Broken Flower (Early Spring 1)

"Now, what do we have here?' she asked. It was always what she said when she saw either me or Ian at her office. Once Ian replied, "That's what we're here to find out." After that, Dr. Dell'Acqua never said it to him again.

"How long has it been since I've seen her?" she asked my mother.

"About eight months. I think."

I was sitting on the examination table. She had me stand up, shook her head, and said. "She's sprouted.'

"I didn't really take much note of it until this happened, but she's only an inch or so shorter than Ian already."

The doctor's face tightened with concern. "Very common with this condition, Carol. As I told you, bone maturity is hastened, but closure also occurs prematurely, creating a stunted stature."

"Oh. God," my mother muttered. Hearing it again in person was more overwhelming, both for her and for me. I fought back my own tears.

"Let's look her over and get going on this quickly," she said.

"You'll have to get undressed, honey," my mother told me, and began to help me take off my clothes.

Although my mother had continually reassured me that I was not sick and dying and did not have some horrible disease, Dr. DellAcqua's eves betrayed a different opinion. She stopped smiling and looked very concerned and serious.

She then did something she had never done before. She looked between my legs. Both my mother and her nurse watched and waited. When she looked up, she shook her head.

"Her vagina is estrogenized," she said, and my mother smothered a cry.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"We'll check her blood and as I told you on the phone. Carol, do a cerebral CAT scan. We have to rule out a tumor," she said. I was sure she was unafraid about talking in front of me because she assumed I didn't understand any of it, but I knew what a tumor was.

Ian had once had a hamster that had developed a tumor. He didn't tell anyone because he was interested in how big it would eventually become and what it would do to his hamster. Whatever it was, it killed his hamster. Before Ian told anyone, he cut open the tumor and put it under his microscope. Then he buried his hamster, again without telling anyone it had died. It was weeks before Mama noticed it was gone.

Dell'Acqua wrote out an order for the CAT scan and then went to the phone to have her receptionist make an appointment for us at the clinic where it would be done. Mama sat with her hands clenched in her lap as if that was the only way she could hold herself together. Every once in a while, she looked at the wall clock and then at the door.

All the while we were there. Daddy had not appeared, and even when we left the examination room, he was still not there. I could see my mother was struggling to keep her tears locked up and her anger chained as well. She squeezed my hand hard as she led me out of the doctor's office and to our car, but I didn't complain. Dr. Dell'Acqua had somehow gotten us an immediate appointment so we were on our way there.

"Am I going to die, Mama?" I asked as we got into her car.

She took her hand off the ignition key and turned to me. "No, Jordan. It's not a fatal disease. It's just...just..."

"Just what, Mama?"

"Just damn unfair!" she cried, and hugged me to her.

Then she started the car and we were on our way, both staring ahead with tear streaks carved all over our cheeks and me wondering what terrible thing I had done during my short lifetime to deserve this fate.

4 A Brother You Can Trust

. After we left Dr. Dell'Acqua's parking lot. Mama called Daddy on her cell phone. It took him so long to come on after his secretary answered, we were almost at the X-ray clinic.

"How could you not be there, Christopher? How could you leave this all on my shoulders?" she nearly screamed into the phone. Whatever Daddy told her didn't satisfy her. "We're almost at the X-ray clinic. That's right. I told you we would have to have the CAT scan. Too bad there isn't an X-ray machine to see if someone has a conscience," she said, and then she closed her phone and hung up on him without saying good-bye.

She had tears in her eyes again, but they were tears of anger, not of sadness.

"Ifs all right, honey," she said, reaching for my hand to squeeze. "We'll get all this done ourselves. As usual," she added.

Everyone was nice to me at the X-ray clinic. Nothing hurt but it was still scary to me. When it was all over, we went directly home. Daddy hadn't come to the clinic either, but Mama didn't call him again or even mention it to me. Grandmother Emma was out at one of her charity luncheons when we arrived, but Ian was home from school and in his room watching a documentary about spiders. I thought he hadn't heard us come home and didn't know anything about where we had gone, but not long after I was in my room, he came to my door. I thought he might be coming to show me one of his spiders and tease me, but he brought nothing.

"I know you went to see Dr. Dell'Acqua," he said.

I was just tinkering with my dollhouse, not really concentrating on it. I was still thinking about all that had been done to me. I didn't answer him and he came into my room and stood beside me.