Finding a Voice

by Kim Hood

  Chris was still shaking and there was nothing I could do. His wheelchair was rocking and I was afraid that it might topple over again, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop it even if I tried. It seemed like the seizure was going on forever. Was it more than five minutes? I didn’t even have a watch to know.

  Finally he stopped shaking and slumped forward. Despite the excruciating pain, I hobbled to him and lifted his head. I had never known Chris’s body to be so limber. His eyes were closed, but when I put my hand under his nose I could feel his soft, warm breath. I sighed in relief.

  But now I had another problem. Chris was exhausted. I knew I had to get him onto the bed, and that was going to be difficult enough. But I needed to keep him warm and that meant somehow getting the heavy bed as near to the fire as I could.

  Already it was starting to get dark. It had to be around 4.30. I knew it got pretty dark by five now. So I dragged myself to the cupboard where I kept a small battery-powered lantern. It didn’t give much light, but at least Chris wouldn’t be in total darkness while I worked on getting the bed near the fire. Then I stoked the fire again, before starting on the laborious job of inching the stubborn bed across the floor. It seemed to take forever, dragging first one leg and then another, zigzagging over to Chris.

  He was still slumped over when I finally had the bed as near to the fire as I could get it, but now he was shivering. This was not good. I needed to get him onto the bed quickly and get some of his wettest clothes off him so that I could dry them by the fire. I knew that I had to be extra careful that he didn’t fall on the floor though, because I would never be able to lift him off of it.

  I had never had to figure out how Chris was held into his chair, or how one might go about getting him out of it. At school Florence took care of all of that. I struggled with how to free his shoulders from the blue padded bars that held them there, finally figuring out the release mechanisms that let me swing them to the sides. I then had to unsnap the multiple buckles that kept his torso and hips in place despite the never-ending movement of his body.

  Suddenly I didn’t have time to think about how I was going to get him onto the bed. He was slipping and I had to move fast. Sheer adrenaline and desperation drove me to lift him and fall backwards onto the bed. I couldn’t help it; I screamed in pain as I briefly took all of Chris’s weight on my legs. Something snapped. And then everything was black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When I woke up, I couldn’t see anything at first. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew something was very wrong. I was dripping in sweat and my right leg throbbed in pain.

  Finally my eyes adjusted and I saw a small glow down below me. The fire. I remembered now. In a panic I sat up, feeling for Chris. He was there beside me so we had obviously made it to the bed. I felt for his face and could feel him breathing. Despite how hot I felt, I knew it must be cold in the cabin and I had to make sure that Chris was warm.

  Slowly I raised myself to sitting. I couldn’t remember ever feeling this weak. My whole body ached, but especially my leg. Feeling down my hurt leg, I could tell it had swollen to twice its size. It must be broken.

  I was afraid to move the leg at all, but when I inched off the bed onto my good leg I was surprised to find that the excruciating pain I had felt when I moved it before was gone. Instead, my bad leg seemed almost disconnected from me.

  When I got the fire going again, I could see that Chris was asleep. I wondered how long it had been that he had lain there awake, not able to even adjust himself to get more comfortable. Had he worried about me, lying motionless beside him?

  What a mess I had made of things. Yesterday it had seemed so important to fix all of Chris’s problems immediately. But all I was doing was risking his very life. I hadn’t even thought about how I was going to take care of his physical needs. I was failing Chris just as much as I had failed my mom.

  I wondered how Mom was doing right now. Our rocky week was enough to destabilise her; having me gone missing was going to be devastating. Not just missing, but kidnapping someone completely defenceless.

  I hoped that somebody was with her to make sure she took her medication.

  And then I remembered the woman at the group home going from kid to kid with the little cups of pills. There had been a ton of them for Chris. I didn’t even know what they were for. How badly did he need those medications?

  Here, in the dark, with every decision mine alone, I finally knew what I should have known all along. Dr Sharon was right. I couldn’t do it all on my own. It didn’t matter how miserable Chris was, living in the group home. I didn’t have the solution to that problem. Maybe other people did. At least I could tell them what Chris had told me.

  And I couldn’t help Mom on my own either. I didn’t want to.

  Chris needed help. I needed help. It would have been a whole lot easier to ask for help the day before in the relative comfort of the school. Now I was going to have to literally crawl on my hands and knees to ask for it.

  I waited until it was light to go. It was the longest night I had ever spent. The anxiety of the last week was gone with my decision to go for help, but I was terrified for Chris. I wasn’t sure how quickly he needed that help.

  All night I had kept getting off the floor to check him, each time afraid that he might not be breathing. It was cold, though I only knew that from feeling Chris’s hands, which were as cold as ice packs. I felt like I could heat the room I was so hot. In between checking Chris and putting more wood on the fire, I drifted in and out of sleep, hoping for daylight every time I woke.

  Finally I opened my eyes to a dull light making its way in the window that wasn’t boarded up. I looked over at Chris and saw that his eyes were open, looking at me.

  ‘I’ve never been so glad to see your eyes, Chris,’ I whispered.

  I gripped the seat of the wooden chair and pulled myself up enough to get my good leg under me to stand on it, using the backrest to stabilise myself. From there I could just reach the bed, shuffling on my good leg until I could sit on the edge of the mattress. It was the technique I had been using all night long.

  In the weak light I could see that Chris’s lips were blue. I reached for his hand. There was no response when I took it and it was pale and blue tinged too. This wasn’t good. I had to go now. All I could do was hope that I could find help quickly and that Chris would hold on until then.

  His eyes were closing again, so I didn’t even know if he was aware that I was beside him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chris,’ I apologised again. ‘I’m going for help now. We’re going to get help. I’ve screwed up, but trust me that I would never let you down on purpose. I’ll bring someone I promise.’

  He gave the briefest nod. I would have missed it if I wasn’t so close to him. It was the most communication he had given me since the two words he had spelled to me the day before.

  The rain started just as I was outside the door. It was a typical heavy, winter rain. In seconds I was soaked to the skin – again.

  I had thought about the best way to get myself to the road while I stoked the fire for the last time before leaving Chris. I was not going to be able to hobble that far. My leg wouldn’t take any weight, even if I could stand the pain. I was going to have to drag myself.

  First I had stabilised my leg. I think I’d seen that on some movie or something. You had to keep a broken leg from moving. I had pulled two planks from the cupboard shelf. For once it was a good thing that every piece of wood was rotting. The boards willingly left the rusty nails holding them in place, trailing crumbling splinters behind them. Using the knife from my supply cupboard, I had then cut the straps off my backpack. With these I crudely tied the big splints onto my leg.

  So now I was inching crabwalk backwards, moving one hand at a time, and then pushing off with my good leg. It was slow, but it was working.

  I felt a bit like a husky dog pulling a big wooden sled, but at least the boards kept my leg kind of protected as I dragged it arou
nd bends and over branches along the narrow riverbank. What I had not thought to protect were the palms of my hands which quickly became red and raw from scraping on the rocks and sticks.

  Each backward ‘step’ was a mission. Left hand back, right hand back. Bring my left foot to my bottom. Push off, raising my body enough to move myself a few centimetres at a time. Wipe the streaming water out of my eyes so I could see again. Every ten pushes I gave myself a rest. My head felt foggy and my whole body weak. It was the thought of Chris, alone in the cottage that focused me though. I had to get help as soon as possible.

  I came to the first place along the bank that was too narrow for my splinted leg, so I had to drag myself back into the water. I was soaked to the skin already, but the icy water quickly numbed my hands so that I couldn’t feel the surface behind me. They slipped on the slimy rocks, plunging my shoulders into the freezing water. I struggled to catch my breath and to push myself backward back up to the bank.

  I didn’t know if I could do this. It was still so far and my arms were getting weaker. I just wanted to put my head down and stay right here. If it were not for Chris, I probably would have.

  Ten more pushes. Rest. Ten more pushes. Rest. Slowly, I kept going. Around each bend in the water. Then onto the bank to inch along a bit further.

  I cried in relief when I saw the opening in the forest that was the start of the path leading up to the road. I was going to make it. I knew I would.

  I think it probably took me another hour to make it to the road. The rain had finally stopped and I emerged backward from the heavy canopy of trees to sunshine.

  A running shoe flashed over me, landing beside my head.

  ‘Hey!’ a voice above me exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘Help,’ I managed. ‘My friend needs help.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I heard voices. They seemed to be very far away. I tried to open my eyes, but they just wouldn’t open. I didn’t want to wake up yet. My thoughts were hazy and I couldn’t bring them together to make sense. There was only this vague feeling that it was better to sink back into the dreamless place I had emerged from than to struggle out of it.

  When I opened my eyes, there was another pair looking right back at me. It took me a minute to focus and comprehend that they were Mom’s eyes.

  I raised my head and looked around. I was in a bed with a pale green curtain pulled around it. Mom was beside me in a chair and her head rested on the bed, her hands folded under her chin.

  ‘Welcome back,’ she whispered.

  ‘Where was I?’ I felt confused.

  ‘Places I will only dream of going,’ she said.

  It was slowly coming back to me now. Running from the school. The journey to the cabin. The fateful fall. The long night. The epic trip back to the road. Chris. Where was he?

  ‘Where is Chris? Is he okay?’ I hoped that I didn’t have to explain who he was.

  ‘He’s okay, Jo. Had the ride of his life I’d say,’ Mom said. ‘Paramedics picked him up in a helicopter.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mom. I screwed up,’ I apologised. ‘I guess I’m in pretty big trouble.’

  ‘I don’t think you can come close to matching me for screwing up.’

  She reached over and gave me an awkward hug. I wished I could enjoy this rare contact, but my arms hurt too much. I thought of my leg, which strangely didn’t seem to hurt, and tried to sit up to look at it. I couldn’t seem to do it.

  ‘Don’t try that yet,’ Mom said, finding the crank to raise the head of my bed. ‘They have you on the heavy-duty drugs, and believe me I know all about them. You don’t want to be moving too much.’

  My head slowly rose with the bed and I could see what must be my leg now. It was raised on a pillow and it was huge. There was a long red line down my shin and metal bits poking out by my ankle. I reached out to touch it, but was stopped by a clear tube attached to the back of my right hand.

  ‘Guess you have figured out by now that your running away days are over for a while,’ Mom pointed out the obvious. ‘It’s broken in a couple of places. I was a bit disappointed that there’s no plaster cast though. I was thinking we would be able to cover it with names of obscure authors.’

  I managed a smile. The anger I had felt toward her was gone. It was good to hear her quirky comment.

  She fluffed up a couple of pillows and set them on either side of me. Then she raised a plastic cup of water with a straw in it to my lips. I had never known her to be so mom-like. Only the slight shake of her hands and her eyes darting toward the curtain opening betrayed her usual nervous energy. When I dutifully took a sip, Mom sat down and took my free hand.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for hours to talk to you. I have to say it, while I still have the nerve. Are you okay to listen to my rambling one more time?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ve been terribly afraid, Jo. The last couple of months I’ve seen you growing. I was afraid to lose you. You’re always so strong, so capable. And you know I’m not. I don’t cope very well. We both know I’m a total disaster.’ She gave a bit of a laugh.

  ‘Mom, it’s okay, you’re––’

  She held up her hand, stopping me.

  ‘No need, Jo. Let me go on.’ She wasn’t ranting, just quietly saying what she had obviously been preparing to say. ‘I’ve used you so much to keep me centred. And it’s not fair. These last couple of days, I’ve met people in your life I didn’t even know existed – and they really care about you.’

  Tears were streaming down Mom’s face now. I wanted to slip into my usual role of comforting her, making things okay, but she was gripping my hand so tightly, I couldn’t move.

  ‘I might not show it in the right ways, but I categorically love you. I did from the moment I felt you do your first back flip in my uterus. I don’t want to trap you. I’ve talked to your grandma. If you want, you can go live with her. I’ll let you go, Jo.’

  ‘No, Mom!’ Now I was crying too. ‘I love that you’re weird and spontaneous and just … you.’

  I meant it. As inconvenient, and difficult as it was at times, I was connected with her in a way that couldn’t just be erased. I didn’t want the suffocating safety of living with Grandma. But I knew now that I didn’t want to be Mom’s caretaker either. It was too much for me. It was too much for both of us.

  ‘We need help. We never ask for it, but now we need to.’

  Mom just nodded, fresh tears streaming down her face.

  It was not until the next afternoon that I got to see Chris. I had spent the day before in and out of sleep, too foggy most of the time to think very clearly even in between doses of painkillers that knocked me back unconscious. But when I woke the next day, all I could think about was seeing with my own eyes that Chris was okay.

  I wasn’t sure that he would ever want to talk to me again though. Not only had I not been able to help him, but I had very nearly made things much worse. It seemed ludicrous now that I would have even considered it possible to just take him away to another city and find him some new life. How would I, on my own, have done that exactly? What had I even been looking for? During the long night in the cabin I had accepted that Chris might hate me forever for what I had done, and I had decided that it didn’t matter as long as he was alive. Now I was ready to face my mistakes and that meant seeing Chris, at least to apologise and say goodbye.

  As it turned out, that was not going to be so easy. I brought up the subject with the first nurse I saw, who came around at 6a.m. to check on me. It was all business in the hospital. First, my temperature was taken.

  ‘Good. It’s back to normal,’ the nurse commented.

  ‘What about Chris? I know he’s here. Is he okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I can’t actually comment on that sweetie,’ the nurse put me off, getting busy taking my blood pressure and checking the bag of fluids that flowed into my hand.

  ‘But I need to know. I need to see him,’ I insisted, fully awake and alert for the first time
since waking up in my pale green tent.

  ‘We have this thing called patient confidentiality,’ the nurse explained. ‘I can’t tell you that someone else, who is not related to you, might be recovering just fine. Someone might have had moderate hypothermia, but luckily been taken to hospital in time because of another person’s bravery, and I couldn’t tell you that. I also wouldn’t be able to tell you, just for example, if someone got very exited when they saw a picture of you on the news.’

  My first reaction was to smile. I wanted to hug the nurse for her kind gesture. Then I processed the rest of the information – my picture on the news. I knew I could be in very big trouble at school for taking Chris away. But the news?

  Apparently though, Chris and I disappearing hadn’t exactly gone unnoticed. When Mom came in later that morning, she handed me the local Saturday paper.

  ‘You didn’t make the front page, but page two isn’t such a bad effort,’ she said.

  I opened it to the second page. There was a picture of Chris – the one where he was painting, that had been in the brochure. Beside it was a picture of me – a bad school picture from the year before. Then there was a short article:

  Happy Ending for Missing Teens

  The mystery of the missing teen, Jo MacNamara, along with her disabled school mate Chris Fern, was solved yesterday when a jogger happened upon the girl while out for a morning run.

  ‘I nearly stepped on her. You just don’t expect to see someone lying on the path,’ said Samantha Jones.

  It seems that the pair had spent the night in the woods near Cedar Grove Estate after leaving Thorton Secondary in the early afternoon of Thursday. A bus driver on route 10 reported picking up the two at a stop near the school and dropping them at a stop in the estate.

  ‘I didn’t think about it at the time, but when I heard on the radio that they were missing, I remembered straight away that it was pretty unusual for a kid in a wheelchair not to have an adult with him,’ said Joe Fielding.