The Running Dream

  They’re just not as good as Vanessa.

  IT’S DOWN TO TWO VARSITY GIRL high jumpers—Fiona and a Langston jumper named Yassi—when the hurdles are set up again for the 300-meter race. The finish line is very near the high-jump area, which is pretty convenient for us, but it’s doing nothing for Fiona’s concentration. She already missed one pass at 5′2″ when the JV girls were hurdling, and when we see varsity line up, she decides she doesn’t want to risk missing again.

  “I’ll be back in a minute!” she tells the pit judge after Yassi has a second miss.

  “Wait!” the judge says. “Can’t you finish your jumps?”

  “Give me two minutes!” she begs, and when he nods, we hurry toward the 200-meter mark as fast as I can.

  Across the field, Vanessa is making a show of getting into her blocks, running through her psych-out routine.

  I try telepathing my mantra over to Annie and Giszelda.

  Smooth, strong, fast. Smooth, strong, fast.

  I think it hard, trying to cancel Vanessa’s psych-out.

  The gun goes off and the girls shoot forward, finding their stride, leaping over the first hurdle, regaining their stride, leaping over the second hurdle.

  It makes no sense to cheer from so far away, so instead Fiona grumbles, “Who does she think she is, always wearing those glasses?”

  “C’mon, Annie,” I’m starting to call. Annie’s still too far away to hear me, but I can’t help it. “C’mon, Annie!”

  They round the bend, and Vanessa’s lead is becoming clear. She’s in lane two, with Annie on her right shoulder and Giszelda on her left.

  “Catch her, Annie! You can do it!” I shout, and I find myself hopping up and down on my leg.

  The sound of their pounding is getting louder.

  Like a stampede.

  “GO, ANNIE!” I shout. “YOU CAN CATCH HER!”

  And then, only a few yards away from us, the unthinkable happens.

  Vanessa’s foot catches on her hurdle.

  Suddenly she’s flailing through the air.

  The hurdle crashes forward, and although it almost takes Annie out, somehow Annie maneuvers around it and stays in her lane. Giszelda nearly wipes out avoiding Vanessa, but she manages to stay in her lane, too.

  In the time it takes to gasp, the race is over, and to everyone’s shock, Liberty has swept the event.

  Vanessa is back on her feet and she is furious.

  “Well, I guess she’s okay,” Fiona says with a snort. “Man, listen to her!”

  “Wouldn’t want her mad at me,” I laugh, and we join our winning girls in pogoing around.

  “Bartlett!” the pit judge hollers.

  Fiona zips back to the high jump and wins the event by clearing 5′3″. And she is so psyched by everything that’s happened that she has the bar raised to 5′4½″ and sets a new PR.

  Then Kyro appears, and although he’s congratulatory toward Fiona, I can tell that something’s wrong.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him.

  His lips pinch together for a moment, and then he says, “Langston has lodged a complaint with the red-hat. Vanessa Steele believes that you were planted on the sidelines to distract her.”

  This takes a minute to sink in.

  “What?” I ask.

  “What?” Fiona asks.

  “What?” everyone around us demands.

  Kyro lets out a heavy sigh. “I know. But I need to ask—what were you shouting from the sidelines?”

  “What was I shouting?” I give him an incredulous look. “I don’t know. ‘Go, Annie, go’? Something like that?”

  “You weren’t yelling at her?” he asks.

  “No!” I look to Fiona for support, and she jumps in with “Absolutely not! She was rooting for Annie.”

  Kyro takes a deep breath. “Okay, then. The red-hat called it a ridiculous charge, but I want to set the record straight regardless. I’ll have a talk with him and the coach.”

  “Do you want me to come?” I ask.

  He hesitates, then says, “You know, that might be a good idea.”

  So I crutch across the field. And in the meeting with the starter and Langston’s coach I explain that I was just rooting for my team like everyone else does.

  While I’m talking, I can see Vanessa in the background pacing back and forth. Her mother is trying to talk to her, but Vanessa is obviously more interested in watching us than listening to her.

  Finally I say, “Look, can you just call Vanessa over? I’ll apologize, even though I really don’t see how her clipping a hurdle was my fault.”

  The Langston coach waves Vanessa over, and with her mother’s nudging she joins us. She’s still got her sunglasses on, so it’s hard to make eye contact with her, but I look straight at the lenses and say, “Hey, Vanessa. I was just cheering on my own team—I’m sorry if I was a distraction to you.”

  She doesn’t say a thing.

  I give a little shrug and chuckle, and I try to make light of it. “I guess I’m probably a distraction to everybody, huh?”

  A heartbeat passes.

  That’s all.

  Then she turns to the starter and says, “So why is she here? If she knows she’s a distraction to everyone, why is she here?”

  I feel my body flush hot.

  Kyro steps forward. “Because she’s still part of our team, that’s why.”

  It’s obvious that Vanessa is thinking, Oh, right, and that’s when it sinks in.

  I’m not really part of the team.

  Not anymore.

  My eyes burn as I hurry away.

  It was a nice fantasy, but that’s all it was.

  I’M STILL IN A COMPLETE FUNK the next day, and in no mood for icy Ms. Rucker.

  “Jessica,” she says after the tardy bell rings, “when are you planning to return to your regular seat?”

  It’s true that I’m moving around on my crutches much better than I used to.

  It’s true that the reason she sat me back with Rosa was because I was in a wheelchair.

  It’s true that other people with crutches just sit in their regular seats.

  And I am getting my leg today.

  But days ago, I decided—I’m staying at Rosa’s table. Even when I’m walking again, I’m staying.

  “I’m not,” I tell her, and I’m surprised by the sound of my own voice.

  It’s confident.

  With a twinge of defiance.

  Ms. Rucker holds my gaze. “I think it might be better for Rosa if you took your assigned seat.”

  “No!” Rosa says, and everyone turns to look at her. “I like her here,” Rosa says in her underwatery tones. “Please.”

  Ms. Rucker frowns, then looks from me to Rosa and back again. “Then the note writing has got to stop.”

  I look at Rosa.

  Rosa looks at me.

  Our faces both say Oops!

  “Fine,” I say to Ms. Rucker. “But she’s just been helping me keep up. Rosa’s a math genius, you know.”

  Ms. Rucker studies me. “Yes, I’m aware of that,” she says, and decides not to argue with me about the content of our notes, even though she knows I’m fibbing. “Math lab would be a more constructive option,” she says with one eyebrow arched high. Then she begins writing on the board.

  Rosa immediately slips me a note.

  Thanks.

  I smile at her. And for the first time since the track meet, I smile inside, too.

  MOM NOTICES HOW QUIET I AM as she drives me to Hank’s. “Are you okay?”

  I nod but say, “I don’t understand how this fake leg is going to work. What if I can’t make it work?”

  “You’ll figure it out, sweetheart. Remember Chloe, okay? We couldn’t even tell.”

  That does help. And Chloe’s her usual bubbly self when she sees us, which helps too. “Today’s the day!” she says as we check in. “Did you bring shorts and your right shoe?”

  I nod and hold them up. “Can I change? We came straight
from school.”

  She leads me to a small bathroom, and on the way she says, “It’ll feel weird at first, but don’t be discouraged. I know you’ll get the hang of it fast, and once you do, you’ll be walking everywhere!” She says it quietly. Conspiratorially. Like she’s sharing a secret.

  Like we’re friends.

  She takes my right running shoe from me. “You’ll definitely use a cane or a crutch at first, but you’ll get rid of that in no time too.”

  “Thanks,” I tell her, and I’m grateful to hear this from someone who knows.

  Someone I believe.

  After I’ve changed into shorts, Chloe waves me down to a room with mirrored walls and long parallel bars. The bars are at about hip height and maybe three feet apart. It looks remotely like a dance studio, only instead of tutus there are miscellaneous fake body parts here and there, and the only “dancers” are Hank and my mother.

  Their conversation stops immediately when I walk in. Hank picks up a fake leg from against the wall and smiles at me. “Time to get you walking again!”

  It looks like a mannequin’s foot with a metal pipe sticking out of it. The pipe is about eight inches long and an inch and a half in diameter, with two metal connectors—one down by the foot, and one up where the pipe attaches to the socket. The connectors have little holes and divots in them and look like strange plumbing couplings—like something my dad might use under a sink.

  On top of the pole is the finished socket. It’s skin-colored and is cut away at the knee so it looks like a kind of stirrup for my leg.

  He grins at me as I soak it all in. “Yes, it’s a little Hankensteinish, but—”

  My focus snaps to my mom. “You told him?”

  She looks chagrined, but he says, “I laughed my head off, Jessica. I might even change the name of my business to Hankenstein’s, but unfortunately, most of my clients aren’t in the frame of mind for such humor.” He eyes me. “It’s a really good sign that you are.”

  I’m still embarrassed, but I nod and say, “So what do I do?”

  He has me take off my left shoe and sit in a chair that’s right by the parallel bars. Then he hands me a tube-shaped nylon to put over my stump, and has me put a “stump sock” on over the nylon—it’s like a regular sock only with no heel shape or seam. It’s also softer and stretchier than a regular sock.

  “Now for the liner,” he says, and pulls a white foamy-looking thing out of the socket of my fake leg. He hands over the liner and says, “Just slip this on and tell me how it feels.”

  “Is it supposed to be snug?” I ask. “It feels a little loose.”

  He takes it off and has me put on a thicker-ply sock, then put the liner on again.

  This time it seems to fit better, so he holds the fake leg so that the open end of the socket is facing my stump and says, “Just put your leg inside.”

  I do, and it’s a snug, comfortable fit. But it’s very strange to look down and see a pipe leg and a fake foot attached to me. “How does it stay on?” I ask, because it sure doesn’t seem like I could actually walk with it.

  “We’ll get to that in a minute. First I want to check the fit.” He pushes and twists the socket, and when he’s sure it’s okay, he pulls the leg off and says, “We’re going to use a suspension sleeve to hold the leg in place.” He picks up a tan rubbery-looking sleeve and starts pulling it onto the outside of the socket. “This is a neoprene material, like what wet suits are made of. The sleeve will create a vacuum between you and your prosthetic leg that will hold it firmly in place.” He doubles the sleeve back over the socket, then holds the leg out for me. “If I can get you to slip your leg in?”

  So I do, and then he has me pull the doubled-back part of the sleeve up over my leg. It’s like a big, rubbery sock that ends about mid-thigh and seems to suck the fake leg on tight.

  “Ready to stand?” he asks.

  “I guess so,” I answer, but then I just sit there, frozen in place.

  “Use the bars if you want to. Just stand like you remember doing.”

  It’s strange. It’s like my brain doesn’t quite remember what it used to do. I’ve been hopping and crutching for so long, getting up and down differently … I’m almost afraid to try.

  So I grab the bars and I use my left leg to power myself up.

  “Put weight on it,” he encourages me. “It shouldn’t hurt.”

  But I’m not so much afraid of the pain as I am of not being able to work this pipe leg.

  I get a rush of panic—how is this ever going to work?

  How am I ever going to be able to walk on this thing?

  Slowly, I put weight on my right leg. It takes a minute for my leg to settle in, and when it does, I feel lopsided. Like my fake leg is way too long.

  “Is your weight distributed evenly?” Hank asks. When I nod, he says, “I’m going to check the height now,” and puts his thumbs on the crest points of my hip bones.

  “The leg feels way too long,” I tell him.

  He nods knowingly. “That’s normal. You’ve had no resistance or pressure on that leg for quite some time now, so even when it’s perfect, patients still say it feels long.” He smiles at me. “But in this case, it is long.”

  He takes a thin wooden block and slips it under my good foot, then checks my hip bones again. “By raising the left side,” he says, “I’ll know how much I have to shorten the pylon.” After a minute of assessing how level I am, he takes another, thinner block and slips it under my left foot so that it’s on top of the first block.

  “Very good,” he says after checking the level again. “The first block was half an inch, the second one a quarter inch … which means we’ve got to take the pylon down three-quarters of an inch.”

  He has me sit down and uses an Allen wrench to loosen the top coupling. Then he removes the pipe from the socket. The foot is still attached to the bottom end of the pipe, and having him do this feels strange. Like I’m some sort of doll where the parts snap on and off.

  He leaves the room with the pipe and foot, and before long he’s back. “Let’s try this,” he says, and reattaches the pipe to the socket.

  I stand up again, and even though the leg still feels long, he checks the level and says, “Perfect.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “I am. Don’t worry. That feeling of it being too long will go away.” Then he says, “Now what I want you to do is hold on to the bars and just rock back and forth on one foot, then the other.”

  I do this, and what’s so surreal is that I can feel my foot. It’s not there, I know it’s not there, but as I’m rocking back and forth, my brain seems to be sighing with relief.

  Oh, there it is!

  “How is that?” Hank asks.

  “Is it supposed to feel like my foot is there?” I ask quietly.

  “Does it?” he asks in return.

  I nod, then look at him.

  He’s smiling. “It’s not the case for everyone, that’s for sure. But I find that the patients who have that sensation adapt much more quickly than those who don’t.”

  “But why does it feel that way?”

  “Your brain is still wired to your having a foot.” He shrugs. “The body’s nerves send signals, and the brain adapts or reacts. That can be a phantom pain or simply feeling like a limb is still there. It’s not entirely understood, but if your brain thinks your prosthetic foot is your real foot, that’s a very good sign.”

  I glance at my mother, and she’s looking a little tense, but also … pleased.

  “All right,” Hank says. “Now I want you to put your left foot forward, then pull it back. Put your right foot forward, pull it back. Don’t go anywhere, just do a little hokey-pokey for me.”

  So I do, and each time I put my right leg out and back, I feel a little more confident.

  “Let’s try a few steps,” he says when I’ve hokey-pokeyed enough. “Hold on to the rails and move forward. The biggest obstacle is fear, and you have no reason to be afraid. Just d
o what your body remembers.”

  And so I take my first step.

  And my second step.

  And my third.

  The fake leg feels snug.

  Solid.

  I can’t roll off the foot like I can with my regular leg, but I move forward step by step until suddenly I’m at the end of the bars.

  I look up and see my reflection in the mirror.

  My new leg is not a pretty sight, but it doesn’t freak me out.

  I turn around, and there’s my mother and Hank, standing at the opposite end.

  My mother has a look on her face that’s hard to define. Hope. Anticipation. Worry … I feel like I’m her baby again, taking my first wobbly steps.

  I take a deep breath, then loosen my grip on the bars.

  Two steps forward, my hands are hovering above the bars.

  I take two more steps.

  And two more.

  Tears sting my eyes.

  I’m walking.

  IT’S ALMOST ANOTHER HOUR of adjustments and testing and warnings about not overdoing it, watching for hot spots, and avoiding stump blisters at all cost before I walk out of there.

  But I do walk out of there.

  Hank has given me a cane, so I use it for stability, and although I’m not entirely confident, or even very competent, I want to walk and Hank tells me that’s ninety percent of the battle won.

  On the way home Mom has the brilliant idea that what I need are some of those warm-up pants with zippers that run all the way up the sides of the legs. So we drive downtown to the Sports Stop, and since I’m still in my shorts, I have her go in without me.

  She returns with two pairs: one’s royal blue and gold—Liberty colors—the other is black with white trim. “These are perfect!” I tell her, and she seems happy.

  Really happy.

  Dad’s happy to see me moving on both legs, too, but he’s also fascinated by the leg itself. He wants to hear all about the fitting and the adjustments and how the suction sleeve works, and when he’s up to speed on the mechanics of it, he makes me walk across the kitchen about six times.

  I think for the first time in ages he sees hope.

  Kaylee’s like, “Wow, you are going to have so much fun on Halloween!” and I give her a friendly punch in the arm for that. And when Fiona hears I’m home and walking, she drops everything and rushes over to the house.