Two major surgeries needed.
The first from the front, through the stomach.
The second from the back.
A six-month rest period between both surgeries.
Two titanium rods to be inserted in the back, fixedwith screws.
Will require a year of absence from school.
“What about the risks? And potential complications?” her mother pressed on.
A shadow passed over the doctor’s face, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. “Well, every surgery has its complications. Especially one as major as this. Of course, I can’t promise you it’ll be one hundred per cent successful. But we always do our best.” He closed his agenda and glanced at the clock. “So? Shall I pencil you in for the slot next Thursday?”
The three of them seated on the other side of the table looked at each other with apprehension. Her father cleared his throat. Sonya realised then that the doctor had yet to mention the costs involved. Her hand reached behind to feel the knob on her back. A lump of twisted flesh she had been carrying all her life, whose existence she hadn’t realised until a fortnight ago. Sonya dug her nails into the lump, wishing she could claw it away.
“I’ll leave you all to decide for yourselves,” the doctor said, getting to his feet. “Need to rush to my next consultation now. Busy, busy day. Anyway, when you’ve decided, just inform the nurse at the counter. She’ll make the necessary arrangements.”
He had gathered his things and was about to walk out of the door when he said, almost as an afterthought, “You know, your daughter’s case is very severe, I wouldn’t advise deliberating for too long. We usually recommend surgery for scoliosis patients whose Cobb angles are above forty degrees. Hers is almost ninety.”
He then shifted his eyes to look directly at Sonya. “If you don’t proceed with surgery, I can tell you now that you won’t be able to walk by the time you’re thirty.”
Then the door closed and they were alone. *
The weeks that followed flew by in a blur. Sonya’s parents brought her to see other specialists, in other hospitals, hoping to seek a second—different—opinion. Views, suggestions and recommendations streamed in from relatives, friends and acquaintances. Suddenly, everyone was a scoliosis expert. Every weekend became filled with medical appointments. Sonya lost count of the number of chiropractors, physiotherapists and Chinese sinsehs she saw. Swimming became part of her new routine, because it was said to be beneficial for those with scoliosis. Her father installed a monkey bar in her room for her to hang from thrice a day, because it was said to help relieve tension in the spine. She went for weekly acupuncture sessions despite having an immense fear of needles, because it was said to be able to eliminate backaches.
Sonya complied with all these because she was at a loss as to what she should actually do. They served as a useful distraction. They offered an illusion of hope. Deep down, she knew that these efforts might eventually come to naught. But Sonya was afraid. She didn’t want to lie half-naked, unconscious, in a room full of strangers. She didn’t want to let herself be sliced open on an operating table, not once but twice, from the front and then the back, only to emerge from the ordeal a year later with two extensive scars and long rods of metal lodged permanently in her back.
Over the next three months, what used to be a mild, occasional discomfort grew into agonising pain. Sonya spent longer in the water and up in the air, as if more laps clocked in the pool and more minutes suspended from the wooden bar would alleviate the pain. She tried to keep it from her parents, for she could not forget the tears that had sprung to her mother’s eyes when one supposed scoliosis expert cracked her back and declared her spine fixed—completely straight and henceforth curve-free—only for them to later realise that those words bore no trace of truth. Sonya didn’t tell any of her friends at school about what she was going through. She wanted to lead a life that was as normal as it could possibly be, in a bid to dispel the abnormalities that lay beyond her control.
But the pain intensified—until one day, Sonya couldn’t hide it any longer. Her parents found out.
The first surgery didn’t go well. Complications arose. A wound infection developed. Sonya was mostly drowsy, mostly lying in bed, and in the absence of morphine lay insufferable pain. Before the surgery, Sonya had mentally prepared herself for the year away from school. She had thought of ways she would keep up with the syllabus while hospitalised, and how she might still catch up with her friends at school. But what was to be one year of absence stretched into two, and what was to be two surgeries multiplied to four.
By the time Sonya returned to school, standing nine centimetres taller than before, her peers who had been in the queue with her that fateful morning of the health screening had already graduated and moved on to their respective secondary schools, starting fresh chapters of their adolescent lives. Over time, Sonya lost touch with them. There was less and less she had in common with them, and at some point, there was nothing to say to each other any more. How could she have imagined otherwise? There she was, towering over a roomful of schoolchildren a whole head shorter than herself, starting all over at Primary 4.
Three years later, Sonya received her PSLE certificate, graduating bottom of the class. It wasn’t a matter of not being able to catch up. She simply gave up. She didn’t see the point in doing her best any more. Whatever for? To obtain excellent grades so she could reunite with her former classmates, for whom PSLE was a thing of the distant past, who would already be preparing for their O-Level exams? No, she didn’t want to meet any of them. It would be best if their paths never crossed again.
Much to the chagrin of her parents, Sonya went to a neighbourhood secondary school under the Normal (Technical) track. She knew all her former friends were either in the Express or Special stream. Some had even been placed in the Gifted Education Programme. But these things no longer mattered to her. Sonya went ahead even though it was common knowledge that those who were assigned to the Normal (Technical) track would end up at the Institute of Technical Education. Everyone knew what its acronym stood for. ITE: It’s The End. Did she have a choice? *
Sonya eventually dropped out of ITE. Nothing her parents did or said could assuage the sinking feeling in her chest. She proceeded to work in a series of odd jobs, before landing a somewhat permanent one at a small youth hostel in Chinatown as a receptionist. She went in six days a week and worked eight-hour shifts. The pay wasn’t much, but it helped Sonya gain some form of financial independence. Besides, the owners of the hostel were decent people—two fresh university graduates who had deviated from the conventional career path to jointly set up a hostel business.
The hostel was only a year old when Sonya joined and the owners were still trying to find their feet in the industry. Most days, only half of the twenty beds available were occupied. Sonya was the only employee there. Finances were tight and the rest of the shifts were taken on by the owners themselves, including the night ones. Someone had to be there round the clock to ensure that things were in order and to address any issues faced by the guests.
Sometimes, Sonya would linger in the modest common area of the hostel after her shift was over, browsing through travel magazines or chatting with the people who were around. The owners didn’t mind. It made the place livelier, they said. Sonya liked it there. She enjoyed watching the travellers come and go. She found comfort in the simple administrative tasks—helping guests check in and out, pointing out places of interest on pocket maps of Singapore and sometimes offering her own suggestions, too.
Sonya felt a curious sort of liberation, being in that space. She almost felt like a traveller herself. The people she met each day came from all over the world—cities she had only ever glimpsed in magazines, towns she had never known existed—each with their own histories and stories to tell. They didn’t know or care that she was a school dropout. They didn’t question her life choices. They didn’t impose their ideas of what was right or wrong on her. For the first time in a long time, she might even say that she was content.
One day, Sonya met a traveller named Pablo, who came from Spain. Pablo the traveller from Spain was charming, handsome and empathetic. She knew this because she sat with him in the common area of the hostel the first evening he arrived, talking about everything and nothing until she realised she had missed the last bus home. Pablo also had a surgical scar—close to his hairline, on the left side of his forehead, visible only from certain angles. It was the first thing Sonya had noticed about him. She was intrigued by it, but didn’t want to pry. She was too familiar with the feeling of having freshly-formed scabs ripped off from raw wounds.
Pablo was on a gap year to travel around the world, and Singapore was his first stop. He had booked a bed in the hostel for a week, during which he would spontaneously decide on his next destination: Boracay, Bagan or Ha Long Bay. For him, the possibilities were endless. Yet he spent every single day of that week with Sonya, waiting until she got off from her shifts to go exploring together. They went cycling around Pulau Ubin, discovered their favourite shared thrill ride at Escape Theme Park, spotted endangered tapirs at the Night Safari. They listened to records at HMV, wandered around the galleries of the art museum, took the cable car to Sentosa where they marvelled at dugongs swimming over their heads. Sonya brought him to hawker centres and watched as he devoured roti prata, satay and sambal stingray, before washing it all down with sugarcane juice.
By the end of his first week, Pablo decided to extend his stay by another week. They accumulated more adventures together. On the Friday before he was due to leave, they went to East Coast Park. Sonya had prepared a simple picnic and got his favourite popiah too. For a while, they lay on the beach, his shoulder grazing hers, watching the ebb and flow of the waves.
Sonya picked up a section of popiah roll, its paper-thin skin barely containing the dense filling, and popped it into his mouth.
“I absolutely love it here,” Pablo said, mouth still full. “The energy, the sights, the food.”
She smiled, licking the remnants of sweet sauce from her fingertips.
“And the people,” he added, looking at her.
It was the last day of July, and National Day was approaching. It wasn’t easy to forget, for the reminders were everywhere. The nation’s flag hung from nearly every window and gate. Even from the somewhat secluded spot where they had laid out the mat, Sonya could hear the upbeat melodies of National Day songs drifting out from the nearby barbecue pits where meat was being grilled. A familiar chorus started to play in the background, and the breeze carried over the singing voices of her countrymen. She couldn’t help humming along.
As Pablo bent forward to reach for another section of popiah, his vertebrae became visible through the thin fabric of his shirt. Sonya gazed at the perfect symmetry of his spine—a beauty she longed for but could never possess, even with all her surgeries.
She startled as she felt the sudden weight of Pablo’s hand on the left side of her back, the exact spot that had once hidden a near right angle.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She gave him a small smile and shook her head.
“It’s because of tomorrow, right?”
Sonya shifted her gaze to the sea, remembering their initial plans to catch the fireworks display. Pablo had been intrigued by the hype surrounding the National Day Parade. But earlier that morning, he had received a call. His mother was ill and he had to return to Spain. His flight would depart tomorrow, just before midnight.
In the distance, where the water met the sky, the sun was sinking.
