Sean had taught you how. Also Hearts, Texas Hold ’Em, and Five-Card Stud. I’d been horrified, until I realized that playing Go Fish for hours at a time might officially qualify as torture. “So the Caribbean, then?”
As if you would ever travel unimpeded, as if you would ever take a vacation without thinking about this last one. “I was thinking of buying some books. Like Dr. Seuss stuff.”
You read at a sixth-grade level, even though your peers were still sounding out the alphabet. It was one of the few perks of OI: when you had to be immobile, you’d pore over books, or get on the Internet. In fact, when Amelia wanted to rile you, she called you Wikipedia. “Dr. Seuss?” I said. “Really?”
“They’re not for me. I thought we could ship them to that hospital in Florida. The only thing they had to read was Where’s Spot? and that gets really old after the fifth or sixth time.”
That left me speechless. All I wanted to do was forget about that stupid hospital, to curse the insurance nightmare it had led to and the fact that you would be stuck in the four-month hell of a spica cast-and there you were, already past the pity party. Just because you had every right to feel sorry for yourself didn’t mean you ever took the opportunity to do so. In fact, sometimes I was sure that the reason people stared at you with your crutches and wheelchair had nothing to do with your disabilities, and everything to do with the fact that you had abilities they only dreamed of.
The phone rang again-for the briefest of seconds I fantasized that it was the CEO of the health insurance company, calling to personally apologize. But it was Piper, checking in. “Is this a good time?”
“Not really,” I said. “Why don’t you call back in a few months?”
“Is she in a lot of pain? Did you call Rosenblad?” Piper asked. “Where’s Sean?”
“Yes, no, and I hope earning enough to cover the credit card bills for the vacation we didn’t get to have.”
“Well, listen, I’ll pick up Amelia for skating tomorrow, when I take Emma. One less thing for you to worry about.”
Worry about it? I hadn’t even known Amelia had practice. It wasn’t just on the bottom of the totem pole; it wasn’t even on the totem pole.
“What else do you need?” Piper asked. “Groceries? Gas? Johnny Depp?”
“I was going to say Xanax…but now I might take door number three.”
“It figures. You’re married to a guy who looks like Brad Pitt-with a better body-and you go for the long-haired artsy type.”
“Grass is always greener, I guess.” Absently I watched you reach for the old laptop computer beside you and try to balance it on your lap. It kept toppling over, because of the angle of your cast, so I grabbed a throw pillow and set it on your lap as a table. “Unfortunately, right now, my side of the fence is looking pretty grim,” I told her.
“Oops, I’ve got to go. Apparently, my patient’s crowning.”
“If I had a dollar for every time I heard that one-”
Piper laughed. “Charlotte,” she said. “Try taking down the fence.”
I hung up. You were typing feverishly with two fingers. “What are you doing?”
“Setting up a Gmail account for Amelia’s goldfish,” you said.
“I highly doubt he needs one…”
“That’s why he asked me to do this, instead of you…”
Take down the fence. “Willow,” I announced, “shut down the laptop. You and I are going skating.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“But you said-”
“Willow, do you want to argue, or do you want to skate?” You beamed, a smile the likes of which I had not seen on you since before we left for Florida. I pulled on a sweater and my boots, then brought my winter coat in from the mudroom to cover your upper half. I wound blankets around your legs and hoisted you onto my hip. Without the cast, you were elfin, slight. With it, you weighed fifty-three pounds.
The one thing a spica cast was good for-practically made for-was balancing you on my hip. You leaned away from me a little bit, but I could still wrap one arm around you and maneuver us through the foyer and down the front steps.
When Amelia saw us coming, tortoise-slow, navigating hummocks of snow and patches of black ice, she stopped spinning. “I’m going skating,” you sang, and Amelia’s eyes flew to mine.
“You heard her.”
“You’re taking her skating. Aren’t you the one who wanted Dad to fill in the skating pond? You called it cruel and unusual punishment for Willow.”
“I’m taking down the fence,” I said.
“What fence?”
I wrapped the blankets underneath your bottom and gently set you down on the ice. “Amelia,” I said, “this is the part where I need your help. I want you to watch her-don’t take your eyes off her-while I go grab my skates.”
I sprinted back to the house, stopping only at the threshold to make sure that Amelia was still staring at you, just like I’d left her. My skates were buried in a boot bin in the mudroom-I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d used them. The laces knotted them together like lovers; I slung them over my shoulder and then hoisted the computer desk chair with its rolling casters into my arms. Outside, I tipped it over, so that the seat was balanced on my head. I thought of African women in their bright skirts, with baskets of fruit and bags of rice set squarely on their heads as they walked home to feed their families.
When I got to the little pond, I set the chair on the ice. I adjusted the back and the arms so that they sloped and flared to accommodate your cast. Then I lifted you up and set you into the snug mesh seat.
I sat down to lace up my skates. “Hold on, Wiki,” Amelia said, and you grabbed the arms of the chair. She stood behind you and started to move across the ice. The blankets around your legs ballooned, and I called out to your sister to be careful. But Amelia already was. She was leaning over the back of the chair so that one arm held you close in the seat while she skated faster and faster. Then she quickly reversed direc tion, so that she was facing you, pulling the arms of the chair as she skated backward.
You tilted your head back and closed your eyes as Amelia spun you in a circle. Amelia’s dark curls streamed out from beneath her striped wool cap; your laugh fluted across the ice like a bright banner. “Mom,” you called out. “Look at us!”
I stood up, my ankles wobbling. “Wait for me,” I said, growing steadier with every step.
Sean
On my first day back at work, I came into the locker room to find a Wanted poster hanging near my dry-cleaned uniform. Written across the photo of my face, in bright red marker, was the word APPREHENDED. “Very funny,” I muttered, and I ripped down the flyer.
“Sean O’Keefe!” said one of the guys, pretending to hold a microphone in his hand as he held it up to another cop. “You’ve just won the Super Bowl. What are you going to do next?”
Two fists, pumped in the air. “I’m going to Disney World!”
The rest of the guys cracked up. “Hey, your travel agent called,” one said. “She’s booked your tickets to Gitmo for your next vacation.”
My captain hushed them all up and came to stand in front of me. “Seriously, Sean, you know we’re just pulling your chain. How’s Willow?”
“She’s okay.”
“Well, if there’s anything we can do…,” the captain said, and he let the rest of his sentence fade like smoke.
I scowled, pretending that this didn’t bother me, that I was in on the joke instead of being the laughingstock. “Don’t you guys have something constructive to do? What do you think this is, the Lake Buena Vista PD?”