I looked at the mess of bumpy, ghost-white scars around my right knee.
The surgeries were brutal. They harvested a tendon from my hamstring to rebuild what was gone. For months, I couldn’t bend my knee past thirty degrees. At night it felt like someone was pushing hot needles through the joint.
My physical therapist, Jeremy, had hands like a carpenter. He’d grab my ankle, get set, and push.
“Thirty-four degrees,” he’d announce, like we were winning at something.
I’d bite down on my shirt to keep from screaming.
Then thirty-five. Thirty-seven. I supplied the rest:
No pain, no gain. Push harder, bitch.
Pop.
A repaired meniscus tore again. They went back in and removed it completely. Bone on bone until I eventually decide to get a new knee.
Two years later, the tendon graft they’d harvested snapped in half. So now I have one missing meniscus, a failed graft, and one hamstring that’s 50% weaker than the other.
I never got the third surgery.
One day, I was at the park with my oldest daughter, her friends, and a found soccer ball. No teams or goals. Just six children kicking it wherever.
My knee made its usual pepper-grinder sounds while I impersonated jogging.
The ball rolled to her friend Emma.
She looked at it while everyone waited.
I was already about to yell, “Just kick it back!”
I wish I could say I noticed what was happening and chose patience. Nope. My knee caught before the words got out.
You can’t do that anymore.
By the time I hobbled over, I could see she wasn’t ignoring anyone or being lazy. She was thinking.
“I’m going to kick it wrong…” She seemed to be both asking a question and making a statement.
“My knee kicks wrong all the time now.”
She studied the scars, made an “ewww” face, and kicked the ball.
It went somewhere.
“I kicked it wrong!”
She laughed and ran after it. The other kids chased the ball wherever it had gone.
Nobody was angry.
One night, I was reading to our youngest when I caught myself rubbing one of the scars.
She noticed.
“Daddy owie?”
“Old owie.”
She touched the biggest one beside my kneecap.
“Owie?”
“Not really. Daddy’s okay.”
She patted my knee, then tore-turned the page, reminding me why we have board books.
“Okay and owie. Daddy read,” she said.