By Zary Fekete
He came from his bedroom clutching his ear. It was eleven pm. Way past his bedtime. The
crunched look around his eyes showed me he had been sleeping. His ear woke him. His face had
the red flush of fever. I took his temperature, and he kept pulling until his ear lobe was cherry
red.
We lived on the third floor of our apartment building. An elderly pediatrician lived across the
hall. He had always told me knock anytime. That night I did. The doctor shuffled over with his
well-worn black bag. It took only a moment of examination before his eyes gave away more than
his words could. We were in an ambulance fifteen minutes later. Thirty minutes later my son was
in the operating room.
“What was it?” I asked the doctor in the aftermath the next morning.
“An infection in the bone behind his ear,” he said. He thumped at his own skull to demonstrate.
“There was pus under pressure. When I made first cut it bloomed out like a green flower.”
We were in intensive care for six weeks. One of his eyes was partially paralyzed. When I looked
at him from the left he could only focus on me with one eye, endearingly. They put him on a
steroid to decrease the pressure on his brain. The drug made him very angry, even as I could see
in his face he didn’t know where the ferocity came from.
Once he asked, “Why I am being so mean?” in his five-year-old voice. I was able to give him a
real answer. During his nap that day I cried that his little mind needed to wrestle with that.
I looked at him yesterday. He’s eighteen now, too long for his bed. What reminded me of this?
His comparative size? His questions yesterday about college? Perhaps it’s just something a
parent rifles through in their mind when they catch themselves marveling and loving.
Zary Fekete…
…grew up in Hungary.
…has a debut chapbook of short stories out from Alien Buddha Press and a novelette (In the Beginning) coming out in May from ELJ Publications.
…enjoys books, podcasts, and long, slow films. Twitter: @ZaryFekete
Hot Pot Magazine 