The Orchid

by Robert Waggoner

  Jimmy Turner’s life, shattered by a twist of fate, is over except that nobody told Lindsey Schnetler. This newly arrived neighbor endures Jimmy’s temper, scorn and abuse with a calm fearlessness that captures Jimmy’s heart. He has much to learn about life and death. When the tables turn and Lindsey’s life is threatened, Jimmy has to use everything he has become to try to save her.

  This story is fiction with no relationship to persons living or dead.

  Copyright © 2007 RC Waggoner

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4196-6270-8

  ISBN-13: 978-1419662706

  E-Book ISBN: 978-1-61789-529-6

  Visit www.booksurge.com to order additional copies.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 1

  The brown-haired girl stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Your mom said it would be okay if I came up for a few minutes.” She looked into my room curiously and then, just as curiously, back at me.

  Closer up, I could see that she had not yet grown into her body. She was all arms, elbows and knees. She was skinny with no figure at all. Her eyes were large, flecked with green and her nose was a trifle too big to fit her face. In other words, she was rather homely. “Suit yourself.” I turned and did a wheelie with the chair. She gasped thinking I was going to flip over and I smiled to myself. Girls were so naïve. With all wheels back on the ground, I returned to my puzzle and tried to make my point by ignoring her. After a few minutes, I glanced at her. She was looking at the odd assortment of memorabilia I had not thrown out yet: the football plaques, the first place ribbons from summer tennis camps and other sports trophies that littered a couple of shelves in my room. Because she thought I was ignoring her, she walked to my bookcase and peered at my collection of reading material. From there she went to the window and noticed the binoculars.

  Finally, she turned and came to stand by the card table where I was assembling a thousand-piece puzzle. “Can I help you do that?”

  I looked up. “No.”

  I saw the shock register on her face and felt guilty pleasure. I figured she would run out of the room with tears in her eyes and tell her parents what a mean boy I was.

  Instead, she bit her lip. “I like puzzles,” she said, valiantly ignoring my rudeness. Then she gave me a toothy grin. “I’m probably better at it than you are.”

  I cast a scornful glance in her direction. She endured it.

  The rage inside me was not her fault. I was not mad at her in particular; I was mad at anyone who saw life through rose-colored glasses, full of “endless possibilities,” and nonsense like that. Condemn them to a wheelchair for the rest of their life and see their reaction then!

  “This is an adult puzzle.” I stressed the word adult. “It is too difficult for little kids.”

  I almost smirked at the expression on her face. She was trying to be polite and I was chewing her up. I owed her nothing. She barged in on my territory. This was my sanctuary. Come in here at your own risk!

  She wavered for a moment, I saw it on her face, but then she drew a deep breath. I thought she was going to give me a lecture on being nice to people and then run out. I would have deserved it, and it would have been fun to watch. Instead, she said, “You don’t have to be mean.” The girl picked a puzzle piece from the litter of pieces on the table and stuck it in place, “One to nothing!” Her voice wavered slightly as she met my rude stare.

  “Damn it,” I mumbled under my breath, low enough that she could not make out the words. She was not going to go easily. “Why the hell don’t you just go back to your normal little life with all your normal little friends?” While I was mumbling, I found a piece and snapped it forcefully into place. I found five in a row and snapped them into place. She could not find any. I looked at her with pity in my eyes. “Come back when you actually are good at something.”

  I saw a tear form in one of those green-flecked brown eyes and spill over onto her cheek. She mopped it with a backhand as she studied the puzzle.

  I felt bad inside, but anger does funny things to you. I found another piece and then another and finally she found one. It was seven to two when my mom came up the steps. “Your mom and dad are getting ready to go, Lindsey,” she said to the girl. “I see you’ve met Jimmy.” Lindsey studiously avoided looking at my mom. I figured it was so that my mom would not see the liquid brimming just under her lids.

  Mom’s brows knit as she discerned tension between us. She studied me critically, knowing that something was wrong, but not certain what I had done.

  I glared back at her. There was no use pretending. I did not like my life. I could not find any reason to pretend I was happy.

  Nine months earlier, on a drizzly afternoon, on the way home with my mom after football practice, I saw it come out of the woods near the road just in time to yell a warning to my mom. The next few seconds lasted a lifetime. Until we hit the tree, I saw everything in super slow motion: rain, blacktop, green grass, a bush and then nothing. At fifty miles-an-hour, the car went over the shoulder, down the embankment and hit an oak. I woke up when they were loading me into the ambulance. A thick white brace surrounded my neck.

  Too dizzy to focus, I heard my mom’s voice and knew she was alive. I tried to open my eyes, but the swirling scenery threatened to make me hurl, so I closed them quickly hoping the nausea I felt was temporary. I heard my mom begging me to squeeze her fingers so I tightened my fist. The rest of the way to the hospital she was sobbing with relief and apologizing.

  I heard the word paralysis, and the phrase “spinal cord injury suspected” as the medic attending me in the back of the ambulance talked to mom and someone on the radio. I prayed that it was not my mom who was paralyzed. I was certain I was not the one because, other than my head, I felt fine. I suspected I had a concussion and that is why I felt nauseous and dizzy. Then I decided I was feeling that way because of the hard surface of the gurney or the solid undercarriage of the ambulance. It felt like the thing had no shock absorbers. I felt every bump in my shoulders and head.

  When the medic had done all he could, mom took my hand and held it. I managed to open my eyes. Mom was sitting on the bench next to me. Her eyes studied me worriedly out of a face streaked with tears. She kept glancing at my feet or legs with such a sad expression on her face that I got worried.

  “What happened, mom?”

  “I should have hit that deer,” mom said. Her voice choked with the threat of new tears. “I shouldn’t have swerved!” She was crying again. “I’m so sorry, Jimmy! I’m so very sorry!”

  “We didn’t hit anyone did we?” I asked.

  “No, Jimmy.”

  “Then who’s paralyzed?”

  She burst into fresh tears and I caught on. I was the one! Instantly I discounted the idea: these things do not happen to my family or me. They happen to strangers and you feel sorry for them for a few minutes and then go on with your business. I felt panic in my throat like someone gripping me with a strong hand. I lifted my hand and looked at it: I could move! A sense of relief shot through me. I looked at my mom.

  She was looking at my legs. I lifted a leg to show her that I was okay. Nothing happened. I reached down and felt my stomach and my hips. My hips felt funny. It seemed as though I was touching someone else’s hips because I
could not feel the pressure of my fingers on them. My eyes widened in fear as I looked at my mom.

  The attendant saw my panic and leaned forward. “These things are often temporary,” he said soothingly. “Let’s wait ‘till we get to the hospital. I’m going to check your pulse now.”

  I took comfort from his words.

  Nine months later, sitting in my upstairs bedroom behind the large windows overlooking the front of our fifty acres, I thought bitterly how much my life had changed in less than five seconds.

  In the intervening months in the hospital the only thing that stood out in sharp detail was the day they fitted me for my wheelchair. Surgery shortly after the accident made it possible for me to sit up and the wheelchair gave me a tiny measure of freedom and independence back. Only my mom was there for the event. Dad had to work. The male nurse helped me into the chair. I wheeled myself down the hall and then back. I was exhausted. My mom could not stop her tears.

  Over the next few weeks, I gained strength and calluses until at last I was able to maneuver myself out of bed and into the wheelchair without crashing to the floor.

  The day I came home, my dad took off from work to help. After what must have been a lot of debate while I was in the hospital, my parents installed an elevator. Mom was convinced that I would do better in familiar surroundings—regain at least a tiny sense of normalcy by being in my room. She was wrong about that. I hated my room, I hated the house and I hated my life.

  Two or three times that first week, I contemplated suicide. I rode my prison wagon to the top of the stairway and debated the best way to end it: would the stairs break my neck or not? Would I suffer even more by becoming quadriplegic? That question stopped me every time. I could not bear to lose the little bit of my life that remained if it did not work.

  I saw it as a blessing when my so-called friends stopped visiting and calling. I hated them anyway. They could walk. They were insensitive. They did not know how to talk about anything but football, sports and girls. I did not have a girl friend. I liked some girls but never had the courage to talk to them. Now I decided it was a good thing.

  My anger grew daily as I watched the sun come up on a world that still grew green grass and go down on a world that had no interest in me. My parents did not count. They were required by virtue of their roles to have an interest. Sorry, that was just the way it was. They were obligated to care for me. I did not hate them but I was so angry about the unfairness of life that I took it out on anyone who came around. My mom spent less and less time trying to cheer me up and my dad found reasons to stay at work longer and longer each day.

  I was oblivious to the damage I was inflicting because I hated everything and everyone so intensely. As the days went by, I found myself grinding my jaws and poking stickpins into my arms just to feel the pain.

  My parents gave up getting me to go back to Cross Field High School. They brought psychiatrists and social workers and even went so far as to bring a preacher from a local church to talk to me but it did not help. My anger only grew more intense. When I turned sixteen, I did not legally have to go to school and sixteen was close enough now that any attempt to force me to go would result in open rebellion.

  It did not change my heart one bit when I heard my mom crying in the kitchen as she worried about me. As far as I was concerned, my future was dead so I might as well be dead too. The psychiatrist tried to give me hope by telling me about people who, despite their wheelchairs, made a difference. I was not buying that crap. I wallowed in self-pity because it felt better than attempting to start over now that everything I used to be good at was no longer possible.

  Somewhere in the middle of my self-pity, mom talked me into writing how I felt. I did it when the boredom of my inactivity became too great to endure. A small magazine published the article. I got a few letters from some sympathetic folks. My mom framed the article and hung it in my room.

  My mom and dad tried to interest me in video games but I could not focus on them long enough to get good. They tried to read to me but I ignored them. One day my mom brought a box up and laid it on the card table just inside my room. After she left, I wheeled away from my semi-permanent pity perch at the window and looked at the box. It was a puzzle with 1,000 pieces. For a week, I ignored it and then one day spilled the pieces onto the table and began to put the puzzle together. I think I did it because I was so bored that I had to do something. Soon it became a challenge to see how fast I could fit the pieces together. I did not admit it but when mom brought up harder ones, I was pleased. I began to challenge myself to start and finish a puzzle in one day. I could do it alone, so it allowed me to remain angry at the world while feeling some measure of satisfaction in beating the puzzle. At least I could put a puzzle together when I could not do that with my life. When I got bored with puzzles, I picked up a book—one of the dozen that mom brought up and just left in my room—and began to read. Louis L’Amour soon captured my attention. Mom happily brought me everything he wrote—which was a lot!

  The distance that developed between my parents and me is the result of my attitude. I cannot help the way I feel about things. They do not agree, so they constantly try to tell me how good life could be if I just give it a chance. They see life a lot rosier than I do. My mom tries her best to convince me that life can go on and should. It makes it hard to talk to them.

  Another thing that was difficult was finding out that the people who were my best friends found it easy to abandon me. They did not know what to say to me. They felt awkward and uncomfortable. Pity only takes you so far. Friendship cannot survive pity.

  I hate going out in public. When I do leave the house for a doctor’s appointment or because I cannot stand to look at these four walls for another minute, and roll down the sidewalk in my wheelchair, I am the person everyone pities.

  Chapter 2

  I knew who the brown-haired girl was even though I did not know her name.

  Our house is a Victorian, two-story with the traditional columns and massive doors. My bedroom window overlooks the front of our fifty-acre property. To the right I can see the next-door neighbor’s house. It had been vacant from before my accident. A month ago, I heard a car alarm beeping. From the upstairs window, I saw a realtor showing a family through the house. One of my dad’s security devices must have triggered their car alarm or they accidentally triggered it themselves.

  I was about to wheel away from the window and go back to my puzzle when I saw a young girl step out of the house and look around the yard. I reached for my binoculars and peered through them. The girl was probably ten or eleven years old with short brown hair and, from that distance, a decent face. I watched the activity for a while until the family and the realtor got into their cars and drove away. Disappointed with the lack of entertainment, I put the binoculars down and returned to my puzzle.

  Two weeks ago, I watched a moving van discharge its load of furniture and figured out that someone had purchased that house next door. Not that it mattered to me. I observed for a little while to see who was moving in. My binoculars were powerful and at that distance, about 300 yards, it brought things in sharp and clear. The girl I had seen two weeks earlier filled my vision as she climbed out of a station wagon and walked into the house. The whole time she walked, she looked almost right at me! It freaked me out. I knew it was impossible for her to see me from that distance inside my room, behind double-thick glass, but she seemed to be looking right at me anyway. She had a clear complexion, a bit pasty white for this part of the country. I focused briefly on the license plate of the station wagon. Massachusetts. Oh well, perhaps she would find it easier to get sun in Tennessee. I watched until my arms ached but saw nothing else of interest. At least it beat putting puzzles together.

  During the intervening two weeks, I saw a flurry of activity at the house but eventually lost interest.

  I was working on a puzzle when our doorbell rang. A minute later, the intercom startled me. “Jimmy!” My mom tends to holler when she rea
lly does not need to. The intercom works just fine at normal voice levels. Somehow, she does not get the electronic stuff. Maybe Alexander Graham Bell had to yell at Watson just in case the telephone did not work, who knows. My mom might as well as have yelled at me from the bottom of the steps.

  I sighed and wheeled over to the box. “What?” Yeah, I was rude, so what? I did not feel like being put on display for our new neighbors. What would it accomplish? Someone else to pity me? No thanks.

  Mom tried to keep her voice neutral, even though she correctly interpreted my rudeness. “Our new neighbors, the Andersons, have come for a visit. Please come down.”

  I flipped the switch off and glared at it. “Right,” I said. “Like that’s going to happen.” Fifteen minutes later, there was a light tap at my door. It would be my mom, trying to be polite but firm to avoid embarrassing our guests. It would not be right for them to hear her getting angry with her handicapped son. I almost ignored it. Still, it would serve little purpose to make my mom look bad in front of our neighbors by being completely rude—maybe there was a little spark of humanity left in me. At least I could give her an excuse with which she could save face. I owed her that much so I wheeled to the door and opened it.

  That put me eye-to-eye with the brown-haired neighbor girl.

  Tension filled the room as I glared at my mom, but Lindsey studied me calmly as if trying to decide how to ignore my rudeness. She spoke first to my mom. “I did meet him,” she said pleasantly. Apparently, in that short space of time, she figured out what to say to me. She looked me in the eye, “This wasn’t enough time to have a real contest.”

  I thought she was making excuses and grinned wickedly at her. “Whatever,” I said, dismissing her as if she had accomplished nothing.

  “Okay, then. Nice to meet you, Jimmy,” Lindsey said. She was determined to be polite to the end as she backed out of the room. On the other hand, maybe she was showing off for my mother.