***
Stewart opened his eyes to a still dark room, but Jeff was standing over him. Stewart started back against the pillow on the couch arm. "What are you doing?" he croaked, his voice still asleep.
"Are you okay?" Jeff said.
Stewart rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I was making noise?"
“Yes, a lot of noise.”
“Sorry. Bad dreams.”
“Dude.”
“I know, I know.”
Jeff stumbled back towards his room and Stewart sighed. He had been prone to nightmares for years, always happening when he was stressed. Maybe he was more nervous about the student teaching than he had thought.
In the morning he put on the new khaki pants and button down shirt that he'd bought just for this. When he left the apartment, Jeff wasn't awake. He stopped at a drive through for a coffee, then headed for the school.
When he entered the building, a petite woman with curly brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses came out of an office and walked towards him.
"You must be Stewart," she said, holding out her hand.
Stewart shook it and said, "That's me." No doubt his professor had told her to be on the look out for a man in a wheelchair. Nice and easy to identify him.
"I'm Betsy," she said. "I'm told that you've already done some observation in the classroom." She started to walk down the hall. Stewart kept pace with her, the wheeling smooth and easy on the waxed tile floor. "Do you feel comfortable getting right into the teaching?"
"Sure," he said.
At the door to the classroom, Betsy held it open and waited for him to roll through. Fifteen pairs of eyes fixed on him as soon as he entered. He grinned, but kept his gaze on where he was going, the front of the classroom. There was a tall, thick slab of a desk typical of science classrooms. He pulled up in front of it and looked at the children while Betsy introduced him. "This is Mr. Masterson," she said. "He'll be doing lessons for the rest of the quarter."
These kids were eleven and twelve. Their eyes were curious, but they were waiting to see what he was like before anyone said anything. Stewart twisted in his chair and pulled a folder out of his backpack. There was no where to put the folder down, though, since the teacher desk was higher than his head. He rested it on his lap.
"I understand that this week you've been talking about the laws of motion. Who wants to fill me in?"
The girl front and center was happy to show off her knowledge. There was one in every classroom. When the girl was finished, Stewart took out some transparencies with cartoons illustrating motion. He pulled around the large desk to get to the screen above the blackboard. When he reached for the cord he found that its end was several inches above his hand.
He could feel all the eyes in the room on the back of his head. There was no way he was going to be able to reach the cord. Things like this made it look like he was less competent than an able-bodied teacher, even though it was the environment that was the problem, not him. Would the observing teacher report that he wasn’t fit for the job because of this? Could he ask her to tie an extra string to it for him? He swallowed, then turned around with a smile on his face. "Who wants to help me get the screen in place?"
Betsy rushed forward to do it while the kids just stared. Next time Stewart would have to find a way to involve the kids in helping him. It would connect them to him and make them feel more confident. There was still some awkwardness after the slides.
"Okay," Stewart said, "Look at me." He turned so he was sideways to the kids and lifted his hands off his wheels. "If I want to move forward, what would I do? Pull or push?"
That got their attention. Stop trying to ignore his wheelchair and use it instead. He showed them forward, backward, turning, and wheelies. Before the bell rang, Stewart said, "You've done great, so I'll open up for some not physics related questions."
"What's wrong with your legs?" The boy who asked got smacked in the arm by the girl sitting beside him.
"That's all right," Stewart said, "I'm not surprised it's on your mind. Have you guys taken biology yet?"
The kids nodded.
“Well, I was in an accident where my spine was broken. The nerves were torn and I was paralyzed. When you break a bone in your leg or your arm, it can heal. The spine doesn't do that. So my legs are affected only because they aren't getting information from my brain anymore.”
This opened a floodgate of questions and Stewart answered each one until the bell rang. After the kids had run out, Betsy said, “I think that went very well. I'll see you tomorrow.” Stewart breathed a sigh of relief. With the first day down, it was only going to get easier.
Even though Stewart told Jeff he had no intention of visiting his father, after school each weekday he found himself in the neighborhood. He took to parking across the street and just looking at the house. He hadn't been inside since he was fourteen years old and his father had sent him to the east coast to live with his aunt. Considering how badly his father wanted to erase the past, Stewart was surprised he still living in the house where Stewart's mother had died.
But he knew they were there. He saw the family coming and going. A perfect little unit without him. From afar he observed his two little step sisters who had grown so tall and beautiful that he would not have recognized them if he hadn't seen them with his father.
Stewart didn't know why he kept watching them. He didn't know what he expected to do, but he didn't plan to ever talk to them. When he got back to Jeff's each late afternoon, his friend never asked where he had been.
One Wednesday Stewart watched as Ellen returned to the house alone. He suspected she had dropped the girls off for some activity. She parked her car and got out.
Ellen was utterly different from how he remembered her. She was smaller and more meek. Without his cloud of anger he could see the twitchy worry on her face, the way she never looked sure of herself. How could he have screamed at this poor woman? Regret circled his chest. The only thing he had noticed about her back then was that she was so very different from his mother.
Then Stewart realized she was looking back at him. She frowned and began to walk towards his car. Stewart fumbled with his key, hurrying to get away before she realized who he was. She was beside the car before he could pull away, though.
She stood just to the side of the driver's door and frowned, looking in at him. He could practically see the gears turning in her head as she tried to work out why he looked familiar. Then her hand flew in front her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. She walked closer and he rolled down the window.
“Stewart?” she whispered.
“Hey, Ellen,” he said.
There was fear in the creases around her eyes. She was thinking about the same moment he was, he was sure of it. In the stairwell of the house behind her, late at night, the only light from the open door of a bathroom on the second floor, her thin body pressed against the wall, and his hands holding her there.
“It's been so long,” she said. She seemed to be having trouble figuring out what else to say. Though Stewart had seen his father most Christmases, he hadn't seen Ellen in twelve years. After that night when Ellen had confronted him for coming home wasted and he had left marks on her skin from shoving her against the wall, his father had shipped him off to South Carolina to live with Aunt Claire. He hadn't seen his step-mother since.
“You should come in,” she continued.
“It’s not that simple,” Stewart said, glancing behind her to the series of steps up to the front door of the house.
“It is. Really, Stewart. The past is the past. I’ve so wanted the chance to talk to you again.”
“No, I mean I really can’t.”
“What do you mean? We haven’t seen you, I mean I haven’t seen you in years, and here you are. Don’t you want to talk?”
“I can’t come in because of the stairs on the house.”
She tilted her head and frowned. He realized that she couldn?
??t see the logo on his license plate and her gaze hadn’t shifted from him long enough to take in the jumble of wheels and tubes on the seat beside him. She had no idea that he was paralyzed. “Wait a minute,” he said. “My dad never told you?”
“Told me what?”
“Well, isn’t that just like him?”
“I don’t understand.”
Ellen moved back as Stewart opened the car door and shoved his thin legs out onto the ground. The surprise movement caused one of them to start shaking. “I can’t walk,” he said.
Ellen opened her mouth then closed it again. She looked for a long time just at his legs. He followed her gaze down his jeans that looked like they would fit a twelve year old to his feet in sneakers on their sides, not flat against the ground as they would be if he were going to stand. He just let her look, gave her time to process it.
Slowly Ellen's eyes rose back to his face and Stewart could read every emotion behind her eyes: shock, relief, then pity. Her tense body relaxed at last. “How long?” she said.
“Seven years,” Stewart said.
“Richard never said.”
She was so easy to read. He saw her trying to reconcile that her husband had never mentioned her step-son almost dying and being paralyzed. “He wishes I didn't exist,” Stewart said, “It's okay.”
“I never wanted that, Stewart. I hope you know that. I wanted us to be a family.”
“It's not your fault. It's something between me and Dad.”
“Can I tell him you were here?”
“If you must,” Stewart said. “I wouldn't recommend it, though.”
“Are you living in the area now?”
“Yeah, I just moved back.”
“I'd like to be able to reach you. Maybe we could start fresh.”
Stewart nodded. “That's fair. Let me give you my phone number.”
Ellen took it, then reached forward and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Good to see you,” she said. He watched as she walked to the house, then he pulled his legs back in and drove to Jeff's.
The apartment was empty when he got back, so he did some school work and ate chips from the cabinet. When it started getting late he took off towards the bar. As he got close he saw Leah sitting on a curb outside. Her eyes were gazing in an unfocused way at the pavement in front of her. No one else was around. Stewart changed course and headed for her. He pulled up in front of her. Leah looked at his feet and slowly, unsteadily, her gaze rose up the rest of his body to his face.
"Hey, Stewart!" She smiled.
"How drunk are you?" he said.
She flicked her hand dismissively. He leaned forward and gripped her elbow while holding onto his wheelchair with his other hand to keep his balance.
"Let me get you home," he said. She stood, then leaned over him, her long dark hair brushing against the sides of his face.
"I knew you couldn't resist me," she whispered and her breath was warm against his forehead, smelling of beer and raspberries. He closed his eyes and clutched the seat of his chair for a moment to get control over himself. It isn't real, he reminded himself.
"Where do you live?" he said.
"This way." She started to walk forward, but she was unstable and her long legs seemed to be everywhere at once. Stewart was afraid he was going to run over her feet.
His phone began to ring. He frowned and grabbed it out of the pouch behind his legs. Pete's mother's name appeared on the screen. Stewart felt the guilt tightening in his chest. "Hang on," he said to Leah, "I need to take this." Leah nodded and promptly sat down on Stewart's lap. He tried to disentangle himself from her limbs as he answered, but she wrapped her lanky arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Ms. Morris," he said into the phone. "How are you?"
"I hate this time of year," she said.
"I do too," he said. It was the gray period in between when Pete died in the summer and his birthday near Christmas. Stewart had never told Ms. Morris that Pete's death was partly his fault. All she knew was that he had tried to save her son and had sacrificed the use of his legs to do it.
"Do you ever feel like you're in the wrong life and your real life is waiting for you to get back to it?"
"Yes," Stewart said. He knew exactly what she meant. Each morning while he did his stretches he had a moment while touching the legs that he couldn't feel where he disbelieved that this was his body.
Leah began to kiss his neck and he swatted at her with one hand.
“The house is so empty,” Ms. Morris said.
“Have you thought about moving to another place?”
“I don't think I can.”
“That's okay.”
“I want to visit you.”
“I'd like that,” Stewart said. He said goodbye and hung up the phone.
"Who was that?" Leah said.
"It was Pete's mother." Stewart pushed forward and Leah gripped him tighter to keep from falling off his lap. She frowned. "Why is she calling you? That was seven freakin years ago and you did what you could. I mean, look at you."
Stewart's jaw tightened as it did every time someone told him that he had done his best to save Pete. He swallowed hard and tried to keep his voice light. "She needs someone to listen to her."
"Whatever," Leah said and she returned to nibbling at his neck. The warmth of her breath sent shivers through his torso.
"Are there stairs at your place?" Stewart said, both to change the topic and because he wanted to know if he'd be able to see her in.
She grinned at him.
"Leah, focus. Are there stairs at your place?"
"I'm on the first floor," she said in a low voice, running her fingers through his hair and giving a mild tug.
"Pay attention so you can direct me," he said.
“Turn right up there.” She pointed towards several tall palm trees, outlined against an inky blue sky.
When they got to her door, Leah tried to fit her key in the lock, but kept missing. Stewart reached around her and touched her hand. The skin was as smooth as he remembered, buffed by the sand. He closed his hand over hers and directed the key into the lock.
The apartment was a single room, strewn with clothes. Stewart forced his wheels over the obstacles on the floor with some annoyance. He didn't care at this point if he left tire tracks on her clothes. He hoisted her off his lap and she landed on the mattress on the floor. She giggled, rolling onto her back and fixing him with her sparkling dark eyes.
“All the men around here are such jerks,” she said.
“Right. So you come to me.” Stewart sighed, but she was already passed out, her head back and her arms wide. If all the men are jerks, who do you turn to? The one guy you don’t see as a real man.
Stewart left, making sure the door was locked behind him.