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?”
I shook my head.
“Okay, so your ma is telling everyone you’re sick, and both you and the doctors believe her. You’re going to the doctor’s office all the time. What about life at home? What was that like?”
I dug into the third muffin, teeth first. “She pulled me out of school in first grade after one kid was mean to me, said homeschooling would be easier on my health. I spent most of my time alone with her until I was sixteen.”
“How’d she justify that?” Vinny asked.
“She said I was too sick to be around other kids. My weak immune system wouldn’t be able to resist their germs. She was always holding the chromosomal defect over my head. I was too scared of my sicknesses to argue. So I sat in my chair and let her shave my head and played the good patient.”
“But you had to get out once in a while,” Vinny said.
“We left the house for doctors’ appointments, running errands, and visiting neighbors,” I said. “Before Mom’s arrest, our neighbors thought she was a saint. She took part in every food drive, roadway cleanup, and raffle. And all this with a sick daughter at home. ‘That Patty is something, isn’t she?’ they’d say. Their praise was just what she wanted.”
Vinny thought for a minute. “You said you didn’t hang around a lot of other people until you were sixteen. What changed?”
I smiled. “We got the Internet.”
* * *
• • •
When I explained to Vinny how I stopped Mom, I’m not sure why I left Phil out of the story. I mentioned once in our chat room that broccoli and turkey and potatoes reminded me of maple syrup mixed with cotton candy. Phil was the first person to tell me none of those foods was sickly sweet. I described the weird bitterness on my tongue and throat as I swallowed Mom’s meals, how the tingling lingered no matter how hard I scratched. Nothing could get rid of the taste—not mouthwash, gum, water, more food.