The silence hurts. You are set up at the kitchen tables like a mannequin.
Mom and Dad actually start fighting over what food to make for you. Dad is bent on making a Brie, tomato, and pasta dish that you’d mentioned to him during one of his visits to the rehab hospital; Mom had prepared another menu. The fight feels far out of proportion to its content. Things are clearly tense.
On your wedding day you are getting ready upstairs, putting on your makeup, and you can hear Mom and Dad bickering about what sandwich you are going to have. Mom has made a seafood salad sandwich and Dad has made a roast beef sandwich. Diplomatically, you say you’d like half of each. You can tell they’re nervous, marrying off their only daughter. You sit down in the kitchen and eat both sandwich halves and everyone calms down.
DINNER SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN EATEN, because you hear someone doing the dishes and find yourself sitting in an armless chair in the center of the kitchen. Jim has left the room for a moment.
Then disaster strikes. Your center of gravity shifts and you slide off the chair and you hit the refrigerator door with the back of your head before landing in a slump on the floor. The sound is awful, much worse than the pain. You notice that Rory is watching from the other room; his eyes are huge.
Jim rematerializes in a heartbeat; your dad had witnessed the whole scene from the same room. As Jim kneels down to you, Dad starts crying and wringing his hands, saying the fall had happened in slow motion and that he should have prevented it. Everyone is freaking out; they think the fall has caused permanent brain damage, or perhaps that you’re going to die then and there.
Jim immediately wants to pick you up and put you back in the chair as if it didn’t happen. But the jolt has caused muscle spasticity, making your attempts to get up rigid and awkward. You have to lie there until all the misfiring muscles calm down enough to allow him to help you back up.
You keep saying you’re okay, that you simply need to regroup after performing your break-dancing routine. You have now learned the hard way, via the floor, and without any doubt, that you can only sit in chairs that have arms. Armless chairs will always put you at risk of falling.
Falling has become part of your life. It is something you can deal with. Your response is becoming familiar. Whenever you fall, people around you seem to stop breathing. They’re waiting to see if you’re still conscious. You learn to break the tension by saying things like, “I’m a master break-dancer!” You learn a lot about falling. Part of what you have to do when you fall is regroup slowly to give your muscles a chance to calm down. And then you have to check for any broken body parts.
A DINING ROOM CHAIR with arms is brought into the kitchen for you to sit in while Jim holds an ice pack to the blossoming egg on the back of your head. This formal-looking chair seems oddly misplaced to its environment—which is exactly how you feel.
You are getting tired.
The whole family is emotionally spent.
You realize, with some surprise, that you want to return to the rehab hospital. The place that you thought you wanted to get away from. The place to which you had assigned an unofficial anthem: the Animals’ song, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” You ask Jim to take you back there. Which seems strange, considering all the time you’ve spent away from these people you love: your parents, your son…
Rory.
Where is he?
What You Do Best
JUST AS JIM IS PREPARING the elaborate procedure of gathering you back into the car to return to the rehab hospital, you notice that Rory—who had been staying with your mom and dad since your stroke—appears to be having some kind of weird allergic reaction.
He starts to wheeze and his eyes are getting puffy, red, and watery.
Red blotches start to erupt on his face.
Rory was susceptible to eczema and you found that he would get a similar reaction with dogs, especially with dog saliva. There are a lot of dogs in your parents’ neighborhood, and someone suggests that he had been in contact with a dog.
You wonder, though, what role the stress of seeing you fall might have played.
Mom says, “I’ll take him upstairs, soak him in a cool bath, and give him some Benadryl and his allergies will calm down. Don’t worry.”
She can tell you and Jim are worried. You think: Mom raised nine children—she has more experience than Jim or you have. You decide Rory is in competent hands and head back to the rehab hospital.
AT THE HOSPITAL, Jim gets you into your nightshirt, puts your foot and hand splints on, and settles you into bed. You are exhausted and you can tell Jim is, too. But you’re still thinking about Rory.
“Before you leave, let’s call to see how Rory is doing.”
Jim dials your parents’ number and gives you the handset.
It’s really to make sure Rory is in bed and sleeping comfortably. You also want Mom and Dad to know you’re back in the hospital’s care and okay. But when you call, Dad answers the phone and tells you that Mom has taken Rory to the emergency room because of his allergic reaction.
You begin to hyperventilate as you relay the news to Jim. How much can a guy take in one day? Dad says Mom will call you at the rehab hospital as soon as she returns from the emergency room.
Jim won’t leave your side until there’s a follow-up call from Mom reassuring you both that your son is okay.
You wait. The phone won’t ring.
Half an hour passes.
You say, “Jim, I can’t survive if something happens to my only child. I’ll be suicidal.”
Jim thinks for a moment and then says, “Well, you might get suicidal, but I don’t see how you’re going to do anything about it. You can’t get yourself a glass of water yet. You’re going to have to wait until you’re up and about before you get suicidal.”
You consider this.
“Then you’re just going to have to carry me to the open window and let me do what I do best: fall.”
He stares at you.
What a jerky thing to say to the man who’s going through all the same anxiety about his son and also dealing with the welfare of his wife. You realize it is selfish to talk like this when he is already dealing with so much. But your only child is in danger, and you don’t know how he’s doing, and you shouldn’t have left the house, shouldn’t have fallen down, shouldn’t have gotten sick. You can handle anything that pertains to your health, but seeing someone else you love in pain…
“I’m sorry, Jim.”
The period after the phone call to Dad makes time stand still. You both wait without speaking. Finally the phone bleats and you take a deep breath and pick up the receiver.
Mom says that Rory seems to have suffered an allergic reaction, maybe to something he ate, and that he is fine and in bed sleeping. Because of his reaction, Rory needs to carry an antihistamine injection pen with him now, because the next exposure to whatever substance caused this will be worse than the initial one.
Jim kisses you and leaves to drive back to what must be a very lonely house.
You lie there in a sterile bed, wondering what on earth you had let your son eat. Or breathe. Or see. You feel helpless, a foreign emotion.
You should have been taking care of your child.
Option C
AS PART OF YOUR REHABILITATION, the hospital suggests that while an inpatient, you go on outings to encounter what you will eventually have to deal with in the real world. Your friends Paul and Glenn announce that they are taking you, Jim, and Rory to the Museum of Science, which is a few blocks away.
Although the museum is quite close, you drive. Glenn becomes Rory’s playmate for the day while Jim and Paul push you in the wheelchair through all the exhibits. You really aren’t paying much attention to the museum, but more to the obstacles you have to contend with in your newly impaired body.
People are staring. You are the exhibit. This is what a handicapped person looks like. You can see people are trying to figure you out. Did you (a) have an auto accident? (b) fall out o
f a roller coaster? Or (c) escape from a psycho ward? Then you say, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Jim and Paul’s eyes widen in terror. No one thought about this before leaving the hospital.
There you are, in a wheelchair, with three men and a child. At the hospital, you always have a nurse to assist you—or perhaps Jim could get you to the toilet. But how can you ask him to coordinate things in the women’s room at the Museum of Science?
Paul wheels you over to the restroom entrances. He checks the men’s room and notices it’s empty.
“Why don’t you go into the men’s room and I’ll watch the door?”
Not your favorite idea. You want to feel normal. You picture the likely environment. A soaked, urine-spattered seat.
“It’s going to be disgusting,” you say.
“How do you know?” Paul asks.
“I know because I grew up with eight brothers.”
Jim and Paul decide to scope out the women’s room for you.
While Glenn’s playing with Rory on a space capsule (mercifully distracting him), you and your two companions are trapped by toilet etiquette. One woman enters—two exit. Three would enter, two would exit. Jim and Paul take it all in carefully, staring intently.
They look like perverts.
After ten minutes of watching and taking a head count, you have had enough with the whole hostage situation by the entrance to the Museum of Science women’s room. You grab your cane and stand up, with some effort, from the wheelchair, and say, “Fuck it, I’m going in.”
The guys are white and speechless.
You feel really wobbly, and it occurs to you that you must look wobbly too, like the Weebles that Fisher-Price used to make. You wobble—but you don’t fall down.
You step toward the door, not entirely sure how you’re going to pull this off. It has been a while since you peed by yourself. No one to hold you. No one to watch you. It’s something you’ve been longing for, but suddenly it’s the most frightening idea on earth. But you are determined not to let Jim and Paul see that you’re scared.
You say it again, loud enough for everyone in the surrounding area to hear.
“Fuck it.”
The people who have been staring at you all look like they’ve decided it’s definitely option (c): escapee from the psycho ward.
Potty Perils
WEEBLES WOBBLE but they don’t fall down.
You are upright, cane in hand, and purposefully pulling open the door and having to pee worse than you can remember at any time in your life and then a miracle takes place.
A stranger heading for the women’s room door says to the guys, “Do you want me to help her?” Paul and Jim bob their heads nervously in unison, saying, “Yes, that would be great!”
Your new assistant escorts you through the door you’ve been staring at longer than any other exhibit in the museum.
There is a two-woman line ahead of you. You are clutching your cane as though your life depended on it. And maybe it does: You have not been out of the wheelchair on your own for more than a moment or so since you left the hospital. You feel nervous and weak, and you really have to go to the bathroom.
Your new companion is a little uneasy. She is studying you—your bald head, the huge question-mark incision, and the hospital bracelet.
“Have you recently been released from the hospital?”
“Yeah,” you say. “This is my first outing from the hospital.”
You see her glance again at the scar, and you’re sure she’s conjuring up thoughts of you being the recipient of a lobotomy.
“This,” you continue, “is my first time out since my injury and I haven’t gone to the bathroom on my own since my stroke. I always have assistance. To make matters worse, I’m having my period, which, I should tell you, really complicates the whole bathroom experience.”
Her face is now the color of a cigarette ash. You feel you can read her mind; it’s as if she were screaming, “Oh my god, I am going to have to go in there and wipe her and probably change her tampon, too.”
In a halting hesitant voice, she says, “Do you need me to go in there with you?” She gestures to the handicapped stall.
Let her off the hook.
“No, I’ll go in by myself.”
Her body goes visibly limp with relief.
You really do need help, but you can’t bear to put this Good Samaritan through much more.
You have great difficultly in the stall for several reasons. You are shaking uncontrollably from muscle weakness; the handicapped bar was located on the left side of the toilet, which is your paralyzed side—and you feel you’re in danger of crashing headfirst into the floor because you’re so dizzy. You’re seeing stars, but you’re not even in the planetarium.
You decide you are not going to fall down.
You remember that Paul and Jim are standing outside the women’s room door, guarding it to make sure this poor woman doesn’t try to leave without you. You can hear them laughing with each other; they knew what this unsuspecting woman was about to face. Of course, they may also be laughing nervously because they’re afraid of hearing a big thud on the other side of the door.
You are not going to fall down.
The poor woman is trapped. She must think that if she tries to leave without you, they’ll attack her.
You finish your business there in the stall. Weebles may wobble, but they do not fall down, damn it.
She waits for you to get out of the stall and then helps you at the sink. She sees you out the door, and as you settle into the wheelchair with a plop you wonder if perhaps this is the last time she ever offers to help anyone, anywhere before getting a written affidavit outlining the specifics of the predicament she’s inheriting.
The three of you thank her profusely.
She leaves, no doubt thankful to God.
You think: I did it.
Jurassic Meltdown
THERE IS AN EXCHANGE IN DUTY: Paul relieves Glenn to take care of Rory, while Glenn assists Jim with you. The two groups agree to rendezvous in the lower level, where the truck and dinosaur exhibits are located.
After a few minutes, Jim and Glenn wheel you to the massive Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur skeleton, a huge exhibit that looms over you—over two stories of bones and sharp teeth. Paul, on his way down with Rory, learns quickly that T. rex is frightening to a three-year-old who can’t distinguish what is real. Rory is instantly terrified of it and can’t even look in that direction without screaming.
Rory works through the meltdown with Paul and reconnects with you, and the four of you end your excursion at the gift shop. Continuing with the dinosaur theme, they buy Rory a dinosaur rubber puppet. He really likes it. The four of you manage to make it back into the car, which is no small undertaking.
The car is starting to pull away when Jim checks the rearview mirror and notices the lone tripod cane standing curbside. You back up to retrieve it. Just like the wheelchair, it has become part of your newly redesigned, not yet rebuilt anatomy.
Paul and Glenn are in the backseat with Rory between them, taking turns entertaining with the puppet. And then it happens. Rory breaks out into a blood-curdling scream. Apparently Glenn has made some kind of gnarling gesture with the puppet’s teeth, and it terrifies Rory. He is hysterical until you reach the hospital parking lot.
After Rory has calmed down, Glenn asks him, “Do you remember who I am?”
Rory says, “Paul.”
Without missing a beat, Glenn says, “That’s right.”
Thus it is that Rory blames Paul for scaring him with the dinosaur. You think to yourself that you will never look at a dinosaur in quite the same way again after this outing.
You had all planned to go out for pizza after the museum, but you’re exhausted, physically and emotionally, and everyone else is just as drained from the whole experience. You opt to bring pizza back to your room at the rehab hospital. Paul and Glenn head home to recover.
You, Jim, and Rory have
a pizza party in the grim, but considerably more manageable, surroundings of the rehab hospital. It occurs to you that there are many equally frightening exhibits on display here.
Brain Delayed
YOUR FRIENDS NANCY AND STEPHEN visit you nearly every day at the hospital. Jim feels comfortable because he knows that if there is ever a time that he will not be able to get there right away, they will be there with you.
This weekend, they are taking you on an outing to do some shopping. Rory’s first day of preschool is approaching and you want to feel involved—even though you are going to miss the actual event.
Every mother wants to be part of her child’s first day of school. So there you are at Copley Place, shopping at the Gap. You have bought Rory a few things that are several sizes too big. He most likely won’t be able to wear them until he is seven, but you feel satisfied that you’ve actually bought him some new clothes for his first day.
Sitting in a wheelchair changes the whole shopping experience. There’s no room for spontaneity; you have to go wherever you are led. After some meandering, Jim, you, and your friends decide to go for an early dinner. You agree to go to the Sail Loft in Cambridge, a nice spot overlooking the Charles River that’s not too far away from the hospital. The evening is pleasant; you are out on the veranda. The sun is setting. Your head feels calm. This is a familiar place; when you and Jim lived on Admiral’s Hill in Chelsea, you and he were regular diners here on Friday evenings. You used to cap off your week there to unwind and it was a nice segue into the weekend.
Someone at another table is staring at you. All day, you have been wearing a silly hat that your mom bought you. She recently picked up a bunch of different hats to cover your frightening head. You don’t know where she got these hats, but you have fixated for some reason on this black straw hat with white silk daisies glued on the front.
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