Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

That should read, “none has been definitively proven,” not “have,” because the subject of that clause is the collective noun “none,” not the plural noun “theories.”

Some speculate that repeated trauma puts the bone at risk for developing a bone cyst. This, however, has not been proven.

Wait. Bone cysts cause repeated trauma, yes. Wait.

Some have theorized that bone cysts are the result of repeated trauma, but this has not been proved.

Wait. She tries to turn the information around in her head, like a midwife reaching into the uterus when a baby goes breech.

It is necessary for primary care physicians to proceed with caution, to avoid unfounded charges of child abuse.

However, in cases where differing accounts of an injury are given, or medical attention has been unduly delayed …

Dr. Ferry scolding her mother in the front hall …

Always consider the possibility of abuse in young children, especially if the injury is unexplained, the history is implausible or inconsistent between caregivers, or the seeking of medical care was delayed unreasonably.

She follows the thread through a labyrinth of websites, and at 1:48 a.m. meets the Minotaur in New Zealand.

SKELETAL RADIOLOGY, VOLUME 18, NUMBER 2

Post-traumatic cysts and cyst-like lesions of bone Abstract: They describe two patients with cyst-like lesions of bone that developed at the sites of healed or healing fractures.

Case 1

A 9-year-old girl …

Case 2

A 6-year-old boy …

At 2:00 a.m. she is shocked to see it laid out frank and unfreighted:

Simple or unicameral cyst can be caused by trauma.

Surgery is the best option.

Curettage and grafting most often indicated.

Prognosis is generally good with treatment.

Bone cysts are more common in young dogs.

These cysts can cause lameness and pain.

Any breed can be affected, dogs are usually less than 18 months of age, both males and females can be affected.

Lameness is the most common sign.

She scans the banner at the top of the page: VET SURGERY CENTRAL INC. She gets up and puts the kettle on.

Even assuming the fractures caused the cysts, anything at all might have caused the fractures. She may have rolled off the couch, climbed over the bars of her crib and fallen. A two-year-old can break their arm without an adult realizing it. It is called a green-stick fracture: the bone bends then heals, perhaps not perfectly. Or a mother grabs her toddler by the arm to prevent them touching the stove, the handle of a boiling pot — grabs the non-dominant arm, likely the left that lags behind its mischief-making twin — and, with the force of her fright, she wrenches. The small bone breaks more easily the next time. And the next.

If the fractures caused the cysts, then what caused the first fracture? If the airplane swing was a pathological fracture, there must have been at least one before it. Before Canada. An accident of some kind. If so, why is it not part of family lore? “Mary Rose’s first sling.” She can easily believe her mother was too depressed to see what was right in front of her, but what about her father? Where have all the fathers gone? To work. The mothers stayed home at the epicentre of that mid-twentieth-century invention, “the nuclear family.” Alone with a crying baby in the crib. And one in the grave … and one up in flames.

A mother alone in the mundane light of day in the middle of the week in the middle of the living room where nothing ever happens and keeps on happening, no one there to take her child, even for a moment, into the safety of their gaze where she can see how she loves it. Banal trauma, drained of drama … mondaywednesdaytuesdaywednesdaythursdaythursday no one sees. No one tells. The body tells on itself. Mary Rose broke and mended a number of times, broke the growth plate — broke time.

That’s your badness … Badness requiring surgery. Badness tattooed on flesh in the form of a scar. Two, one for each dead baby. Badness that, decades later, can be touched off like a siren at the brush of a passerby, then dilate to a traffic-parting wail at the drop of a ladybug boot.

Her mother asked, “Is that what happened to your arm?” But was she forgetting? Or remembering.

The marks on a body are marks on a map, trails blazed in flesh, they tell you where you have come from and how to get back again. Her scars can take her home. Down through time to an apartment building at the edge of the Black Forest. Down to the racketing funnel, the tornado in the living room, beating of sound, strobing of light. Step back — not too far or you will be out on the balcony. Observe the room around the commotion. There is a coffee table, a couch. And at the centre, a column of swirling darkness. Is it possible to slow it down? To see what is there? … But the column becomes a scrawl like a crayon wielded in the fist of a child, and it blacks out the picture.

The kettle screams.

She leans against the counter, before the big black windows.

“Did I wake you?”

“It’s okay, what’s up?”

“Nothing, it’s just, I’m a bit, I’ve been googling …”

“Oh no. Oh Mary Rose, you do not have cancer, there are not spiders living in your face.”

She laughs. “I know, I just called ’cause I’m afraid I’m going to kill myself when I was twenty-three.”

“What’s wrong?” Hil sounds wide awake now.

She laughs again. “I don’t know why I said that—”

“Are the children okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“You said you wanted to kill yourself.”

“When I was twenty-three—”

“I’m calling Gigi to come over and be with you.”

“It was a weird thing to say, okay? It runs in the family, a flaw which neither of our children stands to inherit.”

“I’m coming home.”

“You do not have to—”

“Don’t kill yourself, Mary Rose, don’t kill yourself in our house with our children sleeping—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll wake them up first, I’ll go to a sleazy motel out on the Lake Shore and order a mai tai and jam the cocktail umbrella up my nose into my brain — it’s possible. You can make anything into a weapon, I learned that in the militia.”

“You learned that from your mother.”

“Sorry to bother you, I’m going to hang up now.”

“Why do you need an enemy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Something is wrong with you. Find out what is wrong with you, Mary Rose.”

Mary Rose is abruptly aware that it is possible for her not to say another word or to make another voluntary movement for the rest of her life. She does not even need to breathe. Nothing is happening. It is that easy. Eventually you forget where the switch is, then you forget there is a switch, then there is no one to forget anything …

“Mary Rose? Mister? I’m calling 911.”

“I almost hurt her.”

She tells Hil about the boot incident. She makes it sound unprecedented, her voice sounds flat but not crazy. “I think I had a short wick ’cause of the pain in my arm.”

“You’ve always had a short wick.”

“You’re implying that I’m abusive just because I told you something lots of mothers experience but never admit to — lots of parents — not to mention I didn’t actually really do anything to her.”

“Okay. I believe you, but I still think you need help.”

“Please don’t pathologize me! I really will go crazy if I can’t express the slightest twinge of frustration without you calling in the white coats.”

“I mean help with the kids.”

“Oh.”

“I think we should schedule Candace to come full-time for a while.”