The Phantom Limb (7 page)

“But … can I talk to you again sometime? Please? I need to find out as much as I can.”

“I don't think that would be a good idea. I have to leave.”

And with that she turned and walked away.

Isaac practically shook with frustration on the long ride home. There was something that just didn't sound right to him. It was odd—more than odd—how controlling the hospital had been. Why did they have to operate so quickly after the diagnosis? And why hadn't the Hayneses made a point of getting a second or third opinion about such drastic major surgery? A pit formed in his stomach.

When he got home, Isaac took Vera's red-wine stew and the basil
pistou
out of the freezer. But as he prepared dinner, he couldn't get the day's events out of his mind. He found himself thinking about everything, including the mirror box. He went upstairs and took it out of his closet. Without hesitation, he put his hands in it.

There it was—Joey's hand. It waved at him, then gave a thumbs-up gesture.

But instead of feeling jolted by its presence, Isaac suddenly felt very sleepy, and his eyes drifted shut. His hands were still inside the box. He began to dream. He was standing in a very strange place.

He was surrounded by a hazy mist that made it hard for him to see. The only thing he could make out was a woman standing directly in front of him. She was wearing a bathrobe and staring directly at him as she harshly applied cream to her face, then wiped it off.

Her face was too blurry for him to make out who it was. Her reflection was foggy, like a car window in winter. Isaac wondered if there was a flaw in the mirror. Why was the mirror box showing this to him?

Isaac felt disoriented.

It took him a while to realize where he was.

He was staring at the woman from inside the mirror of her bathroom medicine cabinet.

He had, in a sense, become her reflection.

 

LEARLY, THE WOMAN COULD NOT SEE HIM. She finished wiping the cream off her face and then studied her reflection. She jiggled the fleshy skin under her chin and pulled on her sagging cheeks. She looked disgusted with herself.

Isaac thought,
She hates the way she looks.

She also obviously hated the loud rock drumbeats that were pounding through the closed window, making the pane shake. She turned and scowled out the frosted window.

He almost pitied her.

She reached forward and pulled open the door of her medicine cabinet. As she did so, she disappeared
from Isaac's view, so that now he was looking at the window. Nothing happened for about a minute, and then the woman swung back into view as she closed the door of the medicine cabinet. Isaac saw her open a container and dump out eight large red capsules. She pulled each of the capsules apart and carefully poured the contents—a white powder—into a small glass bottle.

A name was written on the bottle. Isaac strained his eyes to try to read it, but he couldn't be sure what it said.

Then the woman ran tap water into the bottle and stirred it with her finger until the powder had completely dissolved.

Isaac felt suspended, floating, as though he were looking out from inside an aquarium. He knew that he was inside this woman's bathroom mirror. Was it for real? How could this be happening?

It was Joey Haynes who was showing him this somehow—through the mirror box.

Suddenly, the woman vanished. Isaac was awake and back in his room. He looked at the mirror box.

The phantom limb made a fist—a fist of determination: STOP HER!

 

AS THE DREAM A SIGN FROM JOEY THAT something at the hospital was very wrong, that someone was tampering with medicine? Isaac didn't understand what was going on, but he didn't like it, especially because he knew Vera could well be in the line of danger. Unless the mirror box had tricked him. Could he trust Joey? He didn't know what to think anymore.

Dinner that night was delicious, what little Isaac actually ate. Grandpa, however, ate more than usual. And he asked a question: “What about that box?”

Isaac was shocked that Grandpa remembered the
box. Perhaps the old Grandpa was returning. He certainly hoped so. He desperately needed to share this nightmare with someone. Could he tell Grandpa about Dr. Ciano, about the box, and about Joey Haynes?

Isaac decided that he would—that he had to—and so he blurted out everything. As he spoke, Grandpa looked at him oddly, apparently confused about what he was hearing. But when Isaac was done, Grandpa followed him upstairs anyway.

In Isaac's room, Grandpa put both of his hands into the mirror box and flexed his right hand.

But all they saw was the reflection of Grandpa's hand. Joey's hand did not appear.

Why wasn't the phantom limb appearing for Grandpa? Isaac was frustrated. Grandpa smiled. “Thanks for showing me your box, Ize,” he said.

As soon as Grandpa left the room, the phantom limb appeared in the mirror. It shook a finger at Isaac, as if warning him to keep the box to himself. Then the limb signaled to him: it flashed three fingers twice, then four, and finally five.

Isaac took that to mean that he had better get to the hospital early the next morning, even though
he hated being there. But the ominous dream, and now Joey's warning—both of these after having seen Vera's bruise—gave Isaac a sense of foreboding.

The next morning Isaac woke up early. He ignored breakfast, prepared for school, and hopped on his bike.

As usual, the hospital was bustling. Illness doesn't sleep or take holidays. Isaac quickly locked up his bike, entered the hospital, and ran up the stairs.

Outside the intensive care unit, he caught his breath. He was nervous about entering, but there wasn't much time. He checked out the nurses' station from down the hall. He couldn't see anyone, so he proceeded.

He tried to appear relaxed as he approached the nurses' station.

“Did Dr. Ciano leave yet?” he asked a nurse standing by the medication cart.

The nurse—whose pin said V
ICKY
—checked her watch. “I haven't heard.”

“Thanks. I'm just going to go pop in on my mother, in six thirty-eight,” Isaac said. “If that's OK.”

Vicky smiled. “Sure, go ahead. I was on the night
shift. Your mother seemed better, more alert. I talked to her a little bit last night because she had some trouble sleeping.”

“Considering her case, that might be good news,” Isaac said, feeling relieved. Maybe he didn't have anything to worry about after all.

He pushed open the door to 638. Everything was quiet. The room, dark. Esther, gone. Vera looked up at Isaac as he entered and watched him with a doleful expression. Isaac hated seeing her like this, pale and weak. She looked worse than ever.

Just as he was walking over to her bed, he heard a knock on the door. It was Candi coming in to dress Vera's wound.

Isaac was appalled. “Mom, how are you?” he asked. Then he turned to Candi and said, “What's that bruise on my mother's arm? I noticed it yesterday. It wasn't there when she first checked in. And it's getting huge.”

“No. It's very mysterious,” Candi said, looking worried. “I'll tell Dr. Ciano again if I see her. I did mark it on her chart.”

Vera shrugged hopelessly.

Her personality had again changed, and for the
worse. Isaac was afraid she might be giving up hope of recovery.

Candi smiled. “How come you're here so early?”

“Just stopping by before school,” Isaac replied. “Hey, where's Esther?”

“She was dismissed—but that's all I can say,” Candi said. When she saw that Isaac was confused, she added, “Sorry, but it's confidential information.”

As Candi changed the dressing, Isaac could see that the bruise on his mother's arm was bigger and darker than it was yesterday. Things like this were supposed to get better in the hospital, he thought, not worse.

“Does the doctor know about this bruise?” Isaac asked his mother. “Did she say anything about it?”

“To tell you the truth, I don't remember the last time I saw the doctor,” Vera said.

“It's like the nurses do everything and the doctors just make guest appearances,” Candi said, and she and Vera chuckled. She finished with Vera's dressing. “Perfect,” she said. “I'll be back in the afternoon. Enjoy your visit, Isaac.”

After Candi left, Isaac asked Vera, “Do
you
know what happened to your roommate?”

Vera shook her head and looked sad. “All I know is that they moved her out last night. I don't know why.”

Isaac was worried, but he had to leave and go to school. And he trusted the nurses.

As he walked past the nurses' station, he saw Candi, who was alone and sitting at the computer. Without looking up, she smiled and said, “Don't worry, Isaac. We know what we're doing here. I'll take good care of her.”

 

SAAC DIDN'T FEEL THE USUAL DREAD AS HE rode toward school. DCynthia had actually helped him the previous day, so maybe the day wouldn't be so bad.