The Accident
Nancy Wheaton
I recall the magazine rack, issues neatly arranged
on four shelves, a sense of order like learning the A B C’s.
My son proudly sang the letters with a shuffle of his feet
under the dining room chair. On the top shelf People next to Popular Mechanic.
On the bottom two racks the children’s books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
& Where The Wild Things Are, frayed at the edges.
I recall now the quiet, the screaming-inside peace of waiting. Four others sit
& play games on their phones. The sun shines through an enormous arched
window. Outside the greenness of the trees the color of emeralds,
as in emeralds and diamonds I was given in an engagement
ring. My eyes water. One blurry tree now looks like an imaginary being,
perhaps a good princess bearing news of renewal, of wellness. She walks up to you.
The doctor princess says your son will need a cast for his broken leg.
In another age, he rode a tricycle, insisting on also donning swim
goggles. Refused a helmet though. Just like this time. A second MRI
is needed, but the princess doctor says he tapped his fingers during the first scan
keeping time (I’m sure) with the loud, banging noises. He was smiling.
I recall he kicked me in the kitchen when he learned of the divorce. Grew quiet.
How he flew when skateboarding. Airborne. Moments before he hit the wall
all he remembers (five years later he told me) is Maxx talking
in Where The Wild Things Are, saying I have a sadness shield big enough for both of us.
I look out at the sparrows, lined up on the lower branch. The sun dodges the clouds.
I am told by the princess doctor to wait another hour before going in to visit.
The hush of the waiting room becomes a concerto. He is the cello, sad notes
pulling upward, and I am the violin, waiting for his cue.
Nancy Wheaton spends summer and fall in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and now winters and springs in Naples, Florida. She spent her childhood years in Santiago, Chile, and Evreux, France, as a daughter in an Air Force family. She used to play soccer for a team named “Las Amas de Casa.” She volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and is a docent at a small art institute in Naples. She is the founder of Wheaton Writing Academy. She has a collection of 20 poems in the second New England seacoast anthology, 10 Piscataqua Writers (2024), and has a recently released chapbook, Life on the Edge from Finishing Line Press.