Left Neglected Part 32

CHAPTER 37.

Heidi opens the bottle of wine she gave to me on my last day at Baldwin and pours us each a gla.s.s. She then carries both gla.s.ses while I "carry" my granny cane. I can feel her watching me as we move from the kitchen to the living room.

"Your walk is much better," she says. "Much smoother and a lot less drag."

"Thanks," I say, surprised by the compliment.

A lot of things are a lot smoother and less of a drag now than they were four and a half months ago-finding the food on the left side of my plate, threading my left arm into my left shirtsleeve, typing, reading. But the improvements don't happen overnight. They're slow, small, sneaky, and shy, and only acc.u.mulate into something remarkable after weeks and months, not days. So I hadn't noticed that my walk has improved since Baldwin. It's nice to hear.

We sit down on the couch, and Heidi pa.s.ses me my wine.

"To your continued recovery," she says, raising her gla.s.s.

"I'll definitely drink to that," I say, holding my gla.s.s out in front of me but waiting for Heidi to do the clinking (I'd probably miss and spill my wine all over her).

She taps my gla.s.s with hers, and we drink to my continued recovery. She's probably the only health care professional at this point who openly believes that this is possible. Everyone else either says nothing, avoids giving any kind of concrete prediction, or they say maybe, but then they drown the maybe in a list of buts, caveats, and I don't want to give you any false hope speeches. And denial is a big problem. No one wants me to live in denial, to go on believing that I might get better if the odds are overwhelmingly against it. G.o.d forbid. But then, maybe Heidi doesn't hold out hope for my full recovery as an occupational therapist. Maybe she believes in the possibility because she's my friend. When it comes to Neglect, I'll take the hope of a friend over the cautious prognosis of a physiatrist any day.

"How are things at Baldwin?" I ask.

"Pretty much the same. We have a new woman with Neglect. She's sixty-two, had a stroke. Hers is a lot worse than yours, and she has some other deficits. She's been with us three weeks and is still completely unaware that she has it, thinks she's perfectly healthy. She's going to be a real challenge to rehabilitate."

I think back to those early days at Baldwin, when I was the new woman with Neglect. It feels like a million years ago and just yesterday. Without knowing anything else about this new woman with Neglect, I feel a connection to her, like when I hear of someone who went to Middlebury or HBS or when I meet someone from Welmont. However different we are, we share a similar life experience.

There are times now when I forget that I have Left Neglect, but it's not because of an unconscious unawareness like it was in the beginning. I know I have this. So I don't try to walk without my cane, thinking that my left leg works. I know I need help getting dressed, so I don't do it by myself and then leave the house with my shirt half on and my left pant leg dragging behind me. And I don't use the stove because I know it's dangerous (not that I used it much before). I know that I need to constantly remind myself that there is a left side, that I have a left side, to look left, scan left, and go left, and even if I do, there's a good chance that I'm still registering only what's on the right.

But when I'm not walking or reading or searching for the carrots on my dinner plate, when I'm relaxing in the sunroom or talking with the kids or having a gla.s.s of wine on the couch with a friend, I feel perfectly healthy. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with me. I'm not a woman with Neglect. I'm Sarah Nickerson.

"How's Martha?" I ask.

"Oh, she misses you terribly," she says, smiling.

"I'm sure."

"I'm glad we finally found the time to do this," she says.

"Me, too."

Heidi has called to check on me at least once a week since I came home from Baldwin. She's also stopped by many times, usually when dropping off Charlie after basketball. But between her work schedule and me being in Vermont every weekend and school vacation days, we hadn't found time to get together for our wine date until now, almost the end of March.

"I love your house," she says, having a look around the living room.

"Thank you."

"I can't believe you might move from here."

"I know. It'll be a big change if it happens."

"Tell me about the job."

"It's the director of development for NEHSA. I'd be responsible for developing and growing their strategies for raising funds. So finding corporate sponsors, donors, leveraging relationships to help market the program, writing grants. It's twenty hours a week, and I could work at least half of those hours from home."

"It sounds like the perfect job for you."

"It really does. All the business skills I've acc.u.mulated at HBS and Berkley give me the ability to do the job well. And my disability gives me the empathy and experience as someone who has benefited from NEHSA to do the job with pa.s.sion. I'd be contributing in a necessary way to an important organization that I believe in. And the hours are perfect."

"What about Bob? Would he be able to work at NEHSA, too?" she asks.

"No, no. The organization is mostly volunteer. And he'd want something else anyway."

Heidi checks her watch. My old watch. It looks good on her.

"Where is Bob?" she asks, realizing the late time.

The kids and my mother are already in bed.

"Still at work."

"Wow, late night."

"Yeah."

I don't elaborate. While it's not atypical for Bob to have stretches where he needs to work late every night for a month, this particular stretch began right about when I turned down the job at Berkley, and the timing feels too exact to be coincidental. He could be working extra hours to ensure that he, as our sole breadwinner, doesn't get laid off, or he could be under even more extreme pressure to help his weak company survive to fight another day, but I think he's simply avoiding me and my job offer in Vermont.

"When would you go?"

"Well, NEHSA needs an answer from me ASAP, but I wouldn't need to start until the fall. So we have some time."

"So, what are you going to tell them?"

"I want to tell them yes, but I can't unless Bob feels confident that he can find something up there, too. We'll see. If it doesn't work out, I'm sure I can find something around here," I say, not sure of this at all.

"What about your mom? Would she go with you?"

"She's going back to the Cape for the summer, but she's coming back to live with us after Labor Day."

"And what does she think about living in Vermont?"

"Oh, she loves it up there. Better than here."

"And what will you do for help in the summer?"

"If we're in Vermont, Mike Green's niece is home from college for the summer and needs a part-time job. She's nannied for years, she's in school for nursing, and Mike thinks she'd be great with me and the kids. And if we're here, Abby will be back from New York in May and said she could nanny for the summer."

"Sounds like you've got everything lined up but Bob."

"Yup."

Everything but Bob.

CHAPTER 38.

It's the last weekend in March, and while most parts of the country are enjoying the beginning of spring, Cortland is celebrating its annual Forever Winter Festival. Bob, Charlie, Lucy, and I just finished eating lunch in the main lodge after a full morning on the slopes. My mother and Linus spent the morning at the festival, and now Bob and the kids want to go, but I'm feeling too tired. We decide that Bob will drop me off at home for a nap, and he and the kids will go without me.

The festival is a weeklong affair, quintessential small-town Vermont and great family fun. There are snowman contests, bonfires and s'mores, hot cocoa and snow cones, ice-skating on the lake, cross-country ski races, and live music. And all the local businesses sell their goods at the festival market-maple syrup, fudge, jams, cheese, quilts, paintings, sculpture. We're in the car, and I'm reading aloud from the festival brochure to get the kids excited.

"Ooo, they're having the dogsled races today!"

"Maybe I could be a professional dogsled musher," Bob says.

"Yeah!" yell out Charlie and Lucy.

"And ice fishing," I say, trying to stay on the subject of the festival.

"I could be a frozen lake fisherman," Bob says.

"Yeah!" cheer Charlie and Lucy.

"Bob," I say.

"Or I could raise cows in the yard and make ice cream!"

"Yeah!" they yell, giggling.

I laugh, too, but only because I can't help picturing Bob with his shirtsleeves rolled up, trying to milk a cow.

"And I could have my own ice cream truck, and I'd be the ice cream man!"

"Yeah!" they shout.

"Do that one, Daddy," says Lucy.

"Yeah, be an ice cream man!" says Charlie.

"The votes are in, babe. I'm Vermont's newest ice cream man. I'm going to need a white truck and a hat."

Again, I crack up, picturing Bob in the hat. I've also added red suspenders.

It feels good to joke around about this topic. Our conversations about Bob's job and Welmont versus Cortland have been charged and stressful with no resolution as of yet. He's at least open to the idea now, and he's actively looking for a job in Vermont. But he's picky. If he wasn't finding anything suitable enough for him in Boston, I have less and less faith with each pa.s.sing day that he's going to find anything acceptable to him here.

We pull into our driveway, and Bob helps me out with the car still running.

"You got it from here?" he asks, handing me my cane.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Will you bring me home some fudge?"

"You got it. I'll watch to make sure you get in."

I walk down the gravel pathway to the front door. I let go of the cane, turn the k.n.o.b, and push the door open. Then I turn and wave good-bye as Bob pulls out of the driveway. I'm getting better and more confident at standing without relying on the cane or holding on to anything, and it feels thrilling to experience even a few successful seconds of standing on my own two feet.

As I walk through the mudroom, I hear a high-pitched whistling sound. It sounds like the whistle from one of Linus's battery-operated trains, but he should be smack in the middle of his three-hour nap. He'd better not be up playing with trains.

"Mom?" I call out, but not too loudly in case he's napping as he should be.

I walk into the living room. My mother's asleep on the couch. Linus must be up in his crib. Good. But the whistling sound is louder in here. And constant. Maybe the b.u.t.ton to one of his electronic trains is stuck pressed in. I look around the living room for the train, but I don't see one anywhere. The room is clean, and all of Linus's toys are put away. I check the TV. It's off.

I granny cane over to Linus's toy box and listen. The whistle doesn't appear to be coming from Linus's toys. I listen again, trying to localize the sound. I can't figure it out. I'm more curious about what the heck it is than annoyed or worried by it. It's not so loud that it's disturbing Linus or my mother, and I'm sure I wouldn't hear it at all from my bedroom. But what is it?

I cane, step, and drag myself into the kitchen and listen. The sound is definitely coming from in here. I open and close the refrigerator. Nope, it's not that. I look across the floor, the table, and the counter for one of Linus's trains. Everything is clean. No trains. No electronic toys. No cell phones. No iPods.

I look at the stove top. Nothing there. Then I remember to look left, and I see the teakettle sitting on a bright red burner, steam billowing out from its spout. I look across the counter again, this time remembering to scan left, and I notice my mother's empty mug, the string and paper square from her tea bag hanging over the side.

My heart drops into my stomach, and my skin goes clammy. I turn the k.n.o.b to Off and move the kettle to the right. The whistling stops.

I granny cane back into the living room. I listen. Everything is quiet. I sit on the edge of the couch next to my mother and know, even before I hold her hand, that she's not sleeping.

CHAPTER 39.

We sold our house in Welmont and moved to Cortland in June, after Charlie and Lucy finished the school year. Bob took the summer off, Charlie and Lucy spent mornings at the YMCA camp, all three kids played in the yard or swam in Lake Willoughby most afternoons, and I learned to kayak in the same lake through NEHSA's summer recreation program. Even though my mother had always planned to spend the summer back at her own house on Cape Cod, it still felt strange to be here without her. I kept expecting to see her walk through the front door, for her to bring me the latest People, to hear the sound of her laugh. I still do. I had imagined making at least a couple of road trips with Bob and the kids to visit her over the summer. I'd imagined spending time with her on the beach, eating fresh tomatoes from her garden, meeting her Red Hat friends. And when we weren't together with her on the Cape, I'd imagined that we'd Skype.

It's now the first week of November, past peak foliage and mountain biking season and at least a month before there's enough snow on the mountain. It's a sleepy month in a town that's drowsy all year, but I don't mind. Bob and I are seated at our favorite table by the fireplace at Cesca's. We didn't need reservations, we didn't have any trouble finding a parking s.p.a.ce right in front of the restaurant, and we didn't have to wait for our favorite table. We're the only two people here, partly because it's so early in the evening, but the place won't fill up at any point tonight.

Bob slides a small white box across the table.

"What's this?" I ask, not expecting a gift for this occasion.

"Open it," he says.