Nonfiction by Stephanie Shafran
“No one has feet like mine,” my ninety-three-year-old mother announces to the hovering doctor.
“Well, let’s see what brought you here today,” the young doctor smiles as she pulls up a stool directly facing her new patient. After removing the sock as if it were a ticking time bomb fastened to my mother’s foot, she examines the flame-red toe yielding to her curious, slender fingers. It is the third toe on her left foot, rubbed raw by my mother’s second toe, which has long ago snaked over the big one—and twisted itself into an awkward, but permanent position. This deformity is a logical consequence of my mother’s lifetime habit of jamming her foot into ill-fitting shoes.
When I arrived at her apartment yesterday, I found my mother sitting on the bed, cradling her bare foot in her lap. Spotting me in the doorway, she stood up— a grimace spreading across her face as her left foot touched the floor.
“It’s my damn good-for-nothing toe again,” she’d scolded.
My heart slumped, remembering her excuse for refusing to undergo the surgery years ago to remove it. Three weeks off her feet and out of work! she’d whined. I knew the truth—her fear of misshapen body parts. At the Boston skating rink, there was a girl whose stumped arm had barely developed beyond the shoulder. After three Sundays of spotting her on the ice, my mother made excuses whenever I asked why we weren’t going skating anymore.
“Let me see it, Mom. Sit down.”
Plunking her body back on the bed, she lifted the foot an inch from the floor and pointed to the swollen, tomato-colored toe.
“Yikes, that looks infected. We’ll have to see a doctor.”
“You’ll take care of it, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course. By tomorrow, I hope.”
I’d have to take her to urgent care, take time off from work, cancel my afternoon hairdresser appointment most likely.
A day later now, we’re seated side by side on grey metal chairs in the clinic’s examination room. The throbbing in my head has finally quieted.
The doctor’s slender fingers wander across the bloated flesh.
“Does this hurt? Or this?”
Savoring this caress, my mother lets out a deep sigh. She shakes her head from side to side, yet her brow furrows and her eyes shudder as the doctor probes the toe.
“I was wondering, Doctor, will you have to amputate this corkscrew toe?”
The doctor lifts her soft brown eyes to my mother’s.
“Heavens no. We’ll just treat the infection on the toe next to it. You’ll be free of pain in no time.”
My eyes moisten. This doctor’s reassurance to my mother—like a mother to a needy child.
Now the doctor swivels her stool to face me.
“I’ll write a prescription for a two-week course of antibiotics. I’d like to check her toe in three weeks.”
Then she swivels a half-turn, shifting her gaze to my mother.
“You must be proud to have a daughter who takes such good care of you. I imagine she learned that from you.”
“Well, I don’t know if she’d agree.” My mother’s eyes ping pong between the doctor’s and mine. “At least I made sure she had a new pair of shoes every September. For the new school year, of course.”
She offers me a shy nod. I can’t deny it—yearly trips to Stride Rite Shoes in Brookline each August, just before the start of the new school year. Choosing a new pair of shoes with sturdy soles and laces, sized correctly to fit my feet, whether I loved the color and style, or not.
As the consultation wraps up, I lift the sock from my mother’s lap. Like a suppliant, I kneel at her feet and lift the bruised foot into my hands. As I do, my mother’s hand reaches to rest on my shoulder. After a long intake of breath, she announces,
“Nine miscarriages. I almost gave up—your father convinced me to try for ten. And then you, one out of ten, like a miracle.”
Her foot still in my lap, I give its heel a gentle squeeze.
Stephanie Shafran’s recent writing appears in literary journals such as Emulate, Persimmon Tree, and Silkworm. Her chapbook “Awakening” was released in 2020. A member of both Straw Dog Writers Guild and Florence Poetry Society, Stephanie resides in Northampton, Massachusetts; read more at stephanieshafran.com, including monthly blog posts.
