The morning was ghostly grey and foggy. Eager to break its silence, we played in the one forbidden places we were shunned against. The patio stones laid innocently next to the house, neatly awaiting the sand that was then piled beside them to be brushed in between them to give them their final resting place. How dull and yet exciting it was to run around those slippery stones and piles of dirt. Workman would be there later that day to finish this installation, so we only had a small amount of time to play. We chased each other gleefully until it happened and the world went dark. All of a sudden my four year old foot was lodged snuggly in between those waiting patio stones. My foot was were the dirt should be and I panicked. I wrenched my leg as hard as I could to free it from those stones, perhaps terrified that I would be stuck there forever, having to live out my life on that neighbor’s driveway.

I have no memory of going from that place to my home across the grassy Cul de Sac. Just being back in my own house with my Mom who looked at me with disappointment and disapproval. I mean, after all, it was the one thing she had asked us not to do, play around those stones. As if by sheer force of nature we were going to play there, defiance to the hilt in my four year old brain. What magical experience was I being held back from on that day? Why was I not permitted to know that joy? I needed to know, I needed to defy. And then there I was. I remember she put each hand underneath my arms and stood me up straight with a bounce onto my feet. I remember my tears had not stopped flowing since the stone caught my foot. Then I remember staring at her, deep in her eyes while my little body crumpled like broken glass to the dark navy shag carpet below me. Next I remember being in the back of the old station wagon. In a place I loved to ride, but never got too. Grimacing and choking up with each bump and pot hole. The long trip to the old hospital seemed to take forever.

The smell of the room I was in was of paste and bandage. I remember it caught it my throat and did nothing to settle my pain. I remember the smallness of that room, even as a child. I remember rolls of gauze and other bandage hanging off the walls. I was alone in there, shattered glass leg, half sitting half laying on a medical examination table awaiting my fate. A single light bulb strung from the stained ceiling swung slightly each time the door was opened or closed. Mom in the hallway worriedly talking to doctors and nurses. I have vague memories of being propped up in a different position and coated with paste and bandage from the top of my leg to my foot.

Over the next several weeks, the lost summer, I sat in an old lounge chair in the garage watching the kids enjoy the dog days while I counted bottle caps. Sooner or later I realized that situation was for suckers and I started shimming on the pavement dragging my cast and leg with me. I remember when the cast was cut off, the smell, the sweat, the oddness of the hairy leg below. It felt shaky to walk on, but it wasn’t glass anymore. It would never be the same after my hip line fracture of femur to toe but I swear those stones were just begging me to dance around them.