“Hi,” I say.
“Hello,” I hear back from her. A familiar female voice, though I can’t quite place it.
“Nice to finally meet you,” I say.
“You’ve known me all along,” she answers, a soft laugh in her words.
“I’m Shawn,” I say in my mind to her.
She answers, “Yes, Shawn.”
Just as I’m ready to ask, “What’s your name?” the figure laughs again and throws off her darkness, sitting down in the chair right across from me. There is a glow, a shimmering outline all around her. I can’t believe what I’m seeing, feeling, thinking, knowing.
“Debi?” I ask.
“Yes, Shawn,” she says again. Not “yeth,” not “S-S-S-Swan,” but “Yes, Shawn,” clear and happy, her voice full of joy.
31
I stare into Debi’s eyes and she looks back—we don’t speak, we don’t need to, as I can feel her thoughts and I know she feels mine.
I wonder, why did I see Debi as a dark figure before? I realize that maybe it wasn’t Debi that was the dark figure at all—no, not maybe, it definitely wasn’t. It was my sense of her, my thoughts about who she was then. Debi had no meanness in her, no cruelty, no darkness, I supplied all of that.
I think about Debi dying yet being here with me now. I wonder, what difference does it make whether she is dead or alive. I start to answer, “All the difference in the world,” but I stop myself. I don’t know the answer to this—maybe nobody does. None of us know what happens when we leave our bodies behind. But our spirits are the purest parts of ourselves; alive, dead, good, bad, one chromosome too many or a few too few, these matters don’t matter to your soul. Like everyone else, I tell myself what is real and what isn’t. I use words like life, death, heaven, hell, talking as if I knew what these things are, but none of us really know—
Now a larger thought overwhelms me. Not just a thought—a feeling, a hope, something more important than anything else: I’m alive, and I’m here to learn, to live and to know and to be known. I think maybe that’s what love is all about, and it’s all that matters.
All these thoughts have come at once, in the length of two heartbeats. Debi still sits across from me, sharing all of it. I want to ask her how she likes the freedom of leaving her body behind, a freedom I’ve treasured so much for so long.
But Debi sighs and says, “I have to go, Shawn—I love you.”
I say, “I love you, too.”
She hesitates, pauses for just a moment, and smiles. “See you later,” she says.
As Debi begins to disappear, fading into soft light, I feel my seizure racing to an end. I wish we could stay together longer.... I wish we could talk about our lives: What do they mean? Why are we here? Why were we born the way we are? Why …?
Back in my body again. Rusty lies on the floor at the foot of my wheelchair. He stares up at me intently, as though he knows exactly what I’ve just been through.
The wind outside the window moves the branches of the trees and the small leaves quiver lightly on those branches, as if they are waving to the world. I stare at the tree, a thick trunk, big and small branches, shimmering leaves. And for the first time ever, I think about its unseen roots, spreading out into the earth below—hidden and invisible, but every bit as important as all the rest of the tree.
My gaze shifts to Rusty again. He smiles.
I think silently to him, “I know, boy.”
He drops his head back down and sighs. I don’t feel like sighing. I’m more alive than I’ve ever been before.
32
There once was a guy who, when he’d dream, could never tell if he was a man or a butterfly—I think I know what he felt like. What’s a dream and what’s real? In the end, it seems to me that we are made up of both our dreams and our waking selves. All of us dream and then wake up, only to dream and awaken again, over and over all through our lives.
Life is always about what happens next, or at least that’s what we feel while we’re busy living it. But what happens next is always just more life; crazy, funny, sad, hopeless, hopeful, winning, losing, being known but never being fully known.
In my bed tonight, as I lie here waiting for sleep, I think about everything, but mostly about the people who already love me. I know that they don’t know me, don’t know who I really am under my skin and inside. But nobody ever really knows anyone else. We are looks and brains, bodies and faces that we show to the world. But appearance and brains and even our bodies are only a part of us. It’s our souls and spirits that live on forever.
I think about the ending of Dad’s poem “Shawn”:
I hold Shawn tenderly.
In sleep, voice quiet,
He breathes.
Hands still, in silence, slumbering,
His spirit is a feather on a quiet river.
His person, his being, some kind of impossible, painful,
Incomprehensible gift.
Even though my dad felt this way about me when he wrote his poem, he ran away instead of finding some way for us to connect. My father could never see me. I wish I could tell him what I believe, that our souls are forever linked, that we’ll always be together, whether he knows this or not.
Rusty saw and protected me and Debi befriended me. If Debi with all her so-called “handicaps” and “disabilities” saw me for who I am and found me inside my broken self, who’s to say that someday, someone else won’t see me too? Who’s to say that even my dad might not one day overcome his fears and find me? I’m not just my body. And I’m not anyone else’s beliefs about who I am.
I’m Shawn McDaniel. I love and am loved. I’m alive and happy. Thanks to my dad’s poem “Shawn,” a lot of people think they know me. But I hope that someday I’ll meet someone who will know me as much as I want to be known, someone who sees that I am not just my limitations. My future doesn’t have to be what my life looks like right now. What’s next for me? What happens now? All I know for sure is that life happens next. How cool is that?
Author’s Note
It’s not possible to tell all that has happened in the life of my son Sheehan Trueman, a profoundly developmentally disabled man. Or in the life of Stuck in Neutral after it was selected as a Printz Honor Book in January 2001 and how the book has touched so many people, including those with developmental disabilities and their care providers. Or the ways my life has changed on account of having written Shawn’s story.
In 2001 I remarried. Patti and I had already been together for nearly a decade with the shared responsibility of providing care in our home for her younger sister Donna, who has Down syndrome.
My invention of Debi Eagen in this story is based on the life of my sister-in-law Donna, just as Shawn McDaniel is based on my son Sheehan. Shawn and Debi are fictional creations. I made them up. But it’s unlikely I’d ever have been able to invent and create such characters without being a part of Sheehan’s and Donna’s real lives.
My stories are an attempt to expand my readers’ and my own compassion, empathy, and understanding of the lives of people struggling and dealing with extraordinary challenges and situations. I hope this sequel to Stuck in Neutral achieves that higher purpose.
Terry Trueman
Acknowledgments
Readers of this novel while a work in progress include: Stephanie Squicciarrini, Stacie Wachholz, Kelly Milner Halls, Anne Wright, Sherri Fulton, Shelley Whaley, Carol Plum-Ucci, Dr. William Britt, Beth Cooley, Richard Higgerson, Terry John Pratt, Cindy Trueman, Bob, Debbie, and Brianna Cole, Katelyn “Traeh” Putnam. Special thanks to Mark McVeigh, my agent for this book, whose initial enthusiasm and support for a sequel to Stuck in Neutral helped me find the courage to write it, and whose editorial ideas made it so much better. My first editor at HarperCollins, Antonia Markiet, helped me shape the original Stuck in Neutral and Cruise Control (and four other novels); my agent George Nicholson at Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc., put those first novels into Antonia’s hands. Thanks to Jayne Carapezzi and later J
essica MacLeish, who helped with much of this work. Phoebe Yeh was primary editor on Life Happens Next, and her guidance and brilliance are impossible to exaggerate. Susan Katz, Kate Morgan Jackson, and many other people at HC made this book possible. Family and friends: Patti, Jesse, Sheehan, Donna, the real Rusty (aka Rusty Shackelford), and many additional usual suspects including teachers, librarians, and fellow authors helped too. Hopefully you all know who you are, and I apologize for not naming everyone individually.
About the Author
TERRY TRUEMAN grew up in the northern suburbs of Seattle, Washington. He attended the University of Washington, where he received his BA in creative writing. He also has an MS in applied psychology and an MFA in creative writing, both from Eastern Washington University.
Terry is also the author of STUCK IN NEUTRAL and its companion novel, CRUISE CONTROL; HURRICANE; 7 DAYS AT THE HOT CORNER; NO RIGHT TURN; and INSIDE OUT. You can visit Terry online at www.terrytrueman.com, on Twitter, and on the Terry Trueman Fan Page on Facebook.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
Other Works
Also By Terry Trueman
Life Happens Next, 2012
Hurricane, 2008
7 Days at the Hot Corner, 2008
No Right Turn, 2006
Cruise Control, 2004
Inside Out, 2003
Stuck in Neutral, 2000
Credits
Cover design by Sammy Yuen
Cover art © 2012 by Cliff Nielsen
Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Life Happens Next
Copyright © 2012 by Terry Trueman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trueman, Terry.
Life happens next / Terry Trueman. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Stuck in neutral.
Summary: Shawn McDaniel, almost fifteen, cannot speak and has no control over his body due to severe cerebral palsy, but he forms a strong connection with his mother’s cousin Debi, who has Down syndrome, and her dog Rusty.
ISBN 978-0-06-202803-7 (trade bdg.)
EPub Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN 9780062028082
[1. Cerebral palsy—Fiction. 2. Down syndrome—Fiction. 3. People with disabilities—Fiction. 4. Communication—Fiction. 5. Family life—Washington (State)—Seattle—Fiction. 6. Dogs—Fiction. 7. Special education—Fiction. 8. Seattle (Wash.)—Fiction.] I. Title
PZ7.T7813 Lif 2012
2011044627
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
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12 13 14 15 16 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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