Dad took a picture of us, and the next day I pasted the photo to a big poster I made to celebrate the game. The poster’s still hanging on my bedroom walclass="underline" Giants 21, Patriots 17. Below the score is a colored-pencil drawing of Giants quarterback Eli Manning—it’s a pretty good likeness, if I may say so myself—and the photo of me and Ryan, our faces flushed and manic from so much Pepsi.
On the opposite wall of my bedroom are five more homemade posters commemorating the next five Super Bowls. The Super Sunday party became an annual tradition at our house, and some of the games were almost as exciting as the Giants-Patriots matchup, but none of the parties was as good as the first. For one thing, fewer people attended each year. Only five kids came to our house for Super Bowl XLIX, and I got the feeling that most of them didn’t want to be there. Dad had pleaded with their parents, forcing them to drag their kids to the crippled boy’s party.
But the biggest disappointment came the following year, when I was in ninth grade. Ryan had joined the Yorktown High football team by then, and Coach McGrath hosted his own Super Bowl party, strictly for team members. When Ryan told me about it, he was practically crying, but I assured him it was okay. I said I was getting tired of the parties anyway. That year, only two people came to my house: Brittany and a younger boy who also had muscular dystrophy. Dad had met the kid’s parents during one of my checkups at Westchester Medical.
The next year—which turned out to be my last at Yorktown High—I didn’t invite anyone. I didn’t even want to watch the Super Bowl. But five minutes before kickoff time, someone rang our doorbell. Dad went to answer it and found Brittany standing on the doorstep, holding a bag of tortilla chips and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. With a casual smile, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, she stepped inside and went to our couch, and we started watching the game.
Or at least we tried to watch it. I couldn’t concentrate. I was too busy wondering why Brittany had come and what was going through her head. And she seemed a little distracted too. At halftime she asked me, “Are you going to make a poster for the game?” I replied, “Yeah, I guess so,” and she said, “I want to help you.” So we found a sheet of poster board and my set of colored pencils, but this time I didn’t draw a picture of Eli Manning or any other player. Brittany leaned against the cushions of the couch and I drew her portrait.
When I was done, I drew another picture of her, and then a third, all three sketches lined up left-to-right on the poster. I paid no attention to the football game and honestly can’t remember who won. Brittany kept posing for me until the end of the post-game show, and then she stood up to go. Dad offered to drive her home, but she insisted on walking.
That poster is also on my wall. I have to admit, the three portraits of Brittany aren’t as skilled as my drawing of Manning. My right hand lost some of its dexterity in the five years after Super Bowl XLVI. But the pictures are good enough for me to recognize her: the long blond hair, the high cheekbones, the eyes that are blue in one drawing and gray-green in the two others.
As I stare at the portraits now, I realize why Brittany came to my last Super Bowl party. She wasn’t just being kind to me—she was also avoiding something. She turned down Dad’s offer to drive her home because she had no intention of going back there. After leaving our place, she probably went to another friend’s house or another party. Anything to avoid going home. I feel so stupid for not figuring this out until now. Brittany’s parents had always seemed okay to me. Maybe a little uptight, but that wasn’t unusual. I never saw how unhappy she was.
I’m still thinking about her when I hear a knock on the bedroom door. Startled, I turn my head toward the noise. I feel like I’m waking up again, this time from an even deeper sleep. “Uh, yeah?” I mutter. “Who is it?”
“It’s Mom. Can I come in?”
I’m startled again. Dad’s usually the one who takes care of me in the morning, washing and dressing me, and helping me get into my wheelchair. Whenever Mom tries to do it, she gets frustrated and bursts into tears. “Yeah, sure,” I answer, trying to prop myself up. “Come in.”
The door opens and Mom steps into the room, holding a breakfast tray. On the tray are a couple of chocolate croissants and a cup of orange juice. I’m impressed—she’s done everything right. Croissants are a good choice for me because they’re easy to hold. And the orange juice is in a sippy cup so it can’t spill.
“Wow, this is great,” I say. “And it’s not even my birthday.”
Smiling, Mom sets the tray on my desk. She looks a lot better than she did the last time I saw her, at Westchester Medical. She’s wearing gray slacks and a maroon blouse. Her hair is tied in a neat ponytail, and she’s put some lipstick on her mouth.
“Well, I figured I’d give your father a break today. He’s still asleep, believe it or not.” She gently hooks her hands under my armpits and pulls me up to a sitting position against the headboard. “He was on the phone for nearly an hour after you went to bed last night. I kept telling him to let the answering machine take the calls, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Dad was probably conferring with General Hawke or Colonel Peterson. Probably talking about me and the other doomed teenagers, estimating how many of us will decide to become Pioneers. I still don’t want to think about it, so I point at the croissants. “Those look delicious. Where did you get them?”
“I went to that new bakery in Peekskill yesterday. While you and your father were away.” She picks up one of the croissants and slips it into my good hand. “Go ahead, try it.”
I feel an odd surge of delight. I’m remembering all the times my mother gave me treats when I was little. She loved to bake cookies and slip them into my hand while they were still warm. I miss those cookies. And I miss the woman who made them.
I bite into the croissant. It’s nothing special, but I put a big smile on my face. “Hey, that’s fantastic.”
“I’m glad you like it.” She leans against the edge of my desk. There’s nowhere to sit in my room except the wheelchair, and I know she won’t sit there. She hates to even look at the thing. “You deserve something nice after everything you’ve been through. Dad says you were very brave out there in Colorado.”
I shrug and take another bite of the croissant. “I don’t know about that. All I did was sit there and listen.”
Mom looks me in the eye. “And what did you think about what they said? What the general said, I mean.”
She’s determined to talk about it. And I can understand why. I have to make my decision by tomorrow morning. She wants to know which way I’m leaning.
I lower my hand, resting the half-eaten croissant on my lap. “It’s definitely creepy. And there’s no guarantee that the procedure will work. It failed when they tried it on adults.”
She nods vigorously. “That’s right. The Army killed those men.”
“No, not really. I asked Dad about it on the flight home, and he said those volunteers also had terminal illnesses. The Army won’t consider you for the procedure unless you have less than six months to live.”
“It’s still murder, Adam. Whatever time they had left, those men should’ve lived it. They should’ve lived to the natural end of their days instead of being sacrificed in some unholy experiment.”
Mom’s voice rises. Now she’s speaking in what I call her “God voice.” She wasn’t very religious when I was younger, but when I was thirteen she discovered a website called Comfort of the Blessed Hope. She started ordering inspirational books from the site and making large donations to the minister who ran it. Although Dad wasn’t happy about this, he noticed that the religious books seemed to ease Mom’s depression, so he didn’t object.