Eye of the Storm

  "Don't, Jake." I thought a moment. "Did you tell the doctor you were my father?"

  "Yeah. It made all the paperwork easier for now. These places..." he mumbled.

  I opened my eyes and reached up for his hand.

  "You are already more of a father to me. than I've ever had. Jake," I said.

  He pressed his lower lip under his upper, tightening his jaw. There is something about tears coming into the eyes of a gown man that makes me feel even deeper sadness. I know that no one should be beyond feeling and crying if he or she needs to, but someone like Jake who has seen a great many things in his life and survived so much trouble just looked like he was too rock solid to mourn anything in public.

  "I'll go see about the ambulance," he said and quickly left but not before I saw a fugitive tear travel down those toughened cheeks.

  It was a very uncomfortable ride. I had to be strapped tightly to keep my movement to a minimum, not that I was about to get up and dance. Even lifting my head an inch off the pillow put me on a merry-goround. I welcomed my intermittent naps.

  The trauma center in Richmond was busy, but efficient. Once I was handed over to the doctors there, they quickly made a diagnosis. They evaluated my lungs and then concentrated on my spinal injury. I was given a neurological examination, tests of my reflexes and then put through a series of other tests and machines to determine just how bad the injury was.

  It all seemed like a blur and before I knew it, I was in a hospital room. waiting. Two doctors appeared in the doorway. They conversed softly with each other first and then approached the bed. One was much older than the other, gray-haired but with bright blue eyes and a kind face. The younger man had dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He looked more like a scientist than a doctor. I didn't feel he was looking at me as much as he was looking at a medical problem.

  "I'm Doctor Eisner." the older man said. "This is Doctor Casey, my assistant." He smiled and looked at his clipboard. "So your name is Rain?"

  "Yes," I said. I felt my lips move. but I spoke so softly, I didn't hear myself.

  "Interesting name," he remarked. "Well, my dear, here's what we know about your injury. You've had damage to an area on your spinal cord we describe as L3 and L4." He turned the clipboard revealing a diagram of the human spine.

  "As you see," he continued, his voice sounding like that of a teacher. "the spinal cord is about eighteen inches long and extends from the base of the brain, down the middle of the back, to about the waist. There are nerves that lie within the spinal cord. We call them UMNs, upper motor neurons, and their function is to carry the messages back and forth from the brain to the spinal nerves along the spinal tract. These nerves that branch out from the spinal cord to the other parts of the body are called LMNs." He smiled. "Lower motor neurons. They communicate with the various areas of the body, send messages to initiate actions, like muscle movement. Understand so far?"

  I nodded, holding my breath.

  "The spinal cord," he said pointing to it, "is surrounded by rings of bone called vertebra. In general, the higher the injury in the spinal cord, the more dysfunction a person will experience. So, if you follow down with me," he said running his pen along the diagram, "you can see that your injury is

  thankfully below the areas that would have negative impact on your breathing, your upper body. Your injury is confined to your legs.

  "Now," he said quickly. before I could ask anything, "we have determined that what you have is what we call an incomplete injury, which means there is some function below the primary level of the injury. We believe you will be able to move your right leg some. You will, in time, be able to put some weight on it and help yourself in and out of your wheelchair."

  "Wheelchair?" I cried.

  "Yes," he said holding that kind, soft smile. His assistant just stared at me, making me feel more uncomfortable.

  "Why? Did I break my spinal cord?"

  "Well," Dr. Eisner said widening his smile. "it isn't necessary to break it to have problems. Usually we find them crushed or badly bruised. Doctor Casey can explain it to you," he said looking at the younger doctor.

  The younger man cleared his throat and smirked instead of smiling. He spoke very nasally, as if the words came out of his nostrils rather than his mouth.

  "The spinal cord swells. Blood pressure drops sharply in the damaged area, starving cells of their blood supply.

  Hemorrhaging begins in the center of the cord and spreads outward. Dying nerve cells produce scar tissue and the connections in the cord are broken. The result is paralysis," he concluded emotionlessly.

  "I'm permanently paralyzed?"

  "Below the waist," Doctor Eisner said. I guessed that to him that sounded like it was better than it could have been. "We are still evaluating your bladder," he concluded.

  I didn't speak. I could see he was watching me carefully for my reaction.

  "Will I die?" I asked him finally.

  "Oh no, no," he assured me.

  I wished he had said. "Of course."

  .

  For days afterward, I was poked and prodded and explored with electrical impulses. Doctors studied every part of me. I felt like a lump of meat. but I didn't complain nor did I speak very much. If I was asked about a feeling and I did feel it. I told them: if I didn't, I told them. too. That was all. I didn't carry on conversations with the nurses or the interns. They tried to get me to talk. but I just stared.

  My concussion improved and I was soon able to lift my head with more ease. I could feed myself, not that I had much of an appetite. They always turned on the television set for me. but I didn't really listen or look. It was like a big bulb with shadows.

  Jake came to see me every day. He was staying with a friend in Richmond, Ike brought me candy and magazines. The sudden aging that had come into his face right after my accident got a strong foothold. I even thought his hair was graving faster. His shoulders were always stooped some and he had trouble looking directly at me. It was as if he expected I would turn my eyes on him with accusations.

  The only thing that attracted my curiosity was what my reluctant family was doing and how they were reacting to these surprising events.

  "Victoria is frustrated and confused, of course. All her plans are put on hold now, maybe forever." Jake told me.

  "I don't care about that:' I told him.

  "Yeah, well, until you're better, you have to care. You'll need all the financial support you have and you can't give up a nickel. understand? I've taken the liberty of speaking to Mr. Sanger and he's on top of it."

  "Get better? I won't get better. Jake. Didn't you talk to the doctors?"

  "Sure you've got some work ahead of you, but therapy will get you stronger and. . ."

  "And always be in a wheelchair," I said,

  I knew why he had to pretend. but I couldn't.

  "Don't blame Rain.," I told him. He looked at me. I could see something had changed. "What did you do. Jake? You didn't hurt her, did you?"

  "Of course not. but I decided to sell her," he told me. "What am I doing with a horse like that anyway?"

  I looked away. Maybe my name was a curse. Giving that beautiful horse my name had doomed her. too. Now, she would suffer without fault, suffer just because she had been born. No wonder we had gotten along so welt

  "You shouldn't do that. Jake."

  He continued to look down for a moment and then he lifted his eves. They were so bloodshot, the tiny veins in them crisscrossing brightly.

  "I got a call from Grant," he said.

  "Oh?"

  "He asked after you. They haven't told Megan anything yet."

  "It won't make any difference to her. Tell them not to bother. Tell them... it doesn't make any difference to me anymore either," I said.

  Jake looked at me, then out the window.

  "You don't have to keep coming here. Jake. I know you'd rather go home."

  "Hey, don't tell me that," he said. "I'm not leaving you here by yourself."

 
"I've got to get used to that. Jake. Who's going to want to be with me now?"

  "Now don't talk like that," he ordered. "Frances would be very..."

  "Sorry she had ever taken me in," I finished for him. "If I ever was a burden before. I'm a burden now."

  Jake stepped closer to the bed and seized my hand. He squeezed it firmly.

  "You're going to get better, Princess. I'm not going to let you fade away. You'd better get used to having me on your back," he threatened.

  I stared up at him. His eyes brightened and then grew dim. I felt sorry for him.

  "Okay, Jake," I offered. "Do what you want."

  "Right," he said. "I'll be back with more information tomorrow. You just make up your mind we're going to beat this," he said.

  He smiled.

  "I mean, how can you disappoint Victoria? If you don't get better, she can't go after your fortune. right? How would that look now? She's stuck. Have some pity on her, will you," he joked,

  I had to smile

  It felt good, almost like cracking open a surprise package. Then they wheeled in my chair.

  Reminding me that smiles and laughter were like precious antiques. You could dust them off, but they had no more function except to lie there on the shelves to help us recall a time more beautiful, a time when there was still something called hope.

  7

  Going Home

  .

  A week later, the stone-faced Doctor Casey

  appeared with a mousy nurse. When he spoke to her, she didn't face him, but held her head straight so that it seemed like she was gazing at me while her eyes lifted until they were almost under her lids and then turned toward him. It was as if she had to sneak a look or as if he was someone of great royalty who couldn't be looked upon directly.

  He went through his usual examination. His wearing those plastic gloves when he touched me made me feel contaminated enough, but when he finished and stepped back from the bed abruptly as if he had been in and out of a bed of disease. I felt absolutely infectious.

  "Doctor Eisner and I have completed our evaluation of your condition," he began with that thin, nasal tone. He held his narrow neck stiffly when he spoke, his hazel eyes unmoving. He made me think of a life-size puppet as his jaw worked the words fate itself wove over that dark pink tongue. "Therapy will enable you to strengthen your legs and keep the musculature from atrophying. However, until a new, more promising treatment for spinal injuries is discovered, you will be at your threshold of recovery.

  "As you know, you will have occasional painful muscle spasms.

  If you are not properly active, pressure sores will develop. Reduced mobility and poorer blood circulation can give rise to troublesome skin ulcers. You'll have to get into the habit of inspecting your skin daily.

  "Bathe daily and dry throughly, especially between your toes and in the groin area. The therapist will give you a self-care handbook with instructions to follow. Be sure you understand it all before you are discharged," he said.

  "I'm being discharged?"

  "From this section of the hospital, yes." he said. "There isn't much more we can do for you here. We're going to transfer you to the physical therapy

  department. They'll start you on a program that you will continue for the rest of your life," he added dryly. It sounded like a jail sentence falling from the lips of some severe judge.

  He made notes on my chart and then handed it back to the nurse. She glanced at me, smiled, and waited.

  "Do you have any questions?" he asked.

  Questions? That's all I had. I thought. For example, what would have happened if Ken Arnold had taken us to a different city to live after I was born? What would have happened to me if Beneatha had not gotten involved with gang members and been killed and Mama had not gotten so sick? What would have happened if I had never learned the truth about myself? What would have happened if I had overslept and missed that last ride on Rain?

  I looked at the doctor. He seemed anxious to have a question thrown at him, as anxious as some whiz kid who wanted to prove his intelligence.

  "When do I wake up?" I asked.

  "Excuse me?" The doctor looked puzzled.

  His nurse raised her thin, dark brawn eyebrows and relaxed her small mouth.

  "Forget it,'" I said. "You can't get answers from people in your nightmares."

  "Oh," he said making a small circle with those pale lips. He had only just realized my suffering went deeper than the places he could prod and poke, even with his x-ray machines. "Doctor Snyder will be in to see you in a little while. She's our psychologist," he said. 'Good luck,- he added and turned.

  His nurse patted my hand. I gazed at her with a look that made her pivot faster than a marionette and follow the doctor quickly out of my room. I stared at the bland, egg white wall. Since the accident, I wasn't sleeping well. I would doze off and wake up constantly. I did that now and when I woke this time. I heard a female voice, say, "Eli."

  Slowly. I turned my head, expecting the nurse to be adjusting something and was surprised to see that the woman speaking to me was seated... in a wheelchair,

  "I'm Doctor Snyder." she said.

  She held out her hand for me to shake. I just looked at it and her. She pulled it back.

  "I see from the look of surprise on your face that Doctor Casey neglected to tell you anything about me. I don't know why I should be astonished about that. Actually." she continued, changing her expression as if she was talking to her own therapist in a session. "I should be happy about that. He doesn't see me as anything more or less than who I am... a psychologist, not a paraplegic psychologist, and that's what we all want, isn't it?

  "You will want people to see you for you too. Someday," she added.

  "No one could see the real me, even before the accident. Why should I expect they will now?" I replied.

  She lifted her right eyebrow like an

  exclamation point and smiled.

  Actually, she had a very pretty face framed in strawberry red hair, cut and styled so it swept up around her small chin. Despite her condition, her blue-green eyes were dazzling, full of life and excitement. Tiny freckles peppered the crests of her cheeks and then dripped down very slightly toward her jaw bone, but she had a rich creamy complexion. Her lips were so ruby, she didn't need any lipstick. Looking at her face, anyone would think this is one of the healthiest, happiest people he or she had ever seen.

  She wore a robin's egg blue sweater with a white blouse and a dark blue skirt. Heart-shaped diamond studs twinkled in her lobes. A gold locket rested comfortably between her small breasts.

  "I know it's of little consolation to you right now, but a few inches higher and that injury you sustained would have left you far worse off than you are." She smiled again and gazed past me, toward her own memories and thoughts. "My father once told me we should measure ourselves against our own actions and fate and not against someone else's. Instead of thinking there are so many people better off than you are, he said, think how much better off you are now than you could have been if...

  "That If hagns above everyone's head. Ainsley," he said. She lowered her chin and dropped her voice in an imitation of her father.

  "Ainsley?"

  "Yes. My father insisted that my mother and he find an uncommon name. Looks like your mother and father did the same. Rain?"

  "It was supposed to mean good things," I said.

  "So it will: it can. Let me take a wild stab," she said leaning back and pretending to think hard. "you've been lying here wondering why me? What did I do?"

  "Not exactly," I replied.

  "Oh? That's a switch. Finally, someone who thinks she deserves it?"

  "I didn't say that. I'm just not all that surprised,' I added.

  She had a wonderful intense look. Her eyes just filled with interest, but not the way Doctor Casey's did. Hers were warm, excited in a way that made me feel like I was someone important, a discovery. "Care to tell me why?" she asked.

  "I don't k
now if I have the time," I said. "I'll check my appointment book."

  She laughed.

  "What happened to you?" I asked her. "And don't tell me you fell off a horse."

  "No. I've never really ridden a horse. I've gotten on ponies at fairs is all. I'm a city girl. I was in a bad car accident. A tractor- trailer ran over my car nearly four years ago. They had to cut me out of it. Remember what I said about the big If."

  "Are you sure you're better off than you could have been?" I asked dryly.

  "I'm still happily married. I have two teenage daughters who keep me from feeling sorry for myself. and I have a successful career. Also. I love pizza, and from what I've been told by psychics, there isn't any on the other side. You don't even want it!"

  I stared at her a moment and then I laughed. The sound of it was so surprising, I just let it go on a little longer.

  "So," she said settling in her wheelchair. "Tell me your story."

  She was a good listener, never looking like her thoughts were wandering or like she was thinking why did I start with this girl in the first place? She asked many questions and made some notes in a small pad. Maybe I was starved for conversation. Maybe I had been shut up in my own mental dungeon too long. but I found what seemed like unlimited verbal energy. It felt good, too, good to get it all out. It was like puncturing a swollen spot on my body and watching all the pus leak out. I skipped around, of course, and tried to include only the events and people that had the most significance.

  Finally I paused and looked at her. The smile was gone and in its place was the dark, serious expression of someone who had just heard she had lost her best friend.

  "Sorry you asked?" I questioned.

  "No. Actually, I'm grateful you're so

  forthcoming. Most of my patients make me feel like a dentist. Pulling teeth," she added when I looked puzzled.

  "Oh."

  "You know, sometimes, often, it's much, much harder for someone who has a relatively easy life, to contend with such a difficult setback. You've been through so much. I feel confident you're going to do well."

  "Sure." I said. "I'm just a chip off the old tragedy." She laughed.