by Lisa Genova
I laugh, releasing all fear and vengeful emotion from my heart, replacing it with an open-armed acceptance and empathy that extends first to Charlie with his yellow index card and his mug of marbles and his less-than-one-hundred-percents and his chocolate-stained bottom. And then it expands to include his entire first-grade motley crew class with all their crazy tics and idiosyncrasies and deficiencies. And then it reaches Ms. Gavin in her ugly shoes for possessing the patience and courage to teach and deal with them every day. And, because I have a bit more, it stretches to include me. A thirty-seven-year-old woman whose husband is holding her left hand so she won’t unconsciously grab onto her own boob.
“And normal’s overrated if you ask me,” Ms. Gavin says.
“I agree,” I say.
Ms. Gavin smiles. I do wonder about Charlie’s future, though. When the other students stop picking their noses, and the kids with bad teeth start seeing an orthodontist, and the kids with glasses get contact lenses, will Charlie’s ADHD continue to make him an outsider? Sports are a great way to belong, but Charlie has a hard time waiting his turn, staying in position, playing within the rules—all necessary qualities for being successful at soccer, basketball, T-ball. He already doesn’t love playing any of these sports, but he’s too young to realize that they’re optional. We sign him up for whatever is offered for his age, and he shows up for practices and games like he shows up for school, because we tell him to and take him there. But at some age, likely not too far off from now, if he doesn’t improve, he’ll probably opt out. And he’ll lose all those opportunities for fitting in and forming lasting friendships that being part of a team affords. It’s too bad we don’t live near a mountain. He’d probably thrive on a snowboarding team.
“So keep up with what you’re doing at home. I just wanted you to know that he’s doing much better here. I think you’ll all be so proud of his report card this time,” says Ms. Gavin.
“Thank you. We will,” says Bob.
THE KIDS FROM CHARLIE’S GRADE have been playing outside at recess during our meeting. With a few minutes still left before they have to return to their classrooms, Bob and I decide to walk over and say hello to Charlie before Bob drives me home and he returns to work. We make it to the edge of the long cobblestone walkway when we both stop to notice a big commotion erupting near the swings. It looks like two kids are fighting, and one teacher is having a heck of a time trying to break it up. All other activity on the playground has ceased in mid-motion; everyone’s watching to see what will happen. I can’t make out the faces of the two kids from where Bob and I are standing, but in the next instant, I recognize one of the two coats. Charlie’s orange North Face ski coat.
“Charlie!” I yell.
Bob releases my left hand and takes off toward Charlie. Every muscle in my body wants to run to Charlie, too, but my broken brain won’t let me. My child is in danger or in trouble or both and within sight, and I can’t get to him to either save or scold him. Bob is on the ground with Charlie now, and the teacher is dragging the other child away by the hand. I cane, step, drag, and breathe, frustrated with each cane and impatient with every drag, mad at myself for not already being over there.
“What happened?” I ask when I finally reach them.
Charlie kicks at the dirty snow with his boots and says nothing. His nose is running, and he’s breathing hard through his mouth. His face and fingernails are filthy, but I don’t see any blood.
“Go ahead, answer your mother,” says Bob.
“He said a bad thing,” says Charlie.
I look at Bob. This must be one of the boys who’ve been teasing him. I try to scan to the left to see which boy the teacher has taken into custody, but I can’t find them.
“Did that boy call you a name?” I ask.
Charlie stops kicking at the ground and casts his eyes up at me.
“No,” he says. “He called you one. He called you a dumb cripple.”
I pause, stunned, unable to launch into the prepackaged, clichéd speech every mother has filed in her apron pocket about sticks and stones and the high road. I try scanning to the left again, wondering if the boy might be the Nose Picker or the Stutterer, but I still can’t find him. I return to Charlie.
“Thank you for sticking up for me,” I say, loving him. “But you shouldn’t fight.”
“But—” says Charlie.
“No buts. No fighting. Plus, that kid doesn’t even know what he’s talking about,” I say. “I’m the smartest cripple he’s ever seen.”
CHAPTER 29
My mother and I have been watching Bob and Lucy ski together on Rabbit Lane from our booth in the base lodge for the past hour. After a lot of badgering, whining, pleading, and negotiating—and ultimately because he truly did master the basics last week over February school vacation—Charlie finally won his wish to leave the lesson hill. We catch sight of him every so often bombing around on Fox Run. I can never see his face, but I imagine he’s grinning ear to ear.
“I think I’m going to go back to the house,” says my mother, her eyebrows knotted, coping with some kind of pain.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing really. I think the sun is giving me a little headache. And I didn’t sleep well. I think I’m going to go take a nap with Linus. You want to come?”
“No, I’ll stay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You sure you’re okay?” I ask.
“I just need to lie down. Call me if you need me.”
She collects the cans of Play-Doh, board books, and trucks Linus was playing with and tosses everything into his diaper bag. Then she slides out of the booth, buckles Linus into his stroller, and leaves.
It’s early in the morning, and the lodge is quiet. I look out the window, but I don’t see Bob and Lucy or Charlie. My mother left me with a sketchpad and pencils, the word search workbook, and the latest People magazine. But I’ve already combed through this issue of People, and I don’t feel like drawing. I should do a word search. My outpatient therapist thinks that doing word searches might help me get faster at finding the leftmost letters on my computer keyboard, and I need to speed up my typing if I want to go back to work, and I definitely want to go back to work, so I should do every word search in this book. But I don’t feel like it.
Without a particular destination in mind, I decide to go for a walk. There’s nowhere to really go on foot except for the parking lot, and that’s probably not the safest place to go wandering around for someone who doesn’t easily notice information coming from the left and who can’t readily get out of the way. But I’m tired of sitting in this booth and reason that the fresh air will be good for me.
My granny cane and I step outside, and I’m instantly perked up by the cold air and the hot sun. Without planning to aim there, and continuing to aim there even after I fully realize where I’m going, I walk over to the building next door. I pause only to read the sign over the door. NEW ENGLAND HANDICAPPED SPORTS ASSOCIATION. then I continue up the handicapped ramp and walk inside.
I’m surprised to see that it looks like a typical ski lodge— pine floors, wooden benches, clear glass bowls displayed on a counter filled with hand warmers, ChapStick, and sunscreen, a wire rack loaded with polarized sunglasses. I think I was expecting it to look more like a rehabilitation hospital. There’s only one person in the room besides me, a young man in a wheel-chair, I’d say in his twenties. From his crew cut and age, I guess that he’s an Iraq war veteran. He looks confident and relaxed, like he’s been here dozens of times before. He’s busy adjusting the straps around his legs and doesn’t seem to notice me.
“Can I help you?” asks a man wearing a red and black staff jacket and an enthusiastic smile.
“Just having a look around,” I say, trying not to make eye contact.
“You a skier?” he asks.
“I used to be.”
We both acknowledge my granny cane with a solemn nod.
“I’m Mike Green,” he sa
ys.
He holds on to his smile, posed in gracious cheerfulness, expecting to greet my name in return, but I’m more than a little reluctant to give up my anonymity. His big white teeth, made whiter by the contrast of his skier’s tan—golden brown all over his face except for the pale, sunglasses-shaped mask around his eyes, a sort of reverse raccoon—show no sign of backing down.
“I’m Sarah Nickerson,” I say, giving in.
“Sarah! We’ve been expecting you! Glad you finally came in.”
Now he’s grinning at me like we’re old friends, making me feel uneasy and like it’s time to excuse myself and take my chances dodging cars in the parking lot.
“You have?”
“Yup. We met your lovely mother a few weeks ago. She already filled out most of your paperwork.”
Oh, now I get it. And of course she did.
“I’m sorry, she didn’t need to do that.”
“Don’t be sorry. We’re ready to get you on the mountain whenever you are. But you’re right. You’re not a skier anymore. At least not for now.”
Here we go. Here comes the inspiring and persuasive sales pitch about the wonderful and miraculous ski sled. I start brainstorming effective ways to interrupt him and politely communicate Not in a million years, mister, without insulting him and before he wastes too much of his breath and my time.
“You’re a snowboarder,” he says, dead serious.
Not what I was expecting to hear at all. Not in a million years.
“I’m what?”
“You’re a snowboarder. We can get you on a snowboard today if you’re game.”
“But I don’t know how to snowboard.”
“We’ll teach you.”
“Is it a normal snowboard?” I ask, seeing the way out.
“It’s got a couple of extra bells and whistles, but, yeah, it’s a regular snowboard,” he says.
I throw him the same look that Charlie and Lucy give me when I tell them that broccoli is delicious.
“What’s normal anyway? Everyone needs equipment to get down the mountain. Normal’s overrated if you ask me,” he says.
Normal’s overrated. The exact words Ms. Gavin used when talking about Charlie. And I agreed with her. My face softens, like I’m considering how delicious broccoli might be with a little Parmesan cheese sprinkled on it, and Mike sees his opening.
“Come on, let me show it to you.”
My intuition tells me to trust him, that this man knows a lot more about me than my name and whatever my mother might’ve told him.
“Okay.”
He claps his hands together.
“Great. Follow me.”
He walks past the veteran in the wheelchair and over to the doorway of an adjacent room, too quickly for me to keep up with him. He waits in the threshold, watching me walk. Assessing me. Cane, step, drag. Probably reconsidering this whole snowboarding idea. Cane, step, drag. Probably thinking that the ski sled would be a better fit for me. Cane, step, drag. I can feel the veteran watching me, too, and he probably agrees. I look up at the wall in front of me and notice a poster of someone on the mountain sitting in a ski sled, his musher skiing behind him. Panic starts racing willy-nilly through my head, begging any part of me that might listen to reason to tell Mike that I can’t follow him, that I have to go, that I’m supposed to meet my husband in the lodge, that I have to get back to my word search puzzles, that I have somewhere else I need to be right now, but I say nothing and follow him into the adjacent room.
The room looks like a storage warehouse crammed with modified ski and snowboard equipment. I see lots of ski poles of varying heights affixed with miniature skis on the bottoms, wooden dowels with tennis balls stuck to the ends, all kinds of boots and metal hardware. When I come face-to-face with a long row of ski sleds lined up against the wall in front of me, my panic can’t take it anymore and whips into a full-blown tantrum.
“This is the one I’d like to start you on.”
As I scan to the left, trying to locate Mike, his white teeth, and the ski sled he wants to start me on, I feel increasingly light-headed. I should’ve stayed in the lodge with my People magazine and my word searches. I should’ve gone home with my mother and taken a nap. But when I find him, he’s not standing next to any of the ski sleds. He’s in front of a snow-board. My panic sits down and quiets itself, but it remains skeptical and on alert and isn’t one bit embarrassed or apologetic for the false alarm.
From what little I know about snowboards, this one looks mostly normal. A metal hand railing is screwed into the board in front of the boot bindings, extending up to about waist height, reminding me of a grab bar. But otherwise, it looks like a regular snowboard.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“It’s not horrible. But I don’t understand why you think I’m a snowboarder.”
“You can’t keep track of your left leg, right? So let’s essentially get rid of it. We’ll lock it in place next to your right leg on the board, and there you go, you don’t have to drag it or lift it or steer it anywhere.”
That does sound appealing.
“But how would I turn?”
“Ah, this is also why you’re a snowboarder. Skiing is about shifting balance left to right, but snowboarding is shifting your balance back and forth.”
He demonstrates, pushing his hips forward and then sticking his bottom out, bending his knees in both positions.
“Here, give me your hands, give it a try.”
He faces me, grabs my hands, and holds my arms out in front of me. I try to copy what he did, but even without a mirror in front of me to see myself, I can tell that whatever I’m doing looks more like Martin Short imitating something sexual than like someone snowboarding.
“Sort of,” he says, trying not to laugh. “Imagine you’re squatting over a public toilet seat that you don’t want to sit on. That’s back. Then imagine you’re a guy peeing for distance in the woods. That’s front. Try it again.”
Still holding on to his hands, I’m about to rock forward, but I freeze up, feeling funny about pretending to pee on Mike.
“Sorry, my description’s a little graphic, but it works. Forward and up on your toes, back and sitting on your heels.”
I give it another go. I send my right hip forward and then back, forward and then back. And, unlike when I move my right leg or my right hand, when I move my right hip, my left hip goes with it. Always. If this is how to steer a snowboard, then it seems as though I could do it.
“But what about stopping? How would I control my speed?”
“This rider bar here is for your balance, like how you’re holding on to my hands now. But to begin with, it’s also for one of us instructors to hold on to. If we go up today, I’ll snowboard facing you, and I’ll control how fast you go. When you’ve got your balance down, we’ll transition you to one of these.”
He shows me another snowboard. This one doesn’t have a grab bar, and at first I don’t notice anything special about it. Then Mike loops a black cord through a metal loop attached to one end of the board.
“Instead of me pushing against you from the front, I’ll hold on to this tether from behind you to help regulate your speed.”
I imagine a dog on a leash.
“And then, from there, you’ll do it on your own.”
He whips the tether out of the loop as if to say Tada! A normal snowboard!
“But how would I keep from crashing into other people on the trail? If I’m concentrating on anything, I can’t see things on my left.”
He smiles, recognizing that he’s got me imagining myself on the mountain.
“That’s my job until you can do it on your own. And when you try it without the rider bar, you can transition to using an outrigger if you want,” he says, now holding up a ski pole with a small ski attached to the bottom. “This would give you an additional point of contact with the ground, like your cane does, offering you some extra stability.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
I search around for another but, but I can’t find any.
“Come on, let’s give it a try. It’s a beautiful day, and I’d love to get out there,” he says.
“You said that my mother filled out most of my paperwork?” I say, turning over my last stone of possible resistance.
“Ah, yes. There are a couple of standard questions we always ask that only you can answer.”
“Okay.”
“What are your short-term winter sport goals?”
I think. As of a few minutes ago, my only goal for today was to go for a walk.
“Um, to snowboard down the hill without killing myself or anyone else.”
“Great. We can accomplish that. And how about long-term goals?”
“I guess to snowboard without needing any help. And eventually, I want to ski again.”
“Perfect. Now how about life goals? What are your short-term life goals?”
I don’t quite see how this information would in any way affect my ability to snowboard, but I have a ready answer, so I offer it to him.
“To go back to work.”
“What do you do?”
“I was the vice president of human resources for a strategy consulting firm in Boston.”
“Wow. Sounds impressive. And what are your long-term goals?”
Before the accident, I’d been hoping to be promoted to president of human resources in the next two years. Bob and I were saving to buy a bigger house in Welmont with at least five bedrooms. We planned to hire a live-in nanny. But now, since the accident, those goals seem a little irrelevant, if not ridiculous.
“To get my life back.”
“Alright, Sarah, I’m so glad you came in. You ready to go snowboarding with me?”
Spent from all the unnecessary distress, my panic is now snuggled in a soft blanket and sleeping peacefully. Pre-accident me isn’t jumping up and down about this idea, but she isn’t arguing against it either. And Bob isn’t here to weigh in. So it’s up to me.
