what's wrong:

I did end up talking to Dad about my problem, and we agreed to take Mom out to dinner at Gimmiquelesse yesterday before breaking the news to her. That evening I wore another empire-waist dress, and I could tell by the expression on Mom’s face that she had noticed the dress and the enlarged stomach beneath it. The dinner went well for the most part aside from the tomato dessert thing we got, but towards the end Mom suddenly grabbed one of the pink linen napkins to cover over her right wrist stump.

After a few unrepeatable exclamations, she said calmly, with half a smile, “As soon as I realized that Jolly was pregnant, my hand fell off in shock.”

“Stop punching my shoulder, Dad,” I said.

Dad bent down to reach under the table and sat back up again, saying to Mom, “Here’s your hand back.” He and I proceeded to help Mom out of her seat the way Dad had helped me out of my seat the week before.

“But it’s holding someone else’s purse,” Mom said, staring at the hand shyly.

“Never mind that. It might have money in it,” I said, pulling her out of the restaurant to a shop directly across from it in the mall.

“Why are we heading toward the Purple Portrait Studio?” Mom asked.

“I wanted to get a picture of myself in this condition,” I said, my voice shaking and crumbling more with every syllable. I led her away from the Purple Portrait Studio and into Keystone Plumbing, the store with everything and a whole bunch of toilets.

“Look, strangers!” Mom exclaimed, spotting two elderly, unfashionably-dressed women. She was as easily distracted as Dad and I hoped she would be. Mom loves strangers. “Let’s clap our hand and sway with them.”

“Quick! Group hug before I fall over!” I said, delighted at Mom’s pleasant shift of mind. “What’s more, I’m not really pregnant. I just ate most of your Aegean sea sponge collection!”

“So that’s where they went!” Mom said, resting her reattached hand on her cheek and shaking her head. "I could have sworn I had more than that one Calthropella stelligera sample on my dresser."

“Can I join you guys?” asked some thirtyish lady stranger with big hair and big earrings. “I’m lonely.”

Mom, the two old, acceptable strangers and I turned away from her while Dad took care of her. We tried to carry on our conversation but the lady stranger interrupted us again, saying, “Hey, why is he flushing me down the toilet?”

“Because you’re invading our conversation,” I said through my clenched-teeth grin.

“Jolly, I’m so glad I’ve finally found people who wear white bead necklaces like me,” Mom said, resting her reattached hand on my shoulder and her eyes beneath her eyelids.

“It’s a relief,” added one of the acceptable strangers, who wore large glasses made out of red licorice.

“I thought I was the only one,” added the other, shorter, and more decrepit old stranger.

“You’re all a bunch of Wilma Flintstone wannabees,” I told them. “What I don’t understand is where Dad disappeared to, and why you’re getting out a hankie.”

“I’ll show you in a minute,” Mom said. She put her arms around me and added, “I’m so happy and full of red hearts that my hand fell off again!”
She held her hankie-covered stump to her cheek until Dad mysteriously reappeared and fetched her hand for her. Then Mom let go of me, and I had a tremendous urge to let go of some huge bodily waste. Fortunately I had my pick of toilets, and my parents and the strangers waited patiently as I tried them all, successfully releasing what was left of Mom's sponge collection into a bright turquoise model. A salesperson--a guy-girl or a girl-guy, I forget which--ushered me out once he/she/it realized that I was not in labor. Dad followed with the sponge remains. Mom followed with my undies. The strangers followed the salesperson.