Left Neglected Part 25

"No."

"Anyone next to Brad Pitt?" she asks in a flirty voice, so I know it's not a yes or a no, but a who answer.

Without trying to find out who is there, I go with the odds and take a guess.

"Angelina."

"Nope," she says, urging me in her tone to try again.

Huh. I don't see anyone. Okay. Look left, scan left, go left. I imagine searching for my red bookmark even though I don't have it here. Oh my G.o.d. Look at that. There he is.

"George Clooney."

I wouldn't think that even a traumatic brain injury could keep me from noticing him.

"Yeah, this will be good practice for me," I say, enjoying George's mischievous, smiling eyes.

"Good, I'm proud of you," says my mother.

She's never said that she was proud of me before. Not for graduating from college, not for going to Harvard Business School, not for my impressive job or my not-nearly-as-impressive-but-still-adequate parenting skills. The first time she ever tells me that she's proud of me, it's for reading People magazine. That might be the strangest thing a parent has ever been proud of.

"Sarah, this is beautiful," says my mother, her attention shifting to my painting.

"Thanks."

"Truly, you're talented. Where did you learn to do this?"

"I took a couple of cla.s.ses in college."

"You're really good."

"Thanks," I say again, watching her face enjoy what I've painted.

"I even like how the left sides of things are missing or fade off."

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

Look left, scan left, go left. I find the left edge of the canvas with my right hand and then move my attention across the picture from left to right. The first thing I notice is the sky-completely untouched white canvas at the left border, gradually turning a cloudy gray, becoming almost clear day blue by the time I hit the right edge. It looks almost as if a foggy morning were burning off from right to left across the horizon. The maple trees have no branches on the left, the pine trees only half their green needles. And although the conservation land extends many acres beyond what the eye can see in either direction, the forest in my painting grows only on the right. The left side of each rolling hill rolls flat, and the left side of the shed sort of dissolves into nothingness. I forgot to paint the entire rooster weathervane. It stands on the left half of the shed's roof.

I sigh and pluck a soaking brush from my gla.s.s pickle jar.

"Well, this will be good practice, too," I say, wondering where to begin filling in the blanks.

"No, don't. You should leave it. It's good the way it is."

"It is?" "It's interesting to look at, sort of haunting or mysterious, but not creepy mysterious. It's good. You should leave it the way it is."

I look at my painting again and try to see it as my mother does. I try, but now instead of noticing only the right side of everything, I notice everything that is missing. Everything that is wrong.

Omissions. Flaws. Neglect. Brain damage.

"You want to watch the end of the kids' lessons later and have lunch at the lodge?" asks my mother.

"Sure," I say.

I continue to stare at my painting, at the brushstrokes, the shading, the composition, trying to see what my mother sees.

Trying to see what is good.

CHAPTER 27.

I'm sitting at a booth inside the base lodge at Mount Cortland, my right shoulder pressed up against the window overlooking the south side of the mountain. My mother is sitting across from me knitting an impractical but adorable ivory wool sweater for Linus, who is asleep in his umbrella stroller. I'm amazed that he can sleep through all the activity and noise in here. It's nearing lunchtime, and the room is starting to become crowded with chatty, hungry skiers, all stomping in their heavy boots on the hardwood floor. There are no rugs or curtains or decorative fabric of any kind in the lodge, nothing to absorb sound, and so every boot step and every voice bounces all over the room, creating an unmusical reverberation that will eventually give me a headache.

My mother noticed a workbook of word search puzzles in the checkout line at the supermarket yesterday, and remembering that Heidi used to give word searches to me at Baldwin, she bought it. She loves any chance she gets to be my therapist. I'm working on one of the pages now, and I've found eleven of the twenty words. I a.s.sume the remaining nine are hidden somewhere on the left side, but I don't feel like hunting them down. I decide to daydream out the window instead.

It's turned into a bright and sunny day made even brighter by the reflection of the sun off so much white, and it takes a minute for my squinting eyes to adjust. I look around for the kids at their lessons on Rabbit Lane over by the Magic Carpet lift and spot Charlie in the middle of the hill on his snow-board. He falls backward onto his bottom or forward onto his knees every few seconds, but for the few seconds in between while he's actually up, he appears to be moving really well, and it does look fun. Good thing he has young bones and is only about four feet tall, not very far from the ground he keeps crashing down onto. I can't imagine how sore and bruised and worn out I'd be if I were to fall that many times. I think about these last couple of months. Well, maybe I can imagine it.

Then I find Lucy waiting at the top of the lift, probably for instruction. Unlike her fearless brother, she won't move one ski on her own without express permission. She's still doing nothing, and I've lost sight of Charlie, so my attention drifts to the right, as it's p.r.o.ne to do, to the bottom of Fox Run and Wild Goose Chase, my two favorite trails. I watch the skiers, indistinct blobs of red, blue, and black, sailing on a sea of white to the bottom, then snaking into the line for the quad lift in front of me.

I wish I were out there. I watch one couple, I a.s.sume a husband and wife, come to a stop side by side just outside my window. Their cheeks and noses are pink, and they're smiling and talking. I can't make out what they're saying. For some reason, I want them to look up and notice me, but they don't. They turn back toward the mountain and get into the lift line, sliding forward a few feet at a time, getting ready to go again. They remind me of Bob and me. Everything around me is bombarding my senses, triggering an almost overwhelming urge to get my shiny, new skis and get on that mountain- the sounds of the lodge, the smell of French fries, the intense brilliance of the outdoor light, imagining the feel of the cold mountain air inside my lungs and pressed against my cheeks and nose, watching the young couple's shared exhilaration after finishing a great run. I want to be out there.

You will be. But I'm not so sure of myself. I'm having a hard enough time walking on flat, nonskid floors with the a.s.sistance of my granny cane. You WILL be, insists pre-accident me, her tone leaving zero room for any other acceptable possibility. Pre-accident me is so black-and-white, and it occurs to me that, like Charlie, she has more confidence than the goods to back it up. You will be. This time it's Bob's voice in my head, a.s.sured and encouraging. Reluctantly, I believe him.

"What's that?" asks my mother.

"What?" I ask, wondering if I said any of what I was just thinking about aloud.

"Out there. That person coming down the mountain sitting down."

I scan the blobs on the hill and don't see what she's talking about.

"Where?"

"There." She points. "And there's a skier standing behind it."

I finally locate what she's looking at. Closer now, it looks like the front person is sitting on a sled attached to a ski, and the person behind is skiing and holding on to some kind of handle attached to the sled, most likely steering it.

"Probably someone who's handicapped," I say.

"Maybe you could do that," she says, her excited voice bouncing across the table at me like a ping-pong ball.

"I don't want to do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to ski sitting down."

"Well, maybe there's a way for you to do it standing up."

"Yeah, it's called skiing."

"No, I mean a special way."

"You mean a handicapped way."

"I mean, maybe there's a way for you to ski now."

"I don't want to ski now unless I can do it the normal way, and I'm not ready. I don't want to be a handicapped skier."

"You're the only one using that word, Sarah."

"It doesn't matter. We don't own any 'special' equipment, and I'm not investing thousands of dollars in some kind of ski sled that I don't want to use in the first place."

"Maybe they have them here. Excuse me, miss?"

My mother flags the attention of a young woman walking by our table. She's wearing the signature red and black Mount Cortland staff ski jacket.

"See that person out there skiing sitting down? did that person rent that equipment here?"

"Yes, it's from NEHSA, New England Handicapped Sports," she says. She glances over at my granny cane. "It's in the building next door. I can take you over if you want."

"No thanks," I say before my mother has a chance to start packing up our things. "Just curious, thanks."

"Can I bring you some information about it?"

"No, we're good, thanks," I say.

"Okay, well, NEHSA's right next door if you change your mind," she says and walks away.

"I think we should check it out," says my mother.

"I don't want to."

"But you've been dying to ski."

"That's not skiing, it's sitting."

"It's more like skiing than sitting in this booth. It's outside. It's a way down the mountain."

"No thanks."

"Why not just give it a try?"

"I don't want to."

I wish Bob were here. He'd have choked the life out of this conversation in its first couple of breaths. The "skier" and the dogsled musher behind him come to a stop in front of our window. The musher is wearing the same red and black jacket worn by the woman we just spoke with. An instructor. The "skier's" legs are strapped together and onto the sled. The "skier" is probably paralyzed from the waist down. I'm not paralyzed. Or maybe the "skier" is an amputee, and one or both of his legs are prosthetics. I have both of my legs. The "skier" and the instructor talk for a minute. The "skier" has a huge smile on his face. The instructor then guides the "skier" directly to the front of the line, where they both board the quad lift with far more ease than I expected.

I watch them ride up the mountain and follow their ascent until their chair gets too small to distinguish. I spend the next half hour before lunch watching skiers and s...o...b..arders zigzagging down Fox Run and Wild Goose Chase. But if I have to be honest, I'm not simply watching the activity on the mountain with pa.s.sive eyes. I'm searching for the sitting "skier" and his musher. But I don't see them again.

I continue to steal glances out the window all through lunch but still catch no sight of them. They must've moved over to a different set of trails. I check one more time as we're packing up our things to leave for home. I still don't see them.

But if I close my eyes, I can see the "skier's" smiling face.

CHAPTER 28.

It's nearing the end of January and Bob and I are back in Ms. Gavin's first-grade cla.s.sroom, but this time she's provided us with adult-sized chairs, and my shoes are arguably as ugly as hers. The school year at Welmont Elementary is divided into thirds, and we're about halfway through the second third. Ms. Gavin asked to meet with us to discuss Charlie's progress before the next report cards go home.

We sit down, and Bob reaches over and takes hold of my left hand. Ms. Gavin acknowledges us before she begins with a kind smile, probably interpreting our hand-holding to mean that we're nervous and bracing for the impact of discouraging news, a sweet offering of emotional support. While I detect an element of anxious solidarity in Bob's touch, I think the primary reason he's holding my hand is to keep it still.

Most of the time, my left arm dangles straight down from my shoulder, useless but not calling attention to itself either. But recently, my left hand has started showing an interest in conversation, and unbeknownst to me, it gestures.

My outpatient therapists, Heidi, my mother, and Bob all think this is a good development, a positive sign of life returning to my left side, and I agree, but to me it's also a freaky new symptom because it feels like someone other than me is the puppeteer. Sometimes the gestures are small expressions that add appropriate emphasis to whatever I'm saying, but other times, the movements are completely disconnected from any decipherable content, and my arm just seems to aimlessly, even spastically, roam around. Yesterday, during a shamefully pa.s.sionate discussion about Kate Plus Eight with my mother, my left hand wandered onto my left b.o.o.b and stayed there. And I only know this now because, after Bob and my mother shared a long, eye-watering laugh at my expense, my mother let me in on the big joke and removed my hand from my b.o.o.b for me (since I couldn't let go of my own volition). So Bob might be holding my hand in loving support, but he's probably more concerned with keeping me from feeling myself up in front of Ms. Gavin. For either reason, I'm grateful.

"We're all so glad you're back home, Mrs. Nickerson," says Ms. Gavin.

"Thank you."

"How are you doing?" she asks.

"Good."

"Good. I was so worried when I heard what happened. And with you not being home for so long, I was also concerned that Charlie would start acting out and slip even further behind."

I nod and wait for her to elaborate on the itemized details of his acting out and the significant extent of his slippage. Bob squeezes my hand. He's waiting, too.

"But he's been doing really well. I'd say he does better in the mornings than the afternoons, and this could be because the medication spikes just after he takes it in the mornings and tapers off as the day goes on, or it could be that he's more tired by the afternoon, but overall I can definitely see an improvement."

Wow. I was hoping all along to hear this kind of news about Charlie but hadn't dared to hope it aloud. He's been doing so much better at home-finishing his homework in less than an hour and without major negotiations or drama, remembering to put his shoes on if I ask him to put his shoes on, not losing more than half his marbles in a day-but we didn't know if any of these behavioral improvements at home were translating to the cla.s.sroom. Bob gives my hand a happy shake, and we wait for Ms. Gavin to elaborate on the details and extent of Charlie's improvement.

"He's doing better at following instructions, and he's more often than not able to finish the worksheets I give to the cla.s.s."