When I was well into my summer schedule, Dad finally got the WPA job. He was helping build the lakeshore highway linking east and west Cleveland. He really wasn’t in shape for heavy, pick-and-shovel work. Managing restaurants hadn’t required such physical stamina. He would get a regular paycheck though, and when you can get a job you take it—just like me. We’d need that paycheck when I went back to school in fall.

At home one afternoon, Mom and I prepared a special birthday supper for Dad. He was forty. After six weeks of prosperity, we thought we could go all out—at least I thought we could. I was beginning to thaw, to actually believe we had a future.

Mom worked on beef slices with rosemary while I made an amaretto cheesecake. Right in the middle of a rare, comfortable afternoon between Mom and me, the radio announcer broke in with a bulletin. I’d begun to hate those bulletins. This time the police had pulled a man’s decapitated body from the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland Flats.

Mom stopped chopping rosemary. “My God! That’s just around the corner. What if he got your father this morning on the way to work? It was pretty dark.”

“Mom! Sh-h-h-h! Listen.” The announcer nattered on until I heard what I wanted. “See? They say he’s been in the river for two or three days. And now, I’m turning this thing off.”

“No. I want to hear.”

“Well, I don’t. Dad’s okay and there’s nothing we can do about that poor man. The police are working on it.”

“But there was that colored woman last month.”

“Yeah, I know. Nothin’ we can do for her either.”

I flicked the radio off and went back to crushing almonds for the cheesecake crust, popping one into my mouth so I could enjoy the sweet, nutty flavor. I made them as fine as I could—almost almond flour.

“Do you think this is enough?”

Mom glanced at my pile, hesitating. “I think so.”

I grabbed a saucepan and dropped in a bit of butter, which I melted slowly, before pouring it in a bowl with the almonds. After mixing the butter and almonds into a kind of thick paste, I scraped the mixture into the bottom of a springform pan and molded it to the sides and bottom.

“I’m sure glad we were allowed to keep some of the utensils from Mowrey’s,” I remarked.

“I’m not sure we were allowed,” Mom said, without looking up.

I squeezed by Mom and reached in the icebox for eggs and sour cream. I added them to the cream cheese that had been sitting out on the counter since Dad left for work. As I measured out a heaping tablespoon of almond extract, I hummed Tar Paper Stomp.

“Whoa, Bobbi. That’s supposed to be a tablespoonful. You probably poured another tablespoon over the side.”

I glanced at Mom, noticing she looked almost happy. The lines around her mouth seemed softer than usual.

I grinned as I licked the spoon, enjoying the burn of alcohol on my tongue and the sweet, warm almond flavor behind it.

“That’s my heaping tablespoon. We want to taste the almonds, don’t we?”

“Well go easy. We can’t afford . . . .”

“Sure we can. You’re working. Dad’s working. I’m working. Sure we can.”

As Mom went back to chopping the rosemary, I inhaled the sharp, spicy aroma of fresh herbs filling the kitchen.

“You never know when things will change.”

I returned to my song, ignoring her perpetual worry.

“Did you put the mushrooms to soak?”

“Dried onions and dried mushrooms right here in this bowl, sucking up water. And the spinach is boiling. So is the rice. They’ll all be ready to drain soon.”

Mom glanced out the corner of her eye. “I been hearing Mary and Ralph are getting pretty serious.”

“Looks that way.”

“Think they’ll get married?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. Eventually.”

She kept probing, and I realized that, for once, I didn’t feel like flinching away from her questions. In fact, her comments hadn’t seemed so sharp lately.

“How about Kate and Ed?”

“Dunno. They seem to pair off sometimes.”

“How about Helen? Has she got a boyfriend?”

I looked up from the cheesecake. “We’re in high school, Mom. What’re you gettin’ at?”

“I just never hear you mention a boy.”

An image of Jack lying on that beach, telling me about his baby brother, flashed into my mind.

“That’s because there isn’t any boy,” I said. “What’s your hurry?”

I got a fresh burst of scent as Mom rubbed the beef with the rosemary. “No hurry. Just wondering.”

“There’s just nobody interesting,” I stated with all the certainty I could muster.

We prepared recipes we’d learned from our Italian neighbors and Mowrey’s chefs, and I imagined Jack’s warm body against my own in the cold water. I shrugged mentally. No point even thinking about it. He must have a girlfriend—probably somebody his age. He’d never ask me out.

I made rice into risotto with dried mushrooms and oregano. I’d thrown a little rosemary and chopped spinach into the mix. While Mom stuffed artichokes with pesto sauce, I sneaked a taste with the tip of a spoon, delighting in the warm flavor of sweet basil combined with garlic and olive oil.

“What a feast,” I exclaimed as I sliced into a gorgeous purple eggplant. “Look at all these colors.”

I cut some small eggplant wedges and laid them out on the counter to sweat under a layer of salt.

“You know, your dad’s lucky to have his birthday in the middle of summer. All the vegetables are fresh.”

Immersed in the complex aromas of cooking, I just nodded and sang. For once, Mom seemed to like it.

We were still standing side by side at the counter, chopping, slicing, and tearing vegetables for a fennel salad, when someone pounded on the door. Mom wiped her hands on her apron as she scurried over to answer. She cracked the door and two burly men pushed past her, carrying a stretcher that held my dad.

“Where do you want us to put him, ma’am?” the taller man demanded.

“Oh my God,” Mom exclaimed, wringing her hands and staring into Dad’s white, sweating face.

I pointed over Mom’s head to their bedroom door.

“In there! Put him on the bed.” I knew he must be hurt, but Mom blocked my view. “What’s happened?”

As they passed me, I saw the bone coming through dad’s trousers leg and a wet clot of blood soaking his pants.

Recovering herself, Mom hurried into the bedroom, threw back the covers, and pressed herself into the closet doorframe. The men lifted Dad over the footboard and, barely wedging themselves between the bed and the dresser, lowered the stretcher on the bed.

“Wasn’t paying enough attention to the next guy; stepped right in front of a pick on the swing,” the taller man said. “Guy saw him, but couldn’t stop the momentum. Just managed to turn a little so he didn’t catch the point.”

Mom peered at me over the men carrying Dad—where I stood in the doorway unable to crowd into the tiny bedroom.

“Bobbi,” she said, “call the doctor.”

I couldn’t move. I just stood, watching. Mom turned toward the men.

“Now wait a minute.” She turned, worked her way into the closet, and rummaged around inside. She pulled out a sleeve ironing board. “I’m going to slide this under his leg and wrap it so it doesn’t move when you take the stretcher out.”

She maneuvered herself between the two men and slipped the board under Dad’s leg. He howled, “God damn it. Hurry up!” then reverted to his quiet moaning. Mom’d found a couple of rags and tied the leg to the board—above and below the break. I didn’t know she knew how to do stuff like that.

“Okay, you roll him off the stretcher. I’ll move the leg. Paul . . . .”

“I know, Ella. This is gonna hurt. Just do it. Ow-w-w-w!” he yelled, then subsided back into moaning as Mom pulled the covers over him, carefully avoiding his injured leg. “Thank you men for bringing me home,” he managed through clenched teeth.

“Yes. Thank you so much. Can I pay you something for the time you lost?” Mom said as the men headed for the door.

“Nah,” said the tall one, ducking his head.

“We were about done for the day,” said the other. “You just take care of this guy. Could have been any one of us.”

“Yeah. I don’t suppose we’ll see him back on the job.”

Catching a whiff of something burning, I rushed into the kitchen and turned off the stove. Then as the men stalked out of the apartment, carrying the stretcher, I scrambled for my purse and then for the pay phone down on the street. Running down the stairs, past the stretcher bearers, I wondered how much of our special meal was ruined.

 

When I got back to the apartment, I bent over, hands on my thighs, catching my breath, and told Mom Dr. MacKay would arrive in about twenty minutes.

“He said to keep Dad warm. He said you could save a little time if you cut open the leg of his pants, so he can get to the break. He said if you have any ice left in the icebox, you should wrap it in a towel and hold it on the wound to keep down the swelling, but only for about ten minutes at a time.”

“Okay. You get the ice,” Mom said, scurrying into the bedroom.

We fluttered around for the next half-hour, trying to make Dad comfortable. Mom found her sewing shears in her basket under the bed and cut his pants all the way to the hip, carefully maneuvering them around the exposed bone. My frantic chopping with the ice pick reduced a fist-sized block into chips. I wrapped it up in a dish towel and took it to Mom to arrange on the torn flesh around Dad’s bone end.

“Let’s grab the blanket off your bed,” Mom said, so we flopped down the Murphy bed with a bang and snatched the blanket. By then, he was shivering.

In a few minutes, Mom let the doctor into the apartment. MacKay looked like he’d been through the wringer, clothes rumpled, hair standing up on end. His eyes looked tired, but sharp. I wouldn’t have wanted to try putting one over on him.

“Where’s my patient?”

Mom led him to the bedroom and I crowded in behind him. That was the first time I’d seen the leg with the pants cut away. My stomach lurched, but I got hold of myself, following the doc’s every move with my eyes. He reached between the rails of the footboard, removed Dad’s sock, and grasped his foot in the webbing between his two largest toes.

I demanded to know what he was doing. Glancing over his shoulder at me, he said he was checking his dorsalis pulse.

“And?”

“It’s nice and strong. Apparently his major arteries are intact, but I wish they’d taken him to the hospital.”

“Does he need to be in the hospital?” Mom asked.

“It would be better, but stabilizing that leg in order to move him again. I don’t know. Might do more harm than good. I think we’ll have to set it here.”

“Paul, this will hurt like hell. You’ll think getting hit with that pick was a picnic.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Didn’t think it could get much worse.”

“Oh, it can,” MacKay said as he loaded a syringe. “I’m giving you some morphine to take the edge off and while it takes effect, I’m going to explain to Ella and Bobbi here how they’re gonna help me. All right?”

“Sounds peachy,” Dad said between gritted teeth.

MacKay administered the injection, then stepped back into the living room and sat. “Now, here’s what has to happen. I have to pull that bone back into place, but if I start yanking, it could rip some nerves or a blood vessel or tear a muscle, so it never functions again. Do you understand?”

“So how can we help?” Mom asked.

He looked at me and held my eyes. “I have to guide the bone back into place so it doesn’t do any more damage. I need you to do the pulling. You look pretty athletic and I think you’ll have the strength this takes. I need you to pull on your father’s leg. I’ll guide you. You’ll need to turn his foot a little bit and vary the pressure when I tell you.”

I just stared at him

“This will not be pleasant. Your dad will very likely yell and holler in pain. Can you do that?”

“Will it save his leg?”

“I hope so.”

What else could I do? It was my Dad. I nodded.

“Ella,” he said looking at Mom. “I’ll need you to crawl onto the head of the bed and work your way under Paul’s shoulders so you can get a firm grip under his arms. Basically, you and Bobbi will stretch him—gently—between you.”

“Oh my God,” Mom said, bringing her hand to her mouth.

“Now Bobbi, I don’t have any way to pin the break, so once the bone’s where it needs to be, we’re going to splint it and then run a rope over the footboard and tie some kind of weight on it. We don’t want too much weight because we don’t want to pull it apart. I’ll need you to hold on while I do that too. This will take some time.”

He turned back to Mom. “Afterwards, I have to finish cleaning and disinfecting the wound and take some stitches, from the inside out. None of that will be pleasant either. Hopefully, the morphine will help him stay still so he doesn’t do any more damage. Once we get the bone in place, I’ll have a better idea of whether he’s severed any major nerves or blood vessels.”

“What if he has?” Mom wanted to know.

“We’ll have to get him to a hospital. I’m not qualified to do that kind of repair.”

“How will we pay for that? Paul’s only been working for six weeks, and now we won’t have his paycheck.”

“Ella, I think a lot of people are paying what they can when they can. But we’re not to that point yet. Let’s see what we can do for him. Are you ready for this?”

“I guess so,” I said, eyes locked on the doctor’s face.

Mom’s mouth was a thin line. “Yes.”

“All right, let’s go get that bone set.” Dr. MacKay stood, stoop-shouldered and stepped back into the bedroom. “I imagine you heard most of that, Paul?”

He nodded.

“Has the morphine taken the edge off yet?”

“It’s a strange thing, doc. Seems to hurt as much as before, but I got a divorce from it and it’s way over there.”

“I’m sorry, but we’re gonna bring it back.”

“So I hear. This will be tough on Bobbi.”

“I’ll be all right, Dad.”

As Mom took her place, raising his head and shoulders, the harsh ceiling light glinted on a tear sliding down Dad’s temple. “She will be all right, Paul,” Mom whispered as she settled under him, grasping him under the arms.

I nodded, catching his eyes and holding them. “You can yell all you want, Dad. I won’t let go of you.”

Brave words, they were.

“All right,” said MacKay, filling his lungs. Slowly, he worked his fingers under the shattered end of Dad’s femur. “This is good,” he said, “There are no loose fragments on this exposed bone. Let’s hope it’s the same inside.” The sound of grinding teeth filled the room.

“Now Bobbi, get a firm grip on your father’s foot. You’ll need to get a good grasp because you’ll have to hold on a long time.”

I reached through the bars in the wrought-iron footboard and closed my hands around his heel and arch. It was awkward reaching through there, but I got a grip I thought I could hold. I felt Dad’s foot sweating and MacKay must have noticed, too.

“Hold on, Bobbi. Put his sock back on to absorb the sweat.” He waited. “Now are you ready?”

I nodded.

“I want you to pull, very steadily, straight and level with the mattress. Got it?”

So I pulled, bracing myself against the footboard, and MacKay guided as the bone made its way back inside the flesh of my dad’s thigh. Inch by inch it moved as sweat beaded up and poured off Dad’s face and into Mom’s lap. A big dark spot kept growing under his head. The hollow grinding of his teeth seemed to echo off the walls.

“Now Bobbi, keep that tension just like it is and twist the foot counterclockwise—slowly.”

I made a tiny, tentative adjustment.

“That’s good, Bobbi. Just gradually keep twisting.”

Dad moaned, a low, rumbling sound that seemed to fill my bones with the vibrations of sound. Dad nodded, just barely, and I kept twisting and sweating.

“Okay, Bobbi, that’s it. Now pull back just a little more.”

I pulled, still looking directly into Daddy’s eyes, my own tears spilling down my cheeks. Sweat dribbled down my spine and ribs, but the bone end disappeared back inside flesh with a kind of squishing sound and the doctor’s fingers followed.

“Ah-h-h-h-h!” groaned Dad between his teeth.

“That’s it!” said MacKay.

I kind of jumped and almost lost my grip, but I managed to hold the pressure.

“Now hold it right there,” the doctor said, gathering splints and wraps.

“I’m afraid I’ll slip. My hands are wet and Dad’s sock feels like it’s coming off.”

MacKay kept wrapping, stabilizing. “Just a bit more, Bobbi. I know you’re worn out but I’m almost done.” He paused a moment. “Okay. Now very slowly release some of the pressure. Even with the splint, we’ll have to keep some traction on it until it starts to knit, so hang on there while I set it up.”

Wiping my tears against my shoulder, I held on and the doctor maneuvered around my hands to rig a sling on Dad’s foot. He lifted the splinted leg while I held the pressure, and hung a weight over the end of the iron bedstead.

“Now Bobbi, you can slowly let go.”

Gradually I released the pressure then slumped to the floor, knees to my chest, face buried in my knees, still listening in case the doctor needed me.

“Now Ella, I have to clean out this wound, disinfect it and wrap it. I can use some help and I think his weight will provide enough resistance now, so you can climb out of there.

“Paul, you haven’t fainted yet. How are you doing? Still divorced?”

Dad’s bleached-out face looked older than I’d ever thought—and exhausted. He gave me a weak smile.

“No, doc,” he said. “We just had a wedding while you poked around in there.”

“I am sorry, but I had to do that and I’m going to have to hurt you some more, but I promise the worst is over. I’ve got to pour alcohol in this. We just can’t risk an infection.”

“Just do it.”

“Okay Ella. This will be messy, so if you want, you can stand by and sop it up.”

Mom had grabbed a basin from the kitchen, and she maneuvered it under the raised leg, then took some rags and sopped while MacKay irrigated the torn flesh. He cleaned out all the dirt, bone fragments, damaged skin and torn tissues, then stitched the wound closed.

“Considering the damage that bone could have done when it came through the skin, his leg seems to be in pretty good shape,” he said as he packed up his equipment. “See, the lower leg is nice and pink.” He pulled off Dad’s sock and again checked his pulse. “He’s got a good, strong pulse in his foot. The bone wasn’t terribly fragmented.”

Mom and I followed MacKay into the living room on weak knees. Mom sagged into the chair by the window, staring at the bricks on the other side of the alley, and I dropped to the floor, continuing to listen to the doctor’s instructions.

“We won’t know too much about nerve damage until he’s had a chance to heal, but for right now, he seems to have feeling in his foot, so that’s a good sign. He will probably have a limp for the rest of his life. There was enough muscle damage in there to cause some restriction.

“Oh,” he said as he started out the door. “I’ll send my nurse over right away to teach you how to take care of him until he can get up and take care of himself.”

“When will that be?”

“We’ll probably give it a couple of weeks to start knitting and make sure he doesn’t have any infection. Then we’ll cast it and I hope he can get around on crutches. But he’s not to put any pressure on that leg until it heals. I’m going to say he’ll be walking on crutches for a year at least. That was a bad break.”

When Mom closed the door, I took a deep breath and sighed, wishing the muscles in my arms would stop quivering. The back of my neck seemed to have a vice clamped on it, and my stomach felt like a battle front.

Mom glanced in my direction. “You all right?”

“Just exhausted, Mom.” I groaned. “I thought I was gonna lose my grip and hurt his leg even worse.” I rolled my shoulders to release some of the tension, but it didn’t help. “How about you?”

“I just don’t know what we’re gonna do now.”

I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling as if I could see my high school diploma floating around up there on its way out the open window. I tried to clear the painful constriction in my throat.

“We’ll be all right for the rest of the summer,” I croaked, clearing my throat again.

“But I don’t know after that.”

“I can’t think about it now, Mom.” Facing toward the window, I curled up around my burning stomach and closed my eyes. “Maybe later.”