shiver and although it did not happen, I swear I could hear the bones in my arm rattling together.

After the x-ray, they wheeled me back up to the emergency room, where the doctor and my mother stood talking. He asked me how the accident happened. I told him about the running and the ice and the falling and how, after that the pain arrived like a charging bull. A grumpy nurse arrived then and wrapped my arm in a sling, and instead of holding my arm crooked like a lot of slings, this one kept my arm as straight as a Popsicle stick. Then, the X-rays arrived in the room.

The doctor and my mother made a lot of humming noises and hawing and oh-my-goodnesses. Nothing we can do, he told her. Then he turned to me and said the word amputation. I had never heard that word before. Sounded like a subject we might have to study in school: arithmetic, language and amputation. Judging by the look on my mother's face, it wasn't a good thing. "Shirley, I'm going to leave you and your mother now. Take care." and then he left. He said take care like I was going on vacation or something. I looked into my mother's face. The medication they gave me began to take effect. Little by little, I felt more drowsy than the moment before. I asked her what amputation meant. she stayed silent for a long time, and then said, "It means you're keeping your arm, no matter what that bastard says." Then, out went the lights.

A few days later, when I was awake long enough to remember things, I saw my mother and father arguing in the kitchen. He seemed to take the doctor's side, and my mother, as usual, took her own side. She refused to have my arm amputated. Then, my father stormed out of the house, and my mother came to check on me. "Don't worry, sweetie. God gave you two arms, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let your father and that foolish doctor remove one." I closed my eyes again and dreamt of making snow angels - with two good arms.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, it seems my mother did nothing but pick up the phone receiver and slam it down again. She was searching for a doctor to agree with her about me keeping my arm. She finally reached a doctor's office in Minneapolis, where they reassured my mother they could give me an artificial elbow. The appointment was made, and the next thing I knew, we were on a plane.

I'd been given a cast by then until a decision could be made. It was a glaring white beast that made just about everything impossible to do. It was cumbersome and smelled bad, and made me itch like crazy. When they finally cut it off to have a look, my right arm looked half the size of my left and white, pasty white, like an eggshell. I was booked into the hospital that night. Surgery to repair my arm was scheduled for the following morning.

Oddly enough, I wasn't afraid. When I look back on it now, I probably should have been, but I wasn't. I loved all the attention I got: nurses coming and going, the real nice ones calling me sweetie and sugar. My favorite nurse, a woman named Margaret, smelled just like lilacs and even kissed me on the forehead right before surgery. I can't ever remember a time when so many people were nice to me.

When I woke up from surgery, it felt as though I had fallen all over again. My entire arm and my shoulder were bruised, first purple and then green and then yellow. I was still groggy when the doctor came in and said the surgery went well and that I would be able to use my arm in a couple of weeks once the swelling went down more. I couldn't wait to see my new arm once the bandages were removed.

I had some more pain meds after that. The pills made me feel like I was floating on a pillow, and when people talked, it sounded just like they were all inside a television set that had the volume turned way low down. I didn't mind it, though. I just fell back into a dreary little sleep once again.

When I woke up, it was Christmas morning. I could hear my parents and my sister in the living room, laughing and the distinct sound of paper being torn apart. I was dizzy when I stood up, but I made my way to them and saw that they were opening presents without me. We didn't want to wake you, my father said. Come and join us. So I did.

The three of them had to help me open the gifts that were for me because I was so groggy and had a hard time using my fingers. Finally the last present was handed to me by my father. He set it on my lap and said Merry Christmas, Shirley, darling. My sister, Euphania, slipped her pretty delicate fingers under the tape on the ends of the box, and soon the paper was free. I was so excited to see what Santa brought me that I thought I might pee. But what was revealed when I glanced inside caused me to stand up and shriek and then fall down to the floor. I kept repeating the word no, over and over.

What's the matter darling, don't you like your new present, said my mother, crying right along with me. I hate it, I screamed. Inside the box was a prosthetic arm designed to fit my new stump. I looked down where my old arm used to be, and then I looked at my mother. They couldn't save it, she said. And then I sat down on the sofa and stared at the baby Jesus at the top of the tree, the way he just kept on smiling as though everything hadn't gone horribly wrong. And then I passed out.