Early Spring 01 Broken Flower (4 page)

"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.

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.
"I overheard Mother call her and make your appointment. She didn't know I heard her, but I did. What's wrong with you?" he asked. "Is it catching?"
I shrugged. Was it? I wondered. Could one of the other girls in school have given me this?
"Well, what's wrong with you?"
What was I supposed to say? Mama didn't want me to tell anyone, but we had told Daddy. Did that prohibition still include Ian now? And even if it didn't, did I want to share a secret like this with him? I had no doubt that he could keep it secret even better than I could and I had no fear that he would tell
Grandmother Emma.
With Mama off in her room probably lying down with a warm washcloth over her eyes, and Daddy not even coming to the doctor's office. I felt alone and frightened. Having a secret wasn't so wonderful, especially this one.
"Mama doesn't want me to tell anyone. She doesn't want Grandmother Emma to find out," I told him.
That was obviously the wrong thing to say. It only made him more interested, but I liked having him interested in me. I could count on my fingers how often he came into my room or how often he actually invited me into his. We spent many days without uttering a word to each other. He attended a different part of the school building, so sometimes after breakfast we wouldn't even see each other until dinner. Suzie Granger, a sixth-grader, had a crush on Ian and tried to get him to look at her, but even if she stood in his direct path, he acted as if she were invisible. One day in school, she grabbed me angrily and said, "Haying Ian as a brother must be like being an only child."
I had no idea what she meant, but that was when I found out she wanted him to pay attention to her, and Lila McIntyre, a girl in my class, explained what it meant to have a crush on someone. Her sister had told her.
"Why do they call it a crush?" I asked.
"You love them so much you just want to squeeze them to bits," she said, which I thought wasn't that great anyway. It sounded painful.
"You're not talking to just anyone, Jordan.," Ian said. "I'm your brother, and you should trust your brother more than any stranger."
"I don't trust any strangers. I don't talk to strangers...
"I didn't actually mean you talk to strangers," he said, a little frustrated. He put his hands on his hips. "Look, you're my sister. We're family, so what happens to you is important to me," he said.
What happens to me is important to him? I looked at him. He had never said anything like that to me before. I was never interesting to him and nothing I liked or did attracted him, but he did like to tell me about the things he did. It wasn't his fault that I was bored too much to listen or care. The truth was he talked to me more than he did Mama and especially Daddy. At least I listened, even if I didn't understand much of what he had to say.
"So? What's the big secret? Spit it out," he said.
It felt like something I would like to spit out. I thought.
He stood there looking down at me. He had lots of patience and never stamped his foot or shouted. Unlike some of my girlfriends at school who had older brothers. too. I never had mean fights with my brother and we never said mean things to each other. In fact, he didn't argue much with anyone. He would just say, "I'm not wasting my breath."
I looked up at him and then I looked at the open door. "Mama might get mad at me if I tell you," I said.
"So. I won't let her know you told me, okay?"
I knew when Ian said he would do something, he would do it, and when he said he wouldn't, he wouldn't, no matter what, but I didn't like betraying Mama. He knew what was bothering me. Ian was almost as good as Grandmother Emma when it came to reading faces.
"She won't get mad anyway. Jordan, and even if she does, I'll tell her it was my fault, okay?"
"Okay," I said, but I didn't say anything. I was trying to find the right words, words that made sense to me.
"Well?"
"I've got precocious," I said.
"What?" He squinted and twisted his nose. Then he smiled. Had
I
said it wrong?
"Precocious," I repeated.
"You're precocious? I doubt that," he said. "You're most likely an average student, not that there's anything wrong with it. Anyway, they don't take people who are precocious to set medical doctors, Jordan. Psychologists, maybe, but not MDs. You're not precocious."
"It's true, Ian. Dr. Dell'Acqua said so and she poked my arm and took blood out of me even though blood came out of me already," I blurted, and immediately regretted it. All that was still
embarrassing to me.
"Blood came out of you? Where?" I shook my head and turned away.
"Precocious," he repeated to himself. I thought he would turn and walk out of the room, but he surprised me by sitting on the floor beside me and folding his legs. He looked very excited and even more interested now. ''Did they tell you why the blood came out of you?"
I shook my head. They hadn't really. There was just that long word Mama used. She had yet to explain it and for some reason didn't want to.
"Did they tell you that you had a period?"
"Yes," I said.
"Holy schmoly," Ian said, which was his favorite expression for something amazing to him. "You had a period. You menstruated," he said, and I widened my eyes. How did he know so much? In any case, from the expression on his face. I realized I was suddenly amazing, to him, maybe as amazing as any of the creatures he studied or experiments he performed.
"Yes, that's it," I said.
"Of course. That's why they used precocious. You're just going on seven," he said, but more to himself than to me. "What else did the doctor do?" he asked, drawing himself closer. "Tell me everything."
I was embarrassed about the way Dr. Dell'Acqua had looked between my legs so I skipped that and told him about the special X-ray. I described the machinery and how nice everyone was to me.
"You had a CAT scan?"
"Yes," I said, now remembering what it was called.
"Holy schmoly." He thought a moment more and then he stood up quickly. "If they gave you a CAT scan, they were looking for an abnormality, probably cerebral. I'll research it all up on my computer," he declared with great excitement. I couldn't remember ever seeing him as happy about anything that involved me. "I'll know all about it in minutes. Hang in there."
Actually, I was glad Ian would do that. I knew he would eventually tell me more than either Mama or Dr. Dell'Acqua had told me. He walked out quickly, but a moment later, he walked back into my room to tell me he could hear Mama crying in her room.
"You'd better go see if she's crying about you," he said. "Maybe she heard something from the doctor already."
My heart started to pound so fast and hard. I couldn't get up. If Mama was crying because she heard something from the doctor about me, then it wasn't good.
"Go on," Ian ordered. "And then come to my room to tell me everything she says. I'll be on my computer. I know just where to look for information about all this." He marched out again.
I stood up slowly, sucked in my breath, and walked out cautiously. Even though Grandmother Emma hadn't been here when we had returned. I worried she was here now and spying on us or had Nancy doing so. Daddy was always so sure Grandmother Emma could find out anything she wanted about us. Ian once said he thought she had little microphones hidden in our rooms and listened in to our conversations. Mama told him not to be ridiculous, but it wasn't often Ian was ever ridiculous about anything.
I walked to her bedroom and listened carefully at the doorway. He was right. She was sobbing. I knocked on her door and she stopped.
"Who is it?"
"It's me," I said.
A moment later she opened the door. She had a handkerchief in her hand and was wiping her eyes. "What is it, Jordan? Do you have stomach cramps or something?"
"No. I heard you crying," I said.
"Oh. Well, sometimes I can't keep it all locked away. Your father's not coming home tonight."
Although she tried to make it sound like that was the only reason. I knew that wasn't enough to make her cry. There were many nights he didn't come home and she didn't cry or even seem to care.
"I told him about you and he still went off to do whatever it is he does," she added angrily.
Was I supposed to be angry at Daddy, too, for not being concerned about me? Should I cry?
"It's nothing," she added when she saw my face. "It's adult talk," which was what she usually said when she didn't want me to know why she and Daddy were fighting.
"I'll
be fine. Don't worry. Just wash up, brush your hair, and put on your pink and blue dress for dinner tonight.' she said. "Make sure Ian's not late again for dinner, too, please."
I wondered if I should let her know that I had told Ian, but then I thought it might make her sadder still and she was crying enough as it was
"Okay," I said, and left, relieved at least that she wasn't crying because of something terrible that Dr. Dell'Acqua had said about me.
I went to Ian's room. He was at his computer as he said he would be. He didn't have to turn around to know I had entered his room. He kept his eyes on his monitor screen and asked, "Why is she crying?"
"Adult talk," I said.
He turned and squinted. "Why?"
"Daddy's not coming home tonight. I think they had an argument."
"Was he with you and Mother at the doctor's office?"
"No."
He smiled and shook his head. "Why am
I
not surprised?" he asked himself. "Okay. Forget about all that now. I'm learning about your problem. I'll tell you about it later," he said. "Don't bother me right now." He waved at me to shoo me off.
"Mama wants me to get ready for dinner and she said to tell you not to be late again, Ian. Grandmother Emma will be upset.'
He didn't answer.
"She said you can't be late."
"I won't," he said. I knew that I could talk and talk and even stand on my head and talk, but he wouldn't answer me anymore or turn away from his computer so I left to do what Mama had asked.
For my birthday last year, my parents had bought me a small vanity table and mirror. When Grandmother Emma saw it being delivered, she said it was the most ridiculous birthday present for a sixyear-old she could imagine. At my birthday dinner. Daddy looked surprised about it, too, which made it seem like it was all Mama's doing and fault. I don't know why Grandmother Emma thought it was silly to buy it for me. I loved having it. I often watched my mother at her vanity table doing her makeup or brushing her hair, sometimes for hours when we lived in our own house. I used to ask her questions about her makeup, the creams and the shampoos she used. She did it here, too, during the first few months, and then she did it so infrequently or for so short a time. I rarely watched her anymore. But even though all I could do was brush my hair, I loved imitating her in front of my own vanity mirror.
A few times at our house, she let me put on lipstick and nail polish, too, but she would never let me do any of that here. She said Grandmother Emma would have a tantrum and only make us feel terrible. When I complained about it, Grandmother Emma told me her mother didn't permit her to wear lipstick or nail polish until she was sixteen. That seemed a long way off, and I did have girlfriends at school whose mothers let them wear nail polish at least.
I sat brushing my hair, which my mother liked long on me. Grandmother Emma wanted it to be cut and styled, but that was an argument Mama wouldn't lose.
"I'm not turning, her into a proper little mannequin," she said.
Daddy tried to get Mama to have my hair cut, too, but she wouldn't budge on it.
"She pulls your strings. Christopher, not mine," she told him, which started another bad argument.
After I brushed my hair. I got undressed except for my panties and went into my bathroom to wash up well so Grandmother Emma would have nothing bad to say about me at dinner. While I was washing my face. Ian came to my bathroom door.
He had reams of paper in his hands.
I had forgotten my promising Mama to never let anyone else set me undressed. I quickly raised my arms to cover my buds, as she had called them.
Ian looked at his papers. "Yes, you are suffering from something called precocious puberty, all right. Actually, it's becoming something more and more common. Nearly fifty percent of all black girls and at least fifteen percent of white girls have or would be diagnosed with the condition this year," he continued. "There are various theories about it. One idea is that all the growth hormones in meat and poultry are having an effect on humans."
Ian could sound just like Mr. Milner, the elementary school principal who also spoke through his nose when he was saying very important things.
Ian looked up from the papers. "I have noticed how tall you've gotten. In fact, I recall telling Mother not that long ago, but she didn't appear to hear me or care at the time. Since both she and Daddy are tall people, they would just assume it was natural for you to be tall. I'm not tall for my age," he added. "However. I could suddenly grow faster, taller. My shoe size would suggest it.
I looked at his feet and then at mine, which were not very big or long.
"The important thing is we'll have to keep track of your development on a nearly daily basis. From what you've told me. Dell'Acqua is following the correct protocol."
"What's that?"
"Medical procedure for diagnosing the problem. She'll soon come up with a treatment. I'm glad Mother found out about you quickly."
It wasn't that quickly. I thought, but didn't say.
He stared at me and then he walked up to me. "How developed are you?" he asked.