All the Difference

by Patricia Horvath

  Despite my tirade, my mother was smiling, her eyes wet with tears.

  You’re going to walk, she said. Starting tomorrow.

  I said I know and in saying that, I suddenly did know. Three months earlier I’d walked into the hospital. Since then I’d barely been able to move. My mother had devoted the past year almost exclusively to my care. She’d gone to work, come home, gone directly to my room to see what I needed. She’d dealt with doctors, nurses, interns, technicians, trying her best to shield me from those who were impatient and brusque. Weekends, evenings, she’d spent in the hospital, sometimes sleeping beside me in a chair. She’d prayed and cursed, probably in the same stream of breath. She’d fired one nurse and had found for me a friend in another; she’d convinced a doctor to come to our home and ambulance attendants to take me on joy rides. Most likely she’d neglected her husband and son, something I’d never considered. And now it was about to end. I was, I finally realized, not the only one who was going to be liberated.

  I know, I said. Meaning I would walk, meaning so much more than that, not having the words for it, hoping that she knew.

  The new cast looked like the top half of a pair of overalls, but with wide shoulder straps. My torso was again wrapped in a body stocking to which thick layers of fiberglass were applied. Once again a shell separated me from my body. I watched myself being covered up, the mummy returning to the crypt. Silently I said goodbye to my torso. Goodbye, see you in three months.

  This cast was lighter than the plaster one, lighter even than the brace. For the first time in nearly three years my head and neck were free. I could not yet move them, nor sit up, but I stared at my neck in the hand mirror, imagining how it would look adorned with necklaces, silk scarves, Jimmy’s red ceramic heart. A long thin neck, like a ballerina’s I’d been told, and I pictured myself in a white tutu, curtseying onstage, as I was presented with dozens of long-stemmed roses.

  I was strapped to a table, the kind you see in Frankenstein movies when the monster is about to be set upright and loosed upon the world. A physical therapist began by degrees to tilt the table, stopping every so often so I could get used to each new position. Breathe deeply, she counseled, as though we were in the High Himalayas. Twenty degrees, thirty. My head grew light. Miles below I could see my feet in their spongy blue hospital slippers. Forty-five degrees. The blood rushed from my head. My feet disappeared. I feel faint, I said, and when I came to I was supine.

  The next day I held at forty-five degrees, though I again felt lightheaded. I gripped the table and vowed not to faint. Slowly the therapist tilted the table. Slowly I made my vertical ascent. I shut my eyes, took deep breaths. I was spinning through space. Purple circles swirled behind my eyes. The table went completely upright. I was vertical. I blacked out. The therapist lowered the table, but not all the way. She did this, raising and lowering the table for most of the afternoon, until I could stay upright.

  Because I was too weak to walk I was moved from my bed to a wheelchair. In the evenings, after therapy, I’d tool up and down the main corridor of the adolescent ward, giddy with mobility. Sometimes I’d wheel into the patients’ lounge, where a cherubic looking boy in a leg cast held long make-out sessions with his girlfriend. The boy had been hurt in a motorcycle accident and confined to bed. His girlfriend wore tight jeans, big hoop earrings, her long hair streaked blonde. Whenever she wanted to be alone with her boyfriend, which was pretty much always, she’d snap her fingers and say, We’re busy in here! Cowed, the other patients would leave. When she wasn’t there the boy would talk to us about his accident, showing off the burns on his other leg. Nothing wrong with me, he’d say. I ain’t sick, not like some people here.

  The other patients and I would watch TV, which we could do as well in our rooms. But in this common space we were able to check each other out, see who was in for what and how long, who had it better—or worse—than we did.

  I missed Jimmy. Every day I thought about calling him. He didn’t know I was in the hospital. Maybe he’d come see me. But I knew that even were he to say yes, which was unlikely, things between us would be strained. He had brought his friend as a buffer. He’d sung those lyrics about me. I wanted the initials he’d carved—my initials—to scar his arm. We would be marked by this time—the pencil line down my back, the fading welts of my initials linking us.

  My roommate this time around was in for a nose job. She had a deviated septum, wore a plaster over her nose, and for some reason had to take her meals through a straw. A year older than me, she had a boyfriend and at night she’d talk to him on the phone, giggling the hours away. Her parents felt sorry for me, I could tell. They brought us both milkshakes and they looked at me with that expression of pity I’d grown used to. They saw the wheelchair, the body cast; of course they did, who wouldn’t? They saw me, the disabled girl. But they did not see what I had been. I could go where I wished now and soon I would begin to walk. Disability was a way station and I was a person in transit. People saw me differently from others, I knew that. But I was beginning to see myself differently, too.

  Before I could walk I had to learn to stand. Before I could stand I had to build up my muscles. I spent hours in therapy, stretching my legs, lifting them, bending, strengthening my atrophied thigh. I moved my head from side to side. The brace had held my neck in place for over two years before it was cemented into the cast, and my range of motion was small. From lack of use my arms were weak. Every muscle had gone slack. The therapist and I worked all afternoon. By bedtime I was always exhausted, sleeping through the night without chemical intervention.

  My lessons in walking began at the parallel bars. The therapist helped hoist me from my wheelchair. I kept my weight in my left leg, which was stronger from not having been in a cast, and held onto to the bars, my arms shaking. I’d been off my feet for so long that I needed to keep my head down until my vision cleared. For a while I stood at the entrance to the parallel bars, getting used to the familiar new sensation of standing, my weight in my left leg, my right foot skimming the floor. My shoulders rolled forward and my neck felt floppy, too insubstantial to support my head. I didn’t think my legs would hold up and I was afraid of falling, of damaging the spinal fusion, breaking something, being returned to bed.

  At the therapist’s direction I shifted my weight bit by bit into my right leg, still clutching the bars. Pins and needles pricked my foot. I shifted back, taking all of my weight into my good leg. The therapist urged me on. Again! Keep trying. This time the pain was worse, needles shooting up my leg, like whacking my funny bone on the edge of the kitchen table. Let go now. Let go of the bars. The prospect of letting go terrified me. I held fast to the bars. The therapist was standing beside me and she promised to catch me if I began to fall. We had to start sometime, she said. Didn’t I want to go home? I was scared, but I did as she said; I let go. My right knee buckled and I grabbed bars. Good! Again! Good? I’d nearly fallen. Both my legs ached and we’d just begun. I wanted to sit down. I couldn’t even stand; how was I ever to walk? All afternoon the therapist coached me: shift weight, let go, stand. When my right knee gave way, I clung to the bars until, by the end of the session, I could keep weight in that leg without holding on. I favored my left leg and still do, so that even in recent photos I can be seen leaning markedly to the left. But I could keep both feet on the floor, unsupported.

  The next day we practiced baby steps. I set my right foot down lightly, with great precision. To walk I would need to put all of my weight into that leg, which was not yet strong enough to support me, so I held onto the bars. The therapist stood beside me, cajoling. Let go. Take a step. I did, wobbling, steadying myself. I was a toddler, a big unsteady toddler, learning to walk. Great! Another! We went on like this. I could take only a step or two before I had to grab the bars, “walking” with my arms, which began to ache from the strain. I had never been an athlete, never been able to bike or hike or run very far, but at least I had been able to take walking for granted, and now I was
frustrated, my steps so tiny and painful and slow. My grandfather, with his Parkinson’s disease, walked better than this. But his disability could arc in only one direction, toward immobility, while mine I knew was slowly moving in the other direction. Eventually I would walk.

  I traded up, from wheelchair to walker. Instead of cruising along the adolescent ward’s main corridor I shuffled, just as I’d seen those elderly patients do in physical therapy all those years ago, leaning into their walkers, chatting about their grandchildren while I exercised my back muscles so that I wouldn’t have to wear a brace.

  I could stand. I could get in and out of bed. I could use the bathroom by myself. But I could not walk unassisted, and I could not yet go home.

  The motorcycle boy and his girlfriend were making out in the lounge. My roommate and I stayed in our room watching TV together. Earlier in the day I’d had therapy and I was tired and sore. I needed to use the bathroom, always a chore because with the walker I was so slow. The wheelchair had been so much faster. Little by little, I eased myself from my chair, holding tightly to the walker. I’d managed so far to walk the length of the parallel bars but had been unable to let go. I wanted to walk, to go home. I shuffled toward the bathroom then stopped and turned my walker to the wall. When I reached the wall I slumped against it, leaning on my right shoulder. All my weight was in my left leg. I pressed my palms and shoulder to the wall, shifted my weight and took a step. As soon as my left foot touched the floor I lifted my other foot and let go of the wall. Another step. Leaned back into the wall as my right foot came down, using my fingertips for support. Another step. Leaned back into the wall. My roommate stood nearby, ready to catch me if necessary, but she did not interfere. Another baby step. With great deliberation I made my way to the bathroom. Another step, right foot. Left foot, my fingertips tracing the wall. Right foot. Left foot, no hands, just my shoulder against the wall. Right foot. Left foot and this time I did not touch the wall. I was walking, unencumbered.

  Partings

  I wanted to touch everything, see, smell, feel everything. I’d sit in the yard wearing only a pair of denim cut-offs because the cast covered my torso. Arms, legs, feet, neck bare to the sun, I scooped dirt by the handful, sifted it through my fingers, twisted clovers into rings, braided blades of grass with my spittle. I was too weak to leave home, too unsteady to stay long on my feet. Through the end of May the university girls came in the mornings to care for me. Each week I grew a little stronger and by the end of the month I could go on short trips. MJ drove us to her family’s beach cottage, a shabby-chic place in a row of identical cottages where university students crashed, six or eight to a cottage, and threw raucous keg parties that I aspired to attend. She helped me up the porch steps and through the back door. The curtains were drawn, the cottage dark. It smelled of Pine Sol and the sea, a smell I loved. Her grandmother said hello and help yourself. She seemed not the least bit curious about me or surprised by my appearance so I assumed they must have discussed me before. MJ made tuna sandwiches and iced tea. She helped me onto the sand where she spread a blanket so we could eat. She’d changed into a bikini; I wore my cut-offs and an oversized T-shirt. I was allowed to wade up to my knees but knew I could not withstand even the gentlest current and so stayed on the blanket looking at the water, smelling the salt air, feeding crusts to the gulls, watching them swoop and scatter.

  A pan of water had been placed by the back door for rinsing sand off one’s feet. I stepped into it, an ablution. The water was grainy and warm. I looked down at my legs, scrawny, Renaissance white, like those paintings of Jesus I’d seen in art class. I went to the bathroom mirror. My cheeks were hollow, my eyes unusually large, a spray of freckles across my nose from the recent sun. I had no idea what I weighed because I had no idea what the cast weighed. But I was skinny, even with the added weight. I could feel my hip bones, unpadded, jutting against the cast, could feel the pressure on my stomach. I’d eaten half the tuna sandwich; I ate all my meals by halves. The era of the Big Model had begun, the big-haired athletic girl, Farrah and Jaclyn with their muscles and teeth. And I could not stand at the water’s edge for fear of being toppled. There was no way to be other than what I was.

  Afternoons Betsy came and we watched TV downstairs on the big set and sometimes she took me on errands—to the dry cleaners or bank or grocery store. I was happy to go anywhere. Sometimes we went back to her apartment and sometimes other people were there—Frank, his friends, and we sat around and played records and smoked, and sometimes Frank cooked spaghetti and I’d call my mother and say I was staying for dinner. I felt grown up among these people in their twenties, people with apartments and jobs, though I knew I was only a spectator of their lives.

  Eileen and Sandy were returning to New Jersey. MJ was taking a vacation. My mother decided I no longer needed help in the mornings, especially given how late I slept. She bought wine and crackers, paté, cheeses and threw a farewell party. She put money in cards for the girls who, in turn, had brought me gifts of jewelry. Eileen had graduated and would not be back, but MJ and Sandy each had another year to go. We’ll see you in the fall, they said. We’ll stop by, we’ll visit. We hugged goodbye, all of us crying, believing the words, yet knowing how unlikely they were.

  I did not want Betsy to go. She couldn’t stay, she had to work, my mother could not pay her to watch TV and be my friend. But I’m still weak, I protested. You see how long it takes me to get up these stairs? What if there’s an emergency?

  Call 911, she said.

  She agreed to have Betsy come two afternoons a week until she found a new job. I didn’t want this to happen. It won’t be like here, I warned. They’ll make you wear a uniform. They won’t let you smoke pot. Betsy took hold of my hand. She knew, she said, but what was to be done? We had to get on with our lives. I could walk. Every day I was stronger. By fall I wouldn’t even need the cast. Wasn’t that what I wanted? I nodded, but felt confused. What I wanted was for her—not just her, but especially her—to stay in my life, even as I was beginning to realize how impossible that was.

  We’ll stay friends, Betsy promised, and for a while this was true. She’d pick me up after work, still in her uniform, and bring me home for dinner. She took me to a Yes concert and we sat on a hill sharing a bottle of Riunite and watching the laser show. But she was ten years older than me and had the life of an adult, an insuperable barrier.

  School ended, the university girls went away. Betsy got a new job. The weather turned hot. Beneath the cast I could feel my skin shed. I clawed at fiberglass, a corset of emery board. The brace had been more restrictive than the cast, heavier, but because I could remove it, I’d been able to wash. Now I felt sticky all the time.

  Three days a week, during the hottest part of the afternoon, I stood beneath the shower’s spray, letting cool water stream inside the cast. I dried in the sun until the heat became too much then aimed the hair dryer nozzle down into the cast with the setting on low so my skin wouldn’t burn. I imagined gauze soaking up water, sweat, turning to moss. I dumped Johnson’s Baby Powder through the armholes of the cast, spilling talcum on the bathroom floor, where it gummed to a paste.

  Because the cast could not be removed, I needed underwear that would fit over it, giant cotton underwear—pink, blue, white—the kind my grandmother wore, another indignity.

  Day after day I lay on the couch, a slug. At night my mother would take Chipper and me to Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen, coax me to eat. I’d finish half a chocolate-dipped cone, give the rest to Chipper, who’d already devoured a banana split. Night became the only time I would go outside. We’d stand beneath the Dairy Queen’s humid yellow glow, cones dripping, insects buzzing, my mother saying One more bite. I was a disabled vampire, feeding on ice cream instead of blood.

  Jimmy called. He wanted to see me, could he come visit? I was wanting, wary—wanting to think my walking would make a difference, wary about his motives. He must have known I was out of bed. Did he think me “cured?”


  I’m still in a cast, I warned. It’s smaller than the other one and I can walk but it’s still a body cast.

  I was giving him a chance to change his mind. He didn’t take it. Because he was still in school he’d come on Saturday. That too made me anxious. If he came on a weekday we could be alone. But skipping school meant a short visit, not an overnight. He said he’d hitch down, not trouble my mother—a way of remaining noncommittal.

  Saturday I waited in the living room so I could be first at the door, greet him, and go straight upstairs, not stopping to chat with my mother or Tom. Jimmy had said afternoon, and I began my vigil just after twelve. I sat on the couch, facing the window. The chair, a wing back upholstered in a faded pattern of blue and gold flowers, would have been more comfortable. It had a matching ottoman and offered better back support. But Tom had claimed the chair for himself and no one, not even my mother, was allowed to sit in it. Perhaps for that reason it was my favorite place to read, and I sat there many weekday afternoons while Tom was at work.

  Two, three hours, I waited. I tried to read. Every half hour I checked the kitchen clock. Finally, mid-afternoon, Jimmy arrived. I took him to my room, leaning heavily on the banister, propelling myself upstairs as fast as I could. Jimmy took the desk chair; I sat stiffly on the edge of my bed, a single bed, pushed into a corner. The hospital bed and table had been returned to the supply store, and all the paraphernalia of my recovery—bedpan, bed tray, pitcher, shampoo board, bell—had been removed. My room looked bigger now, just another bedroom, and I’d decided to paint it white. I told Jimmy that, struggling for things to say. He came and sat beside me. I was taller by at least two inches, forced by my fusion to sit upright. I leaned toward him, stiffly, needing to bend. It was difficult for him to get his arms around the cast. We kissed. He kept his glasses on, a screen. Downstairs we could hear a commotion, Tom yelling at my mother for me to open the door. I wanted it like before, with the cold and dark at the window and us buried in blankets, three in the morning, drifting off to sleep. But it was sunny and hot, my body itched inside the fiberglass, and Tom was downstairs yelling Open the God damned door!