The Orchid

by Robert Waggoner

  Inside I chalked up a score. Her innocent, ordinary view of life without problems angered me. I did not invite her to come up to my room anyway; my mom must have sent her up. I doubted my mom would make that mistake again!

  I waved as if shooing her out of the room and caught an evil glare from my mom before she followed Lindsey down the stairs. I was not worried about my mom yelling at me. She had not scolded me since the accident. I hated that things were absolutely not normal but I was just angry enough to take advantage of it too. After Lindsey left, I felt my conscience talking to me. I wondered if I felt bad or if I did not care. I couldn’t tell. The thought caused me to catch my breath.

  At noon the next day, my mom yelled into the intercom that Lindsey was here. I should come down. I flipped the intercom off and stayed in bed. Ten minutes later the girl knocked at the door. I ignored her. I heard her go back down the steps. The anger inside of me was satisfied. Soon my mom came up and, more forcefully than she had said anything to me in the last year, told me that I was being rude. She made me get out of bed and get dressed. I grudgingly did it because I was surprised at my mom’s anger. When I was dressed and in my chair, mom stuck her head in the door and told me she was sending Lindsey up.

  “What for?” I asked brusquely, determined to exact a measure of revenge for her forcing me to do something I did not want to do.

  “Don’t be rude!” My mom warned me. She waited until Lindsey came in the room to make sure I was going to be civil. I could tell she was reluctant to leave Lindsey alone with her horrible son.

  Lindsey stepped into the room. “Hi, Jimmy.”

  “Hi.” I glowered back. I spoke only because my mom was still there.

  Mom gave me a steady look that was a warning and an expression of disbelief that I would treat anyone as poorly as I was treating Lindsey. When I looked away, feeling slightly ashamed, she walked out.

  Lindsey idly brushed her hair from her eyes and tucked it behind one ear with her index finger. “I’m ready for the contest again, Jimmy.” She looked resolutely at me.

  I glared at her. My mom chose that moment to return and stick her head in the door. “Jimmy, I’m making soup and sandwiches for lunch. Lindsey said she will not mind bringing yours up so I will call you when they are ready.” She reached over and flipped the intercom’s switch to ON. She gave me another warning look that said she caught my ugly look at Lindsey and did not want that repeated before she went down the stairs.

  “I hope you’re not mad at me for coming over,” Lindsey said slowly.

  “What would give you that idea?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Well, you just seem mad.” She looked at me with eyes that were a richer brown color. The flecks of green were still there. Her face was clear, innocent, and happy. It annoyed me to see her so cheerful. She knew nothing of real hurt, pain, or anguish.

  “Your powers of deduction are amazing,” I said clipping each word.

  “I don’t understand,” Lindsey’s eyebrows knitted together. The effect was slightly comical.

  I laughed. Her face registered alarm and then cautious amusement. She really did not know how to take me. When she smiled, I saw a row of fresh adult teeth that had adolescent gaps between each tooth. She had not yet gotten all her teeth because nothing in that mouth was crowded. Her teeth were slightly off-white and a little crooked and for some reason that softened me. She was not perfect. I looked at her. It made her uncomfortable. She did not appear to be intimidated, just awkward. Maybe she was not here because she pitied me or wanted to help me. However, the longer I looked at her with the question of why are you here, the harder it was to guess. Suddenly I felt bad that I was being so mean. I sighed, “Sit.”

  She pulled a chair over from the desk and sat down at the card table. “I’m ready if you are.”

  Her persistence had its effect. I shrugged and pulled my crip-mobile up to the card table. I actually got interested in beating her, and when my mom called up fifteen minutes later, we had a fourth of the puzzle done. She found as many pieces as I had. I could feel the thrill of competition running through my veins for the first time in a long time. I was secretly amazed at how good she was.

  Lindsey retrieved lunch from down stairs and put it on the card table, covering up the puzzle with the tray. While we ate, I noticed that she wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. I thought that was just right. It fit my mood. It was against the rules, whatever they were, and here was a ten or eleven year old girl who wiped soup off her mouth with her sleeve. Fascinating!

  “You seem happier,” she said after finishing her meal.

  “Maybe I am.” I decided being churlish was not as much fun as competing with her had been. Plus, she refused to be intimidated or insulted.

  Lindsey burped and looked at me with that half-embarrassed look that could turn into total embarrassment if I acted shocked. I grinned and burped louder. Her eyes narrowed and the corners of her lips turned up in a slight smile as she realized this too was a competition. Refusing to be outdone, she reached way down, pulled one up, and let it fly just as my mom stepped into the room behind her.

  I laughed so hard I almost fell out of the wheelchair. My mom just looked at Lindsey’s back, not certain she had done it, but pretty sure I hadn’t because she had been looking at me. Very quietly, she backed out of the room. I know she was hoping that Lindsey would never know she had come in at that most awkward moment. The sight was too much for me and I laughed so hard I nearly choked. When I could no longer catch my breath, I had to stop and recover. Lindsey was looking at me with the look of someone who has triumphed rather than embarrassed herself so I guessed she did not know my mom had stepped into the room just as she belched.

  Lindsey thought the first one was funny so she reached down, dredged up another one, and let it fly. Grudging admiration welled up inside me. It was hard to believe that a girl knew how to belch by dragging air into her gut and reversing the flow like that. It was also harder to believe that she would do it.

  “Damn, Lindsey!” She was quite satisfied with herself and knew she had won our impromptu contest until I giggled and pointed at the door. “My mom heard that!” The memory overwhelmed me as much as her reaction to what I had just told her and I laughed as much this time as I did before.

  Her face turned red and then pink as she absorbed the idea that my mom had heard her do something very unladylike just moments earlier and that she might have heard the second one too. She covered her mouth with her hand and looked at me wide-eyed. She glanced at the door before she said with a giggle, “My dad taught me how to do that before he died.”

  It was my turn to sober. “I thought your dad just came over yesterday.”

  “My real dad,” she said. She gave me a serious look. “That’s my step dad. My mom married him three weeks ago and yuck!” She grinned at me. I looked at her until she made another face. Then I knew what she meant. She had to get out of the house because they were newlyweds.

  “Not something I’ll ever have to worry about,” I said sourly.

  She gave me the wide eyes and said in a whisper, “You mean your mom and dad don’t do it?”

  I could not help but admire her quick-witted response. She knew I did not mean that but she got me anyway because I responded, “No. I meant I won’t have to worry about that.”

  She felt guilty for saying it and my response caused her face to turn red when she understood. She picked up the tray to cover her embarrassment and said, “I guess I’ll take the dishes downstairs. I can come back up if you want me to.”

  “Up to you,” I said. If I said I wanted her to come back, it would look like I was lonely. I did not want her pity. I had lived on anger for so long that I was not ready to give that up yet. I did not want to be her friend until she made friends with kids her own age, leaving me to sit in my wheelchair watching life through the window again. I realized there was a tiny spark of hope in me that maybe someone wanted to spend time with me because that someone found
me interesting and likeable rather than someone to pity. I could not afford to admit to myself that I hoped she came back.

  Lindsey looked hurt and started to say something but then decided to bite her tongue. When she walked out, the room felt empty. She came back the next day and put up with my crap for a couple of hours before she had to go home. I gave her a ton of crap too because unconsciously I was trying to see if she thought I was worth the effort. It was self-destructive behavior. To my surprise, she was persistent and came back the next day and the next. I was starting to feel a little safer—like maybe she was the one who wanted to come over when I had a chilling thought. Maybe my mom was putting her up to it. Worse yet, what if someone was paying her to come over every day, just to get me interested in life again? I could not help it; my teeth ground together in anger because that suddenly seemed logical.

  I went down the elevator and wheeled out into the kitchen where mom was baking. She heard me roll through the doorway. She turned and her eyes brightened until she saw my expression. Still, she asked if I wanted a cookie even while she braced herself. I took one.

  With my mouth full I said, “How much are you paying Lindsey to come over here everyday?”

  She nearly dropped her cookie sheet. “What?” Then she got mad. “You just say anything that pops into your head. It’s a wonder that sweet girl comes back at all!” She glared at me.

  When I did not answer, she sat down at the table and looked at me. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

  “No!” I said and wheeled out of the room before she could ask more questions.

  I had my answer, but I still could not figure out why she was coming over. I also knew she would soon make other friends and I would be history. I spent a lot of time that night trying to figure out why she was coming over and how to get her to admit her reasons.

  The next day she came over, happy and bubbly. We worked on the puzzle and after half an hour, finished it. She put the last piece in place and smiled triumphantly at me. “We did it!”

  I nodded. “So now you can quit coming,” I said bluntly.

  She looked up startled, but her expression told me that she was not sure if I was bluffing. “Why? Are you afraid I’m better than you at this?”

  That challenge threatened to derail my plan. “I’m not afraid of that,” I replied before realizing that she had gotten me off track. “That’s not the point!” I wheeled my chair away from the table and turned it toward her. “Why are you coming over here? Taking pity on a poor invalid boy?”

  “No.” The question seemed to throw her off balance, but only for a moment. She shrugged her shoulders. “I just have to get out of the house sometimes.”

  “So go to the park!” I was angry. Coming over here was just a convenient escape from her house! It confirmed my darkest thoughts. When she had better friends, I would be off her list.

  She stood angrily, knocking the chair over in the process. She bent and picked it up and apparently came to some conclusion during that time. “I will go to the park if you tell me you don’t want me to come back here!” Her hands moved up to her hips and she looked at me with a mixture of anger and worry.

  “You’re ten friggin’ years old!” I wheeled my chair around to face her. “I’m fifteen. Maybe you better grow up.”

  She stared at me. “I’m not ten.” Then she grinned—fully recovered from her worry in that two second space of time—and let just a touch of sarcasm lace her words. “And I don’t see any other people knocking your door down!” I think my mouth dropped open. I was so angry for a minute that I actually felt my vision narrowing. So mad, in fact, that I could not form a response that seemed appropriate. Anything not appropriate would make me feel, and look, like a fool. She waited, ready to continue the battle if I were stupid enough. She knew she had drawn first blood. I could not think of an appropriate response. She started pulling the puzzle apart and dropping the pieces in the box.

  “Fuck off!” I said in frustration. I kept my voice down in case mom was listening on the intercom.

  “Jimmy! You shouldn’t cuss like that!” She was teasing now, and not afraid of my anger. She had begun taking the puzzle apart and now she pulled more pieces off the puzzle and dropped them in the box, ignoring me.

  I hated it when someone ignored me. When you live in a wheelchair, people ignore you because they do not know what to say around you. That is a huge insult. I knew she was not insulting me but I could not stop the anger that bubbled out of me full of insecurity and fear. “Damn it, Lindsey!” I wheeled my chair and went to the window. With my back to her I raged, “That’s your fucking house!” I pointed. “I don’t need any babies to hold my hand! Just get the fuck out of here!”

  I expected her to burst into tears and run out of the room. Instead, I heard her emit a stifled giggle. I wheeled around, very annoyed, until I saw my mom with the tin of cookies in her hand and a look of shock on her face. She put the tin down on the card table and gently said, “You might want to go home for now, Lindsey. Jimmy and I need to talk.” There was polished steel in her tone and her eyes bored into me like daggers.

  A slight shiver crawled up my backbone. I was in trouble now! When the front door closed downstairs, my mom turned her wrath on me. “Jimmy! I should wash your mouth out with soap! How dare you talk to a young girl that way! How dare you talk that way?” She was furious.

  This was the mom I respected from before she felt guilty about the accident. “I’m sorry, mom.”

  “That’s not good enough. Tomorrow you will apologize to that young lady! You better be grateful that someone around here is willing to put up with your attitude because your dad and I have had enough!” She stomped around the room picking up my laundry and straightening things out with many clumps and bangs. I guessed she wanted to milk her anger now that she had finally released some of it. That is why she was not leaving.

  Over the last year, my mom took the brunt of my anger. She was the only one I could take my frustration and rage out on. When she heard me say those angry things to Lindsey, my mom had all she could stomach. She took the abuse I gave because she felt guilty but Lindsey had done nothing to deserve my anger.

  For the first time since the accident, I felt my anger start to melt. I did not want to be angry. I did not want to keep hurting anyone who tried to get close to me. I knew it was wrong. I was relieved that my mom was finally talking to me with the kid gloves off.

  I did not want to keep hurting her. I was wrong about Lindsey’s reasons for coming over. I was wrong to take out my anger on my mom. The big balloon of hurt slowly started to deflate inside me. I took a deep breath and said sincerely, “I’m sorry, mom.” It felt good to say it. I was sorry! A year of being angry at everything melted away. I felt clean and fresh. Hope started to fill up the reservoir previously stuffed with anger. I just could not explain it. I smiled at my mom. “I really am sorry.”

  She looked at me with questions and then decided I might be telling the truth. She sat down at the card table. “I’m sorry you were the one who got hurt, Jimmy. You don’t know how often I’ve begged God to give you back your legs. It’s so hard seeing you like this!” Tears began to run down her cheeks. She had held these words inside for a long, long time. Now they came bubbling out. “No parent should have to see her child…” she fumbled for the right words, could not find them so she finished, “…like this.”

  I did not know how to comfort her. I did not know how to live outside of my anger. It was easier to blame everyone and everything instead of moving forward. How many thousands of stunted people were there like me in this world? We couldn’t move ahead because we delighted in being angry over what we had lost. It was so much easier than accepting responsibility for what we had and moving on from there.

  “I love you, Jimmy.” My mom had so much she wanted to say. I could see it in her eyes and yet she did not know how to say it, I guess. Finally, she came over, put her face alongside mine, and hugged the part of me she could reach in the whee
lchair. After a minute, she kissed me and went downstairs.

  With the departure of anger, I realized I was lonely. The longer I stayed in my room, the lonelier I got. I was so used to living in anger that it was as if a friend had suddenly left me. I was terribly lonely.

  I went down the elevator and rolled into the kitchen where mom was working. “Mom, I guess I’ve been mad at the world and God and everyone else because of what happened. You just don’t know what it’s like to know you are never going to be normal!”

  My mom stopped working and sat down. “It’s been hard on all of us. Your dad has suffered terribly. He doesn’t know how to handle it.”

  “I guess when we couldn’t play tennis or golf anymore we just didn’t have anything in common.” I picked a warm cookie off the sheet and ate it.

  “That’s part of it,” my mom said. “He didn’t know how to help you. That is the biggest reason. He feels helpless to fix what happened.”

  I felt a rush of the old anger. “I just wish he’d talk to me sometimes,” I said. The heat had come into my voice so quickly that it made me aware of how much I missed my dad. We used to do things together. “We were going to buy an old Junker and fix it up together but now…”

  “Talk to him, Jimmy. Tell him these things.”

  “It’s been so long since we talked, I don’t know how.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” My mom gave me a confident smile and patted my arm.

  “I’ll apologize to Lindsey, mom. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

  “I’m glad. I just hope…” she left the statement unsaid. I knew what she meant. I hope you did not hurt her feelings so much that she will not come back and our name becomes mud with our new neighbors!

  I guess I could have called her to apologize but I did not want to. If she came back after today, it meant she was coming of her own free will! If her parents thought it was okay before, they would not think so now if she told them what I had said. I would be lucky if she ever thought about me again. I sighed. The bottom line was that if she came over again, it meant that she wanted to. I needed to know that. I hoped it was true. I spent a restless night tossing in my bed. It meant that much to me.