Escape Points by Michele Weldon

she recommended—Dr. Salil Doshi.
    Weldon’s ear hurt, he admitted reluctantly, and even with the stitching and the bandaging, it was filling up again. It did not look any better, even though now it was covered with dried, blood-soaked bandages. I was uneasy and wanted someone else to look at it. You had to take care of the ear within two weeks, get rid of the fluid, otherwise the ear would harden and would be completely deformed.
    At his tidy office, Dr. Doshi listened to Weldon and nodded when Weldon explained how he needed to wrestle in a little more than a week. Finally, someone who understood him; I could read Weldon’s relief on his face.
    Dr. Doshi said an operation was necessary. It would be outpatient, but he would be under anesthetic. He would drain and scrape the ear and reform it as best he could, then he would stitch it, and it would return to normal in time. He was reassuring and confident. I made the arrangements.
    A few days later, I was alone in the hospital waiting area, as I was always alone in the waiting rooms for the boys. I waited for their vaccinations, their dental cleanings, Brendan’s orthodontic appointments, their haircuts, the parent-teacher conferences, for them to get showered and changed after games and meets. I waited for them in parking lots with the car running and the radio on, too tired to grade papers or return phone calls, just wishing I could go home or do something for myself, like go to the bathroom or shower.
    It is what single parents do. You go alone to all the appointments, not making small talk or discussing the current crisis or conditions with a partner. You hand over the insurance card, write the check, answer the questions about history and immunizations, read the parenting magazines and occasionally the general interest magazine you would maybe buy for yourself if you had the time. You walk outside to make cell phone calls if you are not too worried, reschedule yourmeetings, rearrange your other children’s schedules, scrawl notes on legal pads, check messages, make lists, wait for the prescriptions to be filled. You talk to yourself, you plan. You try not to waste the afternoon or the day. You are always the only one waiting, you are always the only one there, only sometimes wishing it didn’t always have to be you. But you know it will always be you.
    It was only a few hours of waiting for prep, surgery, and recovery this time, and now when they wheeled Weldon away on the table for the operation, he was almost six feet tall but still mostly arms and legs.
    In the recovery area, the doctor spoke to me confidently and showed me Weldon’s ear; it was perfect, pink, and well-formed, an exact match to his left ear. Hours later it would fill again and swell, but that would recede, Dr. Doshi promised. Less than a week later, Weldon wrestled in a match, his ear swathed in gauze bandages, his headgear secured with silver duct tape. He won the match. But he wrestled too soon; his ear did not have time to heal. He had the ear again. In spite of the operation and the drainings, he had the ear. When all the wrestling was over, after college, after it all, I told Weldon I was taking him back to Dr. Doshi and I was going to fix it.
    Because that is what mothers do. I was going to fix it.
    The following December, Brendan got the ear. He was wrestling junior varsity as a sophomore and apparently not wearing his headgear in practice either. As soon as I noticed it and Brendan confirmed it, we scheduled an appointment right away to see Dr. Doshi. His waiting room was crowded, a clientele of elderly, middle-aged, and very young. One was a beautiful teen who had multiple piercings on her ear, apparently infected. The nurses were kind and the magazines were decent— National Geographic and Time. I hated the waiting rooms with only golf magazines.
    Brendan and I waited in one of the white-tiled patient rooms; Brendan reclined in the large leather chair that looked like a barber’s