Left Neglected

  Mike returns with a stack of folders in hand.

  “Sorry to take so long. I got caught on the phone. Our director of development is moving to Colorado, and we’re having an impossible time finding someone to fill his position. Too bad you don’t live here year-round. You’d be perfect for it.”

  I’ve been wishing on stars, knocking on wood, picking up pennies, and praying to God about one thing or another my whole life, but never have I received a more obvious, direct, and spine-tingling response before now. Maybe it’s just serendipity. Maybe Mike Green is an angel on earth. Maybe God is throwing poor Goofy a bone. But this is it. This is the sign.

  “Mike, you of all people should know,” I say. “Nothing’s impossible.”

  CHAPTER 35

  There’s no Mangia in Vermont,” says Bob. I say nothing. We’re all piled into Bob’s car, going to dinner at Mangia, my favorite family restaurant in Welmont. But I’m not conceding any points to Welmont for Mangia. There are plenty of decent restaurants in Vermont. Normally, I can’t see Bob when he drives, but for some reason my field of vision is expanded to include part of his profile, enough to see his right thumb poking around on the screen of his phone.

  “Stop!” I yell.

  He hits the brakes. My seat belt locks and presses into my chest as I lurch forward. Sandwiched in a long line of 35 mph traffic, we’re lucky we weren’t rear-ended.

  “No, not the car. Put the phone away,” I say.

  “Jeez, Sarah, you scared me. I thought something was wrong. I have to make a quick call.”

  “Have you learned nothing from what happened to me?”

  “Sarah,” he says in his singsong, please-don’t-be-over-dramatic-and-ridiculous voice.

  “Do you want to end up like me?”

  “There’s no right way for me to answer that question,” he says.

  “I’ll answer it for you then. No. No, you do not want to end up like me. And you don’t want to kill someone either, do you?”

  “Stop, you’re going to scare the kids.”

  “Put the phone away. No more phones in the car, Bob. I mean it. No phones.”

  “It’s a quick call, and I need to catch Steve before the morning.”

  “No phones! No phones!” chant Charlie and Lucy from the backseat, loving the chance to tell their father what to do.

  “It’s a two-second call. I could’ve already been done with it.”

  “We’re ten minutes from Mangia. Can your call wait ten minutes? Can steve and the big important world wait ten minutes to hear from you?”

  “Yes,” he says, drawing out the word in an exaggerated calmness, an attempt to mask his annoyance towering behind it. “But we’ll be at the restaurant then, and I’m not doing anything now.”

  “You’re DRIVING!”

  I used to fill my morning and evening commutes with calls (and even texts and emails in stop-and-go traffic). Now I’ll never use my phone in the car again (assuming I’m someday able to drive again). Of all the lessons I’ve learned and adjustments I’ve made so far following this experience, No Phones in the Car is probably the most elementary.

  “How about this?” I ask. “You could talk to me now. Let’s have a nice ten-minute conversation, and then when we get to the restaurant, and you park the car, you can make your call, and we’ll all wait for you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Thank you.”

  Bob drives and says nothing. The kids have stopped chanting. The six of us sit in the car through an entire red light with the radio off and no DVD playing, and the silence feels oppressive. He doesn’t get it, which worries me at first, but through the catalyst of his silence, I quickly convert from being worried to being mad. When we wait through the next red light, and he still doesn’t say anything, I go from being mad that he doesn’t get why I don’t want him using his phone in the car to being mad that he doesn’t get why I don’t want to go back to Berkley or why I want to live in Vermont. We slow down behind the car in front of us, which is turning right, and I can’t believe that he doesn’t get me.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Bob finally asks, Mangia now only a couple of blocks away.

  “Nothing.”

  CHAPTER 36

  My mother and I are killing time with Linus in Welmont Toy Shop While Lucy is at her dance class down the street and Charlie is at basketball practice at the community center across town. Freed from his umbrella stroller, Linus is in heaven playing at the Thomas train table, linking and unlinking trains, pushing them along the tracks, through tunnels, and over bridges. He could do this all day, but we have only about twenty more minutes before the end of Lucy’s class, and my mother and I are already resigned to how Leaving the Toy Store is going to play out.

  I’ll tell him in a happy, this-will-be-buckets-of-fun voice that it’s time for us to go. Not fooled for a second, he’ll instantly lose his mind and try to shoplift as many trains as his pudgy little hands can cling to. My mother and I will then dumbly explain to a completely distraught one-year-old who lacks the capacity for rational thought that the trains belong to the store and have to stay here. He’ll then throw himself onto the floor, trying to resist our plan to leave through civil disobedience, and we’ll have to pry the trains loose and carry him, utterly uncooperative, stiff as a board, and screaming, out the door. It’ll be ugly. But for now, he’s a delightful toddler in a state of pure bliss.

  “Look at this,” says my mother, holding up an elaborately gemmed and frilly princess gown.

  “She’d love it, but she doesn’t need it.”

  Lucy has an entire steamer trunk stuffed with dress-up costumes.

  “I know, but she’d look so cute in it.”

  I’m standing in front of the display of Wii games, looking for We Ski & Snowboard, but I don’t see it anywhere. I could order it online, but I actually want this game for myself and was hoping to play it with the kids today.

  “Mom, can you help me look for the snowboarding video game?”

  Before I give up, I want to make sure it isn’t hiding somewhere on the left. She walks over and stands next to me, places her hands on her hips, squints, and looks up and down the display.

  “What am I looking for?” she asks.

  “We Ski and Snowboard.”

  “I don’t see it,” she says. “We should get going. I need to pick up my prescription at CVS.”

  CVS is three blocks down the street.

  “You go, we’ll wait for you here,” I say, both wanting to give Linus more time with the trains he loves and to save myself the walk.

  “You sure?” she asks.

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  Not seeing any video games that the kids want or that we don’t already have and acknowledging that we certainly don’t need any of them, I continue browsing near the train table. They have every classic board game I remember from my childhood— Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, clue, sorry—plus many shelves more that I haven’t heard of. I roam past the games and stop to admire the Alex display—paints, modeling clay, glues, yarns, puppets, beads, origami—I would’ve gone crazy for all of this stuff when I was a kid. Lucy likes anything crafty, but if she were here, she’d be exactly where my mother was shopping, probably coveting the very dress my mother showed me.

  I look back over at the train table. Linus isn’t there. He’s probably standing somewhere to my left. Look left, scan left, go left. No Linus.

  “Linus?”

  I do a full lap around the table. He’s not there.

  “Linus, where are you? Linus?”

  I hear my own voice sounding scared, and that scares me further. I cane, step, and drag myself within sight of the teenage girl behind the register.

  “Have you seen a one-year-old little boy?” I ask.

  “Yeah, he’s at the train table.”

  “He’s not there now. I can’t find him. Can you help me?”

  I don’t wait for
her to answer. I turn around and start walking through the store.

  “Linus!”

  Where could he be? The shop is modest, quaint, and open, with most of the toys displayed on shelves against the walls. There aren’t any long aisles with toys stacked to the ceiling. It’s not Toys R Us. Even if he’s hiding, I should be able to see him. I search under the dress-up costumes, behind the puppets, over by the cars and trucks, his second favorite area of the store. Look left, scan left, go left. He’s not anywhere.

  “Ma’am, he’s not in the store,” says the teenager.

  Oh my God.

  I head for the door as fast as I can. As I push it open, a bicycle bell dings. The door is heavy, too heavy for Linus to open on his own. There were some teenagers in the store earlier. he must’ve wandered out with them. I remember hearing the bell ding. A while ago. Oh my God.

  I look down the length of the sidewalk. There are clumps of pedestrians scattered all over it. I look through all the legs. I don’t see him.

  “Linus!”

  I turn my body around and look the other way. I don’t see him. Oh my God. I start walking down the sidewalk, praying that I’ve chosen the right direction, hating myself for not being able to run.

  “Linus!”

  Assuming he wasn’t kidnapped (please God), where would he go? His favorite things in the world are trains, cars, and trucks, especially loud ones. Ones that are moving. Time and sound and life itself seems to blur and warp around me as I stop and look out into the street. Main Street. Busy in late afternoon with tired drivers, drivers on their cell phones, drivers not expecting to see a jaywalking toddler. I stand on the edge of the sidewalk, scanning the road for the horror my mind is imagining, my legs frozen in place. In fact, every inch of me feels frozen in place— my left side, my right side, my heart, my lungs, even my blood— like every moving, living part of me has paused to witness what is about to unfold, as if their very existence hangs in the balance. I don’t see him anywhere. He’s gone. I can’t breathe.

  “Sarah!”

  I look and look. I don’t see him. My vision narrows. Details and color dissolve. My lungs turn to stone. I’m suffocating.

  “Sarah!”

  My mind registers my mother’s voice. I look across the fading street and down the sidewalk, but I don’t see her.

  “Sarah!”

  Her voice is louder now and coming from my left. I turn and see her running down the sidewalk toward me, holding Linus on her hip. Air and life rush back into my body.

  “Linus!”

  She reaches me before I can move.

  “I came out of CVS and just happened to look the other way. He was about to wander into the road,” she says, her voice short of breath and shaking.

  “Oh my God.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. One minute he was at the trains, and the next …”

  My throat goes dry. I can’t say it. I can’t relive it, even if it’s only what could’ve happened and fortunately didn’t. I burst into tears.

  “Come here, sit down,” she says, leading me to the bench outside The Cheese Shop.

  We sit, and my mother passes Linus to me. I hold him tight in my lap and kiss his face over and over while I cry. My mother is panting, her eyes wide and facing the street, but they don’t look like they’re actually seeing anything except for whatever scene is playing out in her mind. A landscaping truck rumbles by us.

  “Truck! Truck!” says Linus, delighted.

  I hold him tighter. My mother snaps out of her trance and checks her watch.

  “We have to go get Lucy,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say, wiping my eyes. “His stroller is still at the toy store.”

  I look over my beautiful baby boy before I pass him back to my mother to be carried. He’s completely unharmed and oblivious to what could’ve happened. I kiss his neck and squeeze him one more time. Then I notice his hands.

  “And we have to return these trains.”

  LATER THAT NIGHT, FEELING RESTLESS, I get out of bed, creep into Linus’s room, and watch him sleeping in his crib. He’s lying on his back, wearing blue feety pajamas, one arm up over his head. I listen to his deep-sleep exhales. Even years past those fragile newborn months, it still gives my maternal ears relief and peace to hear the sounds of my children breathing when they’re asleep. His orange nukie is in his mouth, the silky edge of his favorite blanket is touching his cheek, and Bunny is lying limp across his chest. He’s surrounded by every kind of baby security paraphernalia imaginable, and yet none of it protected him from what could have happened today.

  Thank you, God, for keeping him safe. I imagine what could’ve happened today, and then I imagine standing here now, but instead looking into an empty crib. The image knocks the wind out of me, and I can barely stand here and think it. Thank you, God, for keeping him safe. And while I believe it’s always proper manners and good policy to thank God for life’s blessings and miracles, I know this time I should also be thanking someone else.

  I leave Linus’s room as quietly as possible and make my way downstairs, through the living room, to the sunroom. I’m about to knock when I think I hear one of the kids. Oh no, I probably woke up Linus. But after a second listen, I realize the sound is coming from behind the French doors.

  “Mom?” I ask and enter without permission.

  She’s lying on her bed, curled up under her quilt, surrounded by a pile of crumpled white tissues. She’s crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She rolls over to face me, pulls a clean tissue from the box, and presses it against her eyes.

  “Oh, I’m feeling emotional about today.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  I walk over to her and sit on the edge of her bed.

  “I don’t think my heart could’ve taken it if anything happened to him,” she says.

  “Me either.”

  “You don’t know, Sarah. I hope you never know what it’s like.”

  I realize now that today wasn’t just about Linus for my mother.

  “I shouldn’t have left you alone in the toy store,” she says.

  “No, I should’ve been watching him.”

  “I should’ve been there.”

  “You were there when it counted. You found him. He’s okay.”

  “What if I hadn’t seen him? I keep thinking about what could’ve happened.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I should’ve stayed with you.”

  She starts sobbing.

  “It’s okay, Mom. He’s okay. I just checked on him. He’s asleep and dreaming about trains. We’re all okay.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

  “You were.”

  “No, for you. All those years. I’m so sorry.”

  She pulls the last tissue out of the box and blows her nose while she cries. There aren’t enough tissues for the sorrow she’s been living with. I reach around her neck with my right hand and hug her into me.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I forgive you. You’re here now. Thank you for being here now.”

  Her crying body softens while I hold her in my hug. When she’s finally quiet, I lie down next to her and fall asleep.

  CHAPTER 37

  Heidi opens the bottle of wine she gave to me on my last day at Baldwin and pours us each a glass. She then carries both glasses while I “carry” my granny cane. I can feel her watching me as we move from the kitchen to the living room.

  “Your walk is much better,” she says. “Much smoother and a lot less drag.”

  “Thanks,” I say, surprised by the compliment.

  A lot of things are a lot smoother and less of a drag now than they were four and a half months ago—finding the food on the left side of my plate, threading my left arm into my left shirtsleeve, typing, reading. But the improvements don’t happen overnight. They’re slow, small, sneaky, and shy, and only accumulate into something remarkable after weeks and months, not days. So I hadn’t
noticed that my walk has improved since Baldwin. It’s nice to hear.

  We sit down on the couch, and Heidi passes me my wine.

  “To your continued recovery,” she says, raising her glass.

  “I’ll definitely drink to that,” I say, holding my glass out in front of me but waiting for Heidi to do the clinking (I’d probably miss and spill my wine all over her).

  She taps my glass with hers, and we drink to my continued recovery. She’s probably the only health care professional at this point who openly believes that this is possible. Everyone else either says nothing, avoids giving any kind of concrete prediction, or they say maybe, but then they drown the maybe in a list of buts, caveats, and I don’t want to give you any false hope speeches. And denial is a big problem. No one wants me to live in denial, to go on believing that I might get better if the odds are overwhelmingly against it. God forbid. But then, maybe Heidi doesn’t hold out hope for my full recovery as an occupational therapist. Maybe she believes in the possibility because she’s my friend. When it comes to Neglect, I’ll take the hope of a friend over the cautious prognosis of a physiatrist any day.

  “How are things at Baldwin?” I ask.

  “Pretty much the same. We have a new woman with Neglect. She’s sixty-two, had a stroke. Hers is a lot worse than yours, and she has some other deficits. She’s been with us three weeks and is still completely unaware that she has it, thinks she’s perfectly healthy. She’s going to be a real challenge to rehabilitate.”