My parents and me, we hadn’t seen the end of my sister’s left arm. Not yet, not without the mesh sleeve; and when Meghan, still asleep, flopped over and shoved her arms under the pillow and that sleeve disappeared, I felt my shoulders relax. I hadn’t noticed our bedroom for a while either, like I’d missed how messy it was, how my stuff was in the far corner, how there were too many pillows and blankets all over the floor, the ones we’d insisted Meg needed when she got home from the hospital.
Dad pushed the door open, whispering to me about getting ready. I told him I was sixteen now and hardly late for anything. I was about to braid my hair and remembered how’d I do that for Meghan—really, every time before the visiting nurse showed up. This skinny, fast moving little woman with a deep voice would adjust the pillows, complimenting Meg on her thick braid, and then Meg would look at the three of us and tell us to leave. And we’d actually go. We’d sit in the kitchen looking at our phones. I almost said a couple of times, “I bet you can find an arm, missing its hand, online.” But I couldn’t say it. The view of the lake then—the camp on the opposite shore had its red canoes in the water and little kids in orange life preservers were rushing about. I loved looking at those kids, more than my phone, and I thought how weird that was.
A month and a half ago, right after Meghan’s high school graduation and two days before her eighteenth birthday, she crashed Dad’s new Camry. She crossed the road, went down an embankment, and rolled it. Her left arm went out the window. The doctors kept using the word crushed. I decided, right in the hospital, never to say that word again. They had to remove her hand, take it away, those were the words they used, not amputate. Well, they used that word later, but in the waiting room they used the words, take away. A doctor sat and pulled up the sleeve of his white jacket, and using a pen, drew a blue line about two inches up from his wrist. “Here,” he said, pointing, “Right here.”
Where did her hand go, was it incinerated, thrown in the trash? And her rings, where were those? Her manicured hands, she used them to touch your arm when making a point or when she laughed. I would want to know where my hand went.
Meghan didn’t know why it happened, couldn’t remember the accident. I asked her if she’d had a stroke or something, blurted it out while next to her hospital bed. Not loudly, I’m never loud when I’m mad, trained myself since age twelve to hold back, even when throwing a ball in the pool during a polo match, not to throw it too hard, to hold my strength in check. Those were the words Dad always used, in check, “Keep that in check, Sasha. You’ve got a lot of aggression there.” I never knew what to say back.
Digital art by Lew Holzman
Meghan just said, “What?” to my asking what happened. She was in some kind of haze. Mom was on the other side of the bed and she said, “What?” Or maybe she heard because she looked right at me and said, “Oh, Sasha.” Mom’s big purse was on the chair. She loves them, gets me one every Christmas. I remember imagining a burn pile on our driveway. How bad it would smell, all my plastic and leather purses in flames. But then all I could think about was Meghan alone in Dad’s Camry, on her way to Wilson Pond, on a nice morning, to meet some friends. Like the one we actually live on—our own Stonepond, which has a pretty big dock— wouldn’t be entertaining enough.
“Let’s get Meghan up,” I whispered to Dad after I’d braided my hair. He’d just stood there waiting, staring at Meghan sleeping, rubbing his chin. “Did you tell her about going?” I asked. “She was out really late with that crazy Jackie girl. Meg can get the stupid air conditioner with us.”
And really, it was just an errand. I knew that, but still. Dad had enclosed the second story loft to make our bedroom into something private; we’d asked for it for years. Did it while Meghan was recovering, while she sat in the big recliner with her bandaged arm resting on a pillow like some mound of snow. And without any cooling air off the lake, we needed an air conditioner. The Sterners said they’d give us an old one. They live four houses down along the shore—been there all our lives.
Dad didn’t answer as he moved closer to Meghan’s bed. He kept running his hands through his hair. I thought of Sam, the Sterners’ only child, who was finally home from college. Got back late last night. I knew he hadn’t seen Meghan. He’d stayed past the semester, living in Boston at some city camp, teaching kids how to swim. Like he couldn’t have done that here. Sam and Meghan, they were a couple. They’d talked on the phone after the accident, but he hadn’t actually seen her, which I thought was strange, because if something had happened to someone I loved, I’d be right at that hospital. I wondered if Sam had the same haircut. He has thick, dark hair, and even when it’s really short, you can’t see his scalp. It’s like an animal pelt. I’ve run my hand over it.
“No, hush. Let Meghan sleep,” Dad said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Just because,” Dad shrugged.
“Why? She can come.”
“It’s a little thing. Mom and me, we have bad backs. You can lift the air conditioner.”
“Really, that’s what I’m good for?” But I was taller than Dad now. Mom’s tall and Dad’s short. Meghan is slight like Dad; she ran track, the six hundred and the mile. I hadn’t seen her run yet, not since the accident. The physical therapist had told her to walk a lot, though, to get used to balancing differently.
“I’m not sure if Sam or his dad will be home,” Dad said. “They might be out fishing. Let’s just go. We’ll get back before Meg is up. It’s early.”
“Why not tell her?” I didn’t whisper. Meghan stirred, turning, her brown, wavy hair covering her back. She used to blow it dry. But I took over—and failed, and we fought, and then I just braided it. Mom used the word unruly to describe our hair, or maybe she meant how we were behaving.
I followed Dad down the stairs. He looked sweaty, but he’d shaved. I hated when he didn’t.
“Hey,” I tapped him on the shoulder. “You didn’t ask Meghan because she can’t lift the air conditioner. And you didn’t want to bring that up.”
He stopped on the landing and let out a really annoying sigh.
“It would be a lifting thing, right Dad, and she couldn’t do it,” I insisted. “You’d have to say, ‘Don’t bother coming, because you’ve lost your hand and you’d be useless for this errand.’”
“Is that what I should say, Sasha? Tell Meg she’s useless?”
“You know we haven’t seen the end of her arm. It’s been a month. And what did the doctors do with the part they took away?” I was loud.
Dad looked up the stairs, then back at me. “No, no we haven’t seen it. Get in the truck, Mom’s going. I’ll leave a note for Meghan, okay? Relax—we’re just getting an air conditioner.”
Our red pickup sat in the driveway, and outside it was already hot, and you could hear the bees, and everything was wet from last night’s thunderstorms. I heard motorboats, too, and for a second, down through the side yard, I was sure I saw Tim Hurley on his dad’s. He took it, against orders, annoying everyone.
“Get in Meg,” Mom waved to me. She was in the middle of the bench seat. She never sat in the middle.
“Meg?” I said.
“I mean, Sasha. Get in. We’ll be back before Meg’s up.”
“We’re in a rush to get back for that?”
“Just get in, honey.” She patted my knee, kept her hand there as we drove off.
Dad had tucked his smelly tackle box under the seat. He never cleaned his boning knife. Well, he would, with an old rag, but he hardly washed it.
I tapped Mom’s hand. “You know, you and I have the same hands,” I said. “Square palms, even our nails are square. But Dad’s and Meghan’s—have you noticed? They have long palms and their nail beds are narrow.” I pointed at Dad’s hands on the steering wheel.
“Why are you saying this?” Mom said.
“I don’t know.” I rested my hand on the side mirror and thought of Meghan’s, crushed in some kind of whirl of flesh and metal. “Is Meghan still going to Keene State?” I asked her.
“Yes, of course. She didn’t say anything to me.”
“Okay, just asking.”
“Did she say something to you?”
“No, nothing. No one’s saying anything, right?”
“No, I suppose not.” Mom smoothed back her short hair. She had stopped coloring it, just a grey halo to the level of her ears—the rest brown.
“You suppose not?” I said.
“Stop repeating what I say, Sasha. It’s childish.”
“It’s childish?”
We turned into the Sterners’ driveway. They owned the perfect cabin: all wood in and out, with a sloping roof over a long porch. Sam and his dad stood in the driveway, smiling, both of them rocking up and down on their toes. Mr. Sterner wore his typical khaki outfit, like he was about to go on a safari. The garage door was open, and the old air conditioner rested on the ground. Sam looked cute and clean and wore a black t-shirt and green baggy shorts. Meghan should have come.
Sam and I are the same height. He smiled and punched my arm. “You okay?” he asked. Whispered it kind of. Their garage, the scent, was a mixture of cinnamon potpourri and grease. Mrs. Sterner ran out from the house, looking pert. I’ve always liked that vocab word, pert. It fit her. I was not pert.
And there was Meghan, suddenly, into the side yard from the lakeshore, wearing my old denim overall shorts. Her left arm was tucked into the bib. I was always afraid that she’d fall and not get her arm out in time. It drove me crazy, that thought.
Meghan smiled and went right up to Sam and kissed him on the lips, a quick one.
“You guys didn’t wake me,” Meghan said quietly.
“Why don’t we all go in for coffee—the air conditioner can wait,” Mr. Sterner blurted out.
We all looked at him. Mrs. Sterner tapped him gently on the arm with the red geranium blossoms she had just deadheaded. He shrugged, then smiled. I felt that he so wanted us to be okay.
Sam looked at Meghan. “Hey, how’s the no-hand?”
“It’s okay, throbs still if I leave it at my side too long, you know?”
“Why do you call it a no-hand, Sam?” Dad said. He swallowed hard.
“Better than using the word, stump,” I said. It felt so good to say it. I don’t know, like the words anger and stump were the same.
“No-hand is better than that word, right Sash?” said Meg.
I loved her for not freaking out.
“I hate that word, and I hate—no-hand. I’m so sorry,” Mom said. “I’m so, so sorry Meghan.”
“You hate it so much that you haven’t seen the end of my no-hand,” Meghan said.
“That’s not true, sweetie,” Mom said. She looked pale and almost as thin as Mrs. Sterner.
“I saw your faces.” Meghan put a hand on her hip. “That first time the nurse wanted to change the bandage, none of you wanted to see it. I told you to leave. And you left.”
“Oh, Meghan,” Mom said.
“I want to see it,” Sam said. He smiled, looking at us. “You’re kidding, right? None of you have seen the end of her arm?” He seemed relaxed.
Mrs. Sterner was kind of moving away, but Meg reached for her arm and I grabbed for Mr. Sterner.
“Sasha, don’t pull so hard,” Dad said.
“She’s not doing that, Dad,” Meg said.
Mrs. Sterner was holding the geraniums in front of her like some bridal bouquet.
“While you were sleeping, Meg,” I said, “I’d try to look through the sleeve—but I couldn’t see enough, you know.”
“I tried too, Meg,” Dad said, looking at his sandals.
“Bob,” Mom whispered.
“You were with me, Leslie. Please,” Dad said. “Right after the nurse took off the bandage, after you’d fallen asleep, Meg, we tried to remove that sleeve to get a good look. Couldn’t though, without waking you.”
Mom sighed, “Again, I’m so sorry, Meg.”
“Hey,” said Sam, “You know how people shave their heads in solidarity—with a cancer patient, you know, when they lose their hair? We could all remove one hand to show our solidarity with Meghan?” He put his arms in the air. “Am I right?”
We didn’t move.
Meg started giggling. “You are completely sick, Sam. Totally, sick.”
Mom brought her hands to her mouth. I thought she might pass out. But she threw back her head and laughed, that deep, buzzy, laugh of hers. “That’s not what I expected at all,” she said. “Now I’m sorry I’m laughing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“That’s an awful thing to say,” Mrs. Sterner said, hitting Sam on the arm as hard as she could with the geraniums; the petals flew, landing on everyone’s toes.
“It’s too much.” Dad said. I thought he would cry, and I didn’t want him to.
Sam said, “That just came out. I say crazy things sometimes.”
“Maybe we should say more crazy things,” I said.
Meghan gently patted the bib of her overalls, lifted out her arm, and while pressing it to her body, pulled off the sleeve. The skin looked good, a little puffy maybe, but it was folded and neatly tucked into itself, into a fine line.
“Meg, do you wonder what they did with your hand when it was taken away?” I wanted to know. I had to know.
“Sometimes … if I think of it in one piece, then I want it back. But, if I think of it all crushed and broken, then no. Hey, you know what, I can swim next week, isn’t that great?”
“That is,” said Sam.
Smoky Quartz 