On my roll-off.
On mastering ramps.
By Thursday I’m confident enough to leave my cane at home, which feels like a huge step forward, and random people who I don’t even know tell me how awesome it is to see me walking.
But then comes a huge step back.
At lunch Kyro breaks it to Fiona and me that Gavin’s newspaper article has brought in only forty dollars. “I don’t understand it,” he says, raking his long fingers along his hair. “I was sure there would be an outpouring of goodwill.”
“Maybe it’s still coming?” Fiona says.
He sighs. “Let’s hope. Unfortunately there’s often a deep, wide abyss between good intentions and concrete action. And as unfair as it is, after a few days any story becomes old news.” He looks at me. “It’s disappointing, but don’t worry. We’ll raise the money.”
Still. I can’t help but be discouraged, and Rosa picks up on my mood in math.
What’s wrong? she writes in a note.
The running leg’s a pipe dream.
She slips the note back.
So was walking.
Ms. Rucker is watching me, so I hide the note and focus on the board.
Until Rosa slides another note my way.
Don’t look so far ahead.
I slip the note into my backpack and find my mood spiraling even further downward. Looking ahead is what’s been giving me hope. I’ve wanted to believe that somehow we’ll be able to gather twenty thousand dollars. I’ve wanted to believe that I’ll run again.
But hope now feels so fragile.
Too fragile to touch.
AFTER SCHOOL I SEE THE TRACK TEAMS loading onto a bus.
I stand in the distance and watch, feeling cold and shaky.
How can they even get on a bus?
I remind myself that it’s not their first away meet since the wreck. There have been two of them, plus the Glenwood Relays.
For them the memory must be fading.
For me it feels like yesterday.
And every tomorrow, for as far as I can see.
FRIDAY WHEN I VISIT HANK, he’s very impressed.
“Fantastic,” he says over and over. “Now that’s progress.”
My mom and I exchange glances, and I can tell she’s thinking what I’m thinking: Hank seems so different. It’s like he’s come to life because the monster he’s built has come to life.
He makes lots of little adjustments with his Allen wrench, twisting it inside the little holes in the pipe couplings as he throws around words like adduction and abduction, dorsiflexion and plantar flexion, inversion and eversion. He makes me walk, he adjusts, he makes me walk, he adjusts … and when he’s finally done, he smiles at me. “I saw the article in the paper. Great piece. And if your progress this week is any indication, I have no doubt that you will be running again. Soon.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, and it is nice to see him so enthused. The problem, though, is that his enthusiasm doesn’t stick on me. It’s been a long, hard week, and all I can seem to see is that I’m still having trouble walking.
PART IV
IT’S STILL DARK OUTSIDE. The streetlights glow through the curtains, putting a soft spotlight on Sherlock, who is fast asleep on my bed. He’s curled up next to Lucas the bear near the footboard, his back resting against the wall, his chin on the bedspread facing me. Even in his sleep, he’s watching me. Protecting me.
I admire his beautiful coat, the dark lines of his eyes, his pointy ears and droopy whiskers.
I want to kiss his muzzle and tell him what a sweet, sweet boy he is.
And then I get the feeling.
The one I’ve kept buried for so long.
I have to get up.
Get out.
Go.
Maybe I can do it, I tell myself. Not fast, not hard … but maybe I can run.
“Sherlock.” It’s barely even a whisper, but his eyes fly open. “You want to go for a—” I stop myself. “Outside?”
He cocks his head, not entirely sure whether what he thinks I’m asking is what I’m really asking.
For that matter, neither am I.
“Get your Frisbee,” I tell him.
He jumps off the bed and darts down the stairs, but he knows it’ll be a little while before I can get down there.
I slip on the nylon, then pull on a stump sock.
I layer on another sock.
My leg’s still shrinking, so I need the extra padding to keep my socket snug.
Then I put on the liner, push into my pipe leg, and roll up the suction sleeve.
It feels solid, but still … foreign.
Like we’re still getting to know each other.
I sit on the edge of the bed and dress, pulling on my zip sweats, lacing on my left shoe, zipping up a sweatshirt.
I’m better at the stairs now but still very careful.
Up is easier than down.
Sherlock waits patiently at the bottom, tail wagging, Frisbee at his feet. “Good boy,” I whisper, then leave a quick note and ease out the front door.
The air is cool and moist from a light fog—perfect running weather. I breathe in deeply and close my eyes. Something in my mind doesn’t know I can’t run. Something inside me believes I can just take off.
Sherlock puts down the Frisbee and looks up at me. He’s holding his breath. Hoping.
I pick up the Frisbee and say, “Heel.”
He falls into place on my left side as we go down our walkway, but he’s keyed up, waiting for something big to happen.
When I get to the sidewalk, I turn left instead of our usual right.
I sense his confusion.
His disappointment.
“Fetch!” I tell him, and toss the Frisbee a straight, controlled distance down the sidewalk.
He tears off after it, and while he’s gone, I take a few jogging steps.
It’s enough to tell me that I cannot run.
Sherlock is already back.
I toss the Frisbee again.
I try jogging again.
I make it ten steps this time.
Twenty the next.
But it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like running. It doesn’t feel like anything but hard, hard work.
I think of Kaylee, counting steps.
I try again; try not to count.
I feel like a lifeless machine moving forward.
I rest at the corner, more disappointed than tired. Sherlock, however, is enjoying the Frisbee game immensely, and so we turn the corner and press on. I try jogging a few more times, but eventually I just give up and walk. I tell myself I should be happy with walking.
Walking is a miracle.
I press on, and then through the misty air I hear my name.
It’s soft, drifting toward me from the left.
“Jessica!”
I turn, and it’s like I’m thrown into a dream. There’s a mermaid fountain in the middle of the yard and, beyond it, a girl sitting on the porch, wrapped in a white blanket.
“Rosa?” I ask.
“Jessica!” she says again.
It takes me a moment to understand that I’m not dreaming. When I do, I clap twice, bringing Sherlock running back to me, and we both head up the walkway. There’s a ramp up the side of the porch steps, just like there still is on ours. “I can’t believe you’re up so early,” I say with a laugh.
“Look who’s talking,” she says back.
“But … why are you out here?”
“I love mornings,” she says. “They’re so peaceful.” She’s got her eye on Sherlock. “He’s gorgeous!”
“Sherlock, this is Rosa,” I say, making the official introduction. “Say hi.”
“Aaarooo!” Sherlock says, wagging his tail.
Rosa reaches out tentatively to pet him.
“He’s very friendly,” I say, sitting on a bench that’s near her wheelchair. “Don’t worry.” Soon she’s hugging Sherlock around his neck, giggling from being slobbered
with doggie kisses.
“You were taking him for a walk?” she asks when Sherlock’s settled down a little.
I shrug. “I actually wanted to see if I could run.” I eye her and add, “Which I can’t.”
“You will, though,” she says with her lopsided smile. “I put that article on my bedroom wall.”
“You did?”
She nods. “It’s so cool.” Then she says, “Tell me about running. Why do you like it?”
No one has ever asked me this so directly before. Either people like running or they don’t. Either people get it or they don’t. And if they don’t, they just think people who like it are crazy.
Which is okay.
That makes us even.
But now I have to explain why I like it, and I’m not sure where to start. “Uh … running, or racing?”
She thinks, then says, “Running. Like this morning.”
“Hm.” I try to put my finger on it. “Because it feels like freedom?”
She nods thoughtfully.
“And your mind travels places where it doesn’t normally go.…”
“Huh?”
“Like dreaming in real time?” I laugh. “Never mind. It sounds crazy.”
She laughs too, so I say the next thing that pops into my mind. “I love the morning air on my face—it’s one of the best things about running. The rest of your body’s warm, but your face is cool.” I laugh again. “I totally get why dogs like to stick their head out of car windows. Running’s like that but with fewer bugs in your teeth.”
She laughs again, then sighs and says, “I wish I could feel that.”
“What?” I kid her. “Your mom won’t let you stick your head out the window while she’s driving? What kind of mom do you have?”
“A good one!” Then she says, “Now racing.”
“Huh? Oh—what do I like about racing?”
She nods, so I give that some thought and finally tell her, “It’s electric. From stepping into your lane until you cross the finish line … every cell of your body is charged.”
“Going over the finish line must be wonderful.”
I laugh. “Especially if you’re the first one there.”
“But … it means you finished. You made it. Even if you don’t get a medal.”
I look at her. “You’re very philosophical about the finish line.”
She gives a thoughtful nod. “It’s symbolic.” I nod too, because I’m sure I know what she means, but then she adds, “Because it’s also the starting line.”
For some reason this thought startles me. And I think about all the races where this is true—the 400, the 800, the 1600, all the relays—and it shocks me that I have never looked at it this way.
Maybe because of staggered starts.
Maybe because starting feels so different from finishing. At the starting line you’re amped, set, coiled. At the finish line you’re completely spent.
So the thought that they’re the same line gives me a very strange feeling.
A sort of uncomfortable feeling.
Like discovering someone very close to you has been leading a secret double life.
MONDAY DURING MATH Rosa slips me a note:
Running or racing, which would you choose?
She slips me questions like this a lot.
Or statements.
Or combinations.
Baby steps are blessings.
Wind is mysterious. Where does it go?
Sometimes they seem so off-the-wall, but they always make me think. This time I consider the question, but I also think about Rosa thinking about running. Why does she spend her time pondering something she’ll never be able to do? Why is she interested in it at all? Why in the world would she philosophize about the finish line?
I jot back, Running.
I know immediately that it’s what I’d choose.
Still.
It’s the first time I’ve actually thought about it.
BY TUESDAY WE’VE GIVEN UP on getting more donations from Gavin’s newspaper article.
It’s been over a week, and they just haven’t arrived.
Wednesday morning the bake sale table is missing from the courtyard, and at lunch there’s only one person staffing it. Plus all the “baked goods” are store-bought, so no one’s buying.
Then Thursday morning there’s a message in the announcements: All track team members are to report to Coach Kyro’s classroom at lunch. Be prompt. No exceptions.
“Sounds ominous,” Fiona mutters.
“Maybe it’s just about today’s meet?”
She shakes her head. “We went over that at practice yesterday.”
By lunch I’ve convinced myself that the meeting is to scold the team for giving up on raising money for my leg, and I walk into Kyro’s room feeling dread.
Why should my team be expected to raise twenty thousand dollars?
It’s crazy.
What’s worse is I don’t want them to resent me. Or feel like failures because they couldn’t do the impossible.
Within the first five minutes of lunch, over ninety people have crammed into Kyro’s room. Even Merryl.
“Guys!” Kyro finally says, holding one graceful hand high. “I’ll make this quick.”
Everyone falls silent.
“Item one!” he says. “I’ve noticed a lackluster attitude growing among you.”
I close my eyes and think, Oh boy. Here we go.
He levels a look across the room. “That didn’t take long. We’ve been fund-raising for two weeks, and already you give up?”
No one moves a muscle, but I can feel it—everyone’s shrinking away from me.
“Where’s your spirit?” he asks. “Where’s your determination, your drive? You hit a little headwind and let it knock you flat? Hasn’t being on this team taught you that around the bend of every headwind comes a tailwind?”
We just look at him.
“Item two!” he says. “The office delivered this to me today.” He holds up a stack of envelopes. “For some reason the helpers in the front office didn’t know who to give ‘Jessica’ mail to, so they collected it in a box.” He smiles at us. “So here’s our tailwind. The checks range from five dollars to two hundred and fifty, and our new grand total is four thousand seven hundred and sixty-five!”
A roar fills the room.
“Item three!” he shouts, and we all fall quiet. “We have a patron. Someone who insists on staying anonymous. They have pledged a dollar for every dollar we raise, up to ten thousand dollars.”
“Wait,” Mario Reed says. “So that means we’re already up to … like … ninety-five hundred?”
“Very good!” Kyro says. He looks around the room. “We are almost halfway there, people!”
Cheers fill the room again, and this time people pump fists and pat me on the back and give me double thumbs-up.
Kyro lets it go on for a minute before raising his hand again. “Last item!”
“There’s more?” people whisper to each other.
“We will have visitors at our meet this afternoon. Channel Seven is sending a local news crew out to do a story on the team, and on Jessica.”
“Wait,” Mario says again. “We’re gonna be on TV?”
Kyro nods. “They saw the article in the paper and want to help get the word out.” He looks at me. “You will be there today, right?”
I’m smiling and laughing and crying all at the same time.
“You bet,” I tell him as I wipe my face dry.
“How do you feel about wearing a uniform?”
I hesitate. It was one thing to wear it at a car wash when I didn’t know I was going to be in the paper. It’s another to wear it knowing I’ll be on TV.
Mario starts a chant. “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
It doesn’t take long for everyone to chime in. “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
I pinch my eyes closed.
How can I not?
“Okay,” I blurt out. “I’ll do it
!”
“YAY!” the team cheers.
“Remember, people,” Kyro calls out. “This is the last league meet. Let’s win this thing!”
From the roar that follows, there’s no doubt that that’s exactly what they plan to do.
THE TEAM IS LOVING having a news crew around. They make a show of everything, especially crossing the finish line. So far the crew is not talking to me, so I try to forget they’re even there and not feel too self-conscious about my very visible fake leg. I do my best to act normal, and I shadow Fiona as she moves from event to event.
The only time I really forget about my leg is when Shandall comes in second in the 100-meter dash. I cheer my head off for that, because she usually gets edged back to fourth, and the best she’s placed all year is third.
“Way to go, Shandall!” I yell as she prances into the infield.
She works her way over to me. “That felt so good,” she pants. “Girl, I was flyin’.”
“Yes, you were!” I bump her fist when she puts it up. “Flying with flames shooting from your feet!”
Shandall laughs. “Glad you could see ’em, ’cause I could sure feel ’em!” She cocks her head at something behind me and lowers her voice. “You’ve got company.”
I turn around and see the TV news crew standing behind me. “Jessica?” the news lady asks. Her blond hair is tied down with a scarf. She’s wearing a designer sweat suit and cute little Pumas—nothing like what she wears when she’s anchoring the news. “I’m Marla Sumner. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I shake her hand. She’s smaller than she looks on TV. And even prettier.
“This is my photographer, Andy Richards,” she says, indicating the man lugging a large black camera bag, a tripod, and a big-lens video camera.
He flashes a smile, then gets busy with his equipment.
“Your coach says you’re okay with being interviewed?”
I nod.
“Good.” She looks around, then points to a spot farther infield. “Why don’t we do it over there. I’d like to get the finish line in the background.”
It doesn’t take long for them to set up. Marla tells me to look at her, not the camera, and the first thing she has me do is state my name. After that she’s off and running with questions. I’m nervous at first, but since the camera’s a little off to the side, I try to block it out and just answer her questions. She’s very attentive and nods a lot, and before too long she’s done. “Thank you so much, Jessica,” she says. “This is an important story, and we want to do what we can to help.”