Darling Rose Gold(11)
Mom had a solution for everything. As I grew up, my hair started falling out in clumps—she shaved it so I wouldn’t be embarrassed by the uneven growth. When my vision problems didn’t go away, Mom bought me glasses. I started fainting more often, so Mom got me a wheelchair. All her solutions created the appearance of a chronically sick child. What healthy ten-year-old had a buzzed head and was more or less confined to a wheelchair? Nobody doubted my illnesses. Including me.
Vinny thought for a minute. “How much of this do you remember?”
I picked up the second half of the muffin and took a bite. When most people looked back at their childhoods, I assumed they thought of oven-baked chocolate chip cookies at Grandma’s house or the salty-sweet mixture of coconut sunscreen and sunburned skin after a long summer day.
When I thought of my childhood, I smelled disinfectant.
“I was too young to remember the appointments when they started,” I said. “But Mom explained them to me once I was old enough. She said no matter how many doctors we visited, no one could ever figure out what was wrong with me.”
Vinny watched a pretty young woman gather up her belongings and leave the café. Was he losing interest in my story? What if he cut the interview short and I didn’t get the money for my teeth? I grabbed a second muffin: chocolate chip. I might as well get a free lunch out of this.
“The pattern was always the same. Mom would find a new doctor, and before the appointment, she’d give me a fresh buzz cut. She said I could wear my wig in the lobby, but had to take it off in the doctor’s office. That he needed to see how sick I was.”
When I was a kid, I hated showing my shaved head. I could pass for a little boy. But I never seriously considered letting my hair grow out. I couldn’t remember what my real hair looked like, but based on my mom’s descriptions, I didn’t want to find out.
“Mom told me what to say before the doctor came in,” I continued. “‘I need you to be brave. You have to tell the doctor how you’ve been feeling. About the headaches and dizziness and vomiting. Don’t hold back. If you don’t tell him, he can’t help you.’”
I worked my way through the chocolate chip muffin and told Vinny that when the doctor came in, I’d just repeat the words Mom had used. I wasn’t lying about being sick—I was in pain every single day. But a four-year-old doesn’t know what fatigue is. Everything I knew about my body came from Mom. I trusted her.
Mom would get annoyed with my two-word responses and pump up the pain. “These are debilitating headaches, Doctor, and she’s getting them all the time.” She’d run through my entire medical history, starting with apnea when I was a preemie. I’d sit in silence, bracing myself for when she reached eighteen-month-old Rose Gold. That was the age I got my feeding tube, and Mom always lifted my shirt to show it to the doctor. That horrified me every time.
“Thirty minutes later, the doctor was ready to do anything to get Mom to stop talking. He’d listen to my heartbeat, take my blood pressure and temperature. My stats were normal, with the exception of my weight, which was always way too low. He’d offer to run a few tests, and if he didn’t, Mom had a few ideas on a legal pad in her purse to get him started.
“‘Have you thought about a chemistry panel? What about a CBC?’ She’d lean in with this little wink and whisper, ‘I was a nurse’s aide for twelve years,’ letting the doctor know she wasn’t your ordinary overprotective mother. She knew what she was talking about.
“Anyway, the doctor would agree—‘Sure, I could run a CBC’—and Mom would clap her hands, all excited. She loved nothing more than being on the doctor’s team. She just wanted everyone to work together to get the best possible treatment for her little girl.”
I reached for a third muffin and glanced up at Vinny. To my surprise, he was leaning forward, watching me with SpaghettiOs eyes. I put a few crumbs in my mouth, self-conscious. He stared at my hand covering my mouth while I chewed.
Vinny scrunched his brows, eyes never leaving my mouth. “What about your dad? He wasn’t in the picture, right? The trial reports said he died when you were young.”
For the first time in I didn’t know how long, I took my hand away from my mouth when I talked. I let Vinny see my teeth. He scooted closer and winced, but he was also intrigued. I had his attention.
“He died before I was born,” I said.
“Of what?”
“Cancer,” I lied, guilty for a minute but too embarrassed to tell him the truth. I couldn’t believe how the fib slipped from my tongue, how quickly Vinny bought it. I’d been wondering how Mom kept her own stories straight all those years. Turned out, lying was much easier than telling the truth.
Vinny bowed his head for a moment, as if praying for my dead father. Don’t let the silver cross around his neck fool you, Mom whispered. He’s never prayed a day in his weasel-faced life. Vinny picked his head back up and opened a voice-recorder app on his phone. “Okay if I tape?”
I nodded, and he pressed the record button. I smiled at him, a big openmouthed grin. Vinny shuddered a little, but didn’t even bother hiding his stare. I ignored the heat of humiliation in my face. I was going to get the money for my teeth after all.
“What about family on his side?” Vinny asked. “You ever meet any of your relatives?”