Eye of the Storm

  "What's it like outside?" I asked him.

  "It's a beautiful summer day. The sky was a pink pearl color when I woke this morning. I woke early in anticipation,'" he said.

  "I didn't sleep in anticipation."

  He laughed.

  "Well, it's time to go home. Princess."

  "You know all that Victoria has arranged for me?"

  "Yes. I have to admit she did a great job on preparing your bedroom. If there is anything invented for someone in your condition, she's got it there. I met your aide." he added with an impish smile. "She's tot bigger arms than me and bigger shoulders and she looks like she could wipe up the devil with just a scowl. Victoria must have gone to great lengths to find her. She's no nonsense."

  He got behind my chair and started to wheel me out of the room.

  "Wait, Jake," I said and turned to look at the room that had become something of a sanctuary.

  "You don't belong here. Princess,' Jake whispered. "Let's get out of here."

  He put his hand over mine and I nodded, closed my eyes and lay back in the chair. On the way out, all my nurses and some of the therapists made sure to say good-bye and wish me luck. I looked for Doctor Synder, but she wasn't around. She had said her goodbye and left me without fanfare. Was it just part of her treatment or was it because she couldn't bring herself to say good-bye? I liked to think we had become far more than doctor and patient. Visiting her would be a top priority for me. I thought,

  Grandmother Hudson's Rolls-Royce was parked at the curb. For the first time ever in my life. I had to be helped into the backseat. The doctors wanted me to put more confidence in my right leg, use it more to move myself from the wheelchair to another chair and especially into a car, but it was a bit awkward and Jake didn't want me to feel embarrassed. He didn't wait for me to adjust myself. Instead, he scooped me up and put me in as if I were a baby,

  "Let's just get you out of here and home," he said avoiding my eyes.

  He folded up the chair and put it in the trunk and then he got behind the wheel.

  "Got your safety belt on?" he asked.

  "I can sit fine. Jake. Stop treating me like a cripple.' He laughed. It brought relief to both of us.

  "Home James," I ordered.

  "Right, right."

  He started away and I looked back at the hospital. Had I really been there all this time? Was I really paralyzed? When will you wake up, Rain Arnold? Can't you shake off this nightmare?

  Jake hated every moment of silence. He talked and talked, describing the smallest, simpliest things about the house, the maintenance, the grounds, the changing foliage. He babbled, even describing the plot of a television movie he had watched.

  "Where is Rain now. Jake?" I asked,

  interrupting him.

  "Rain? Oh, she's at a real horse farm north of Virginia. They'll treat her right, don't worry. I got a good price for her."

  "You're a liar. Jake," I said. "No, no, I did."

  "I really wish you hadn't sold her, Jake. She'll always feel lonely."

  "I just couldn't give her the attention she needed. Princess. That was it. Really."

  "Sure, Jake. Will you take me to see her some day?"

  "Oh, absolutely." he promised.

  He tried to change the subject. After a while, he accepted the silence and drove on. I dozed and when I woke again, we were close enough to the house that my heart began to pound. I don't know why I was so nervous about returning.

  "You're doing the right thing to come back here,' Jake assured me. He was watching me in the rearview mirror and I was sure he could see the hesitation in my face. "You'll get good care and you're familiar with the place, which makes it easier. You'll be just fine, Princess. Just fine."

  "I know." I said softly.

  Then the house came into view. It loomed taller and larger than I remembered it.

  "What's that off the portico?" I asked Jake.

  "That? Victoria had Miles Hollinger construct a ramp for you. You can wheel yourself in and out of the house now. I was surprised she thought of it. You never know what she's going to do, but she does get the right things done." he said.

  "A ramp?"

  "Wait until you see some of the other changes she has made inside. Things are designed for your comfort now."

  "Maybe I'll be too comfortable," I muttered. Jake didn't hear.

  Will the house become my new prison? I asked myself. Doctor Snyder had warned against becoming too dependent on people. Did she realize you could become too dependent on your surroundings as well? Beware of crutches, I warned myself.

  A thousand years ago it seemed Grandmother Hudson waved good-bye to me from those front steps. There was so much sadness and darkness in her face that day. Maybe she somehow knew how hard it was going to be one day for me to return.

  8

  Prisoner of My Body

  .

  Jake pushed my wheelchair up the ramp to the

  front door. "I should be doing this myself. Jake." "Next time. Princess," he said.

  I wasn't that heavy. but I could hear him

  huffing and puffing.

  "You're smoking too much. Jake," I told him.

  He laughed and agreed. I wanted to add drinking, too.

  because I could smell it on his breath. but I didn't. Before he could come around to open the front

  door, a large African-American woman opened it for

  us so abruptly I was almost sucked into the house by

  the rush of air. Imposing looking, there were enough

  traces of gray in her short hair to suggest she was at

  least in her mid- to late fifties. Jake was right about

  her arms looking big and powerful. They put a strain

  on the short sleeves of her blue and white uniform.

  When she moved those arms. however. I could see

  that they weren't flabby. She was tall, at least Jake's

  height, and she had a small bosom but wide hips.

  There were rolls of flesh up the back of her neck

  making it look like a spring upon which her large

  round head bobbed as she gazed down at me with a look of surprise. I imagined she had been expecting a lily-white Southern girl. Who else would Victoria

  Randolph have for a niece?

  "I'm Mrs. Bogart," she said raising her voice on

  Mrs. Her stern expression, cold ashen eves clearly

  telegraphed her insistence on being addressed that

  way. There would be no familiarity, no use of

  Christian names. This was no mammy out of Gone

  with the Wind, and there was no question in that face

  about who I was and wasn't.

  Looking from me to Jake, she brought her thick

  lower lip over her upper, stretching the skin on her

  chin until I could see her jawbone clearly outlined. "I'll take her from here," she told him. If he had any intention of arguing with her, her

  quick, decisive move to seize the handles of my chair

  ended it. She practically knocked him out of her way

  and shoved me and my chair into the house. Once

  inside, she paused and looked back at him.

  "Put anything of hers right here," she ordered

  nodding at the table in the entryway,

  "Yes sir," Jake said and saluted.

  I laughed, but before I could thank him, she

  moved me forward,

  "Wait," I said. "I want to thank Jake," "You can thank him later. We've got to get you

  acclimated as soon as possible," she said.

  "This is my home. I'm acclimated already." Instead of replying she pushed me along, past

  the sitting room and the formal dining room and the

  kitchen to what was once considered the maid's

  quarters. I was amazed to see all the changes. The old

  four-poster dark maple bed. which I imagined was

  something of an antique, had
been replaced with an

  aseptic-looking, metal-frame hospital bed,

  mechanized to be raised and lowered by the inhabitant

  pressing a button. Lamps with cold gray metal shades

  had been installed in the wall around the bed. The

  pretty brass ceiling light fixture had been supplanted

  by a strip of neon lights, and set on the wall facing the

  bed was a sizable television set.

  The remainder of the room had been changed as

  well. The small chair and table in the corner were

  gone as was the soft- cushioned recliner. In their place

  were a number of therapeutic machines and other

  equipment I recognized from the hospital. When I

  glanced into the bathroom, I saw it had been

  completly refitted for a handicapped person. It had

  railings and braces around the toilet and the bathtub. "I imagine you're very tired from your trip,"

  Mrs. Bogart said.

  "No," I told her. "Not really."

  I caught a little twitch in her right eye as she

  stiffened her posture.

  "You are." she insisted. "You just don't realize

  it. These journeys that are taken for granted by the rest

  of us," she said as if I was some son of alien creature,

  "take a subtle toll on a handicapped person. Believe

  me. Miss Arnold, I speak from years and years of

  experience."

  "You can call me Rain," I said. She ignored it

  and went to the bed to pull back the blanket. "I'm not

  getting into bed just yet," I said more firmly. She stopped and looked at me that twitch

  flashing once again.

  "If you cooperate, things will be much easier

  for you and you'll be much more comfortable. Believe

  me."

  "Why do you keep saying. believe me?" I

  asked.

  She stared and then nodded. Her eyes blinked

  once with her conclusions about me.

  "Very well, I'll see to your things. You can do

  as you want and call me when you're ready to get into

  bed."

  She rolled the blanket back toward the pillow.

  "I can do that myself anyway," I said,

  She straightened up. Her lips seemed to go back

  and back, cutting deeper and deeper into her bloated

  cheeks until I could see the white of her teeth in

  dramatic contrast to her coal black complexion. "Ms. Randolph hired me to assist you because

  I've spent the last twenty years taking care of the

  handicapped in hospitals and homes. I've worked

  closely with therapists and doctors and nurses. I've

  had a half-dozen patients like you.

  "You've got some high mountains to climb,

  girl," she continued her eyes blazing with indignation

  at my audacity in challenging her suggestions and

  orders. "Mountains you don't even know are out there

  yet. Up to now, you've been in a hospital with roundthe-clock attention, people pawing over you, making

  you feel like you're the center of the world.

  "Here, you're all alone with your aches and

  pains, your spasms, your skin problems and your

  bathroom difficulties. Just getting in and out of this

  bed is going to seem like a ten mile hike, believe-- "Take my word for it,' she interrupted herself.

  "Take my word for it because I've lived through it and

  seen it."

  She nodded with a cold smile settling in her

  face and then continued.

  "You think because you're home here,

  everything's going to get back to the way it was. Well,

  it won't, ever, so you got to work on making the best

  of it all and that's why I'm here: to show you the way

  and to give you the benefit of my experience. "Now that's the one and only time I'll give you

  a lecture. If you want me around. I'll stay and I'll do

  my job. If you fight me and contradict me and make

  me work double. I'll pack my bag and go off to take

  care of someone else whose family's knocking on my

  door and who will be more appreciative.

  "I don't mean to sound harsh, but if we don't

  face reality right off, we're going to have a harder

  time tomorrow. That you can believe whether I say

  believe me or not."

  "We?"

  "What's hard for you is hard for me because I

  got to help you through it." she said without

  hesitation. "This isn't like taking care of some patient

  in a home who can't remember her name and age and

  when she went to the bathroom last. You've got an

  active mind in a broken body. I have seen what that

  can do and what that means.

  "So you can sit in that chair now and not rest,

  and even wheel yourself up and down the hallway

  until your arms ache, but you'll have a better time of it

  if you lay down here a while, get some strength back,

  have something warm to eat and then start to readjust. "That's my piece. Do what you want," she

  added and started out. "I got to get your stuff." Her harsh, frank words brought tears to my

  eyes. Doctor Synder had warned me that tears would

  come far more often and easily now. She told me not

  to pay as much attention to them as I ordinarily

  would, but it was difficult to feel those hot drops

  zigzagging down my cheeks and pretend it was

  nothing. My heart ached more with every heavy beat.

  I didn't feel broken as much as empty. Everything

  warm and good inside me had been knocked out when

  I fell off Rain and onto those rocks.

  I sat there staring at the starched white sheets

  and pillowcases of my bed. When Jake was driving

  me home. I had been looking forward to the soft,

  cushiony pillows with their scent of lilacs and the

  wonderful down comforter that made me feel snug

  and safe. Looking around the room that Aunt Victoria

  had remade for me left me feeling she had brought the

  hospital in here and I hadn't returned to Grandmother

  Hudson's home and my home after all.

  The small raft of optimism I had tied to the

  dock in my harbor of hope seemed to fizzle and sink

  in the cold, dark waves again. In fact. I could feel my

  body slumping in the chair. my shoulders dipping. Mrs. Bogart was right. I thought. Why bother

  pretending nothing terrible had happened? I wheeled

  up to the bed. Reached out and pressed the button to

  lower it more just like I had been taught to do in the

  hospital. Then, following the steps I had learned at the

  therapy center, pulled myself up in the chair, braced

  myself on my right leg and swung myself onto the

  mattress. But I had not pulled the blanket far enough

  down and I was lying on top of it. Awkwardly. I

  rolled myself over and then worked it away, Now. I

  had to take off my shoes. Cupping my thigh. I pulled

  my leg up and strained to get the shoe off. It was

  suddenly so exhausting. I lost my breath and fell back

  against the pillow. My leg dropped like a leaden pipe,

  sending a spasm of pain up the sides of my back. I

  held down my scream and sucked in my moan. A moment later I heard Mrs. Bogart return with

  my things and put them down. She came to the bed. "Well, that's good," she said. Without asking if

 
I needed her or wanted her to. She proceeded to take off my shoes and help me sit up, moving me around as if I was nothing more than an inflatable doll. She brought the blanket up, straightened the pillow, and lowered me to it. "Get some rest. I'll make you some

  lunch.

  "Oh, that driver said he'd be back to see you.

  but I told him to wait a day or two," she said. "A day, or two? Why?"

  "You got to get into a schedule before you start

  hosting visitors.

  The therapist is coming in the morning. I don't

  know what his schedule will be with you vet and we

  don't want your rest to be disturbed. You need to save

  strength for the therapy. I don't have to say believe

  me," she added, not letting me forget I had dared to

  criticize her expression. "You already know that from

  being in the hospital."

  "Have I had any mail or any phone calls?" I

  asked her quickly before she left.

  "I only been here a day before you come." she

  said, "No mail or calls yesterday and nothing yet

  today. Get some rest," she dictated and walked out,

  her footsteps echoing behind her. The great house

  seemed to swallow every sound until it was terribly

  silent.

  I closed my eyes and then opened them and

  looked up at the ceiling. I had dreamed of being

  upstairs, returning to Grandmother Hudson's room. I

  thought I'd feel safe and happy there again. This was

  nothing like any sort of homecoming. I couldn't even

  have the illusion of getting back to some normality.

  Everything here and everything done for me was

  constantly designed to remind me about who I was

  and what I had become: an inmate, shifted from one

  prison to another.

  Of course. I was forever incarcerated in the

  worst prison of all now. I thought, no matter where I

  was at the time.

  My own body.

  In moments-- despite my determination to

  prove Mrs. Bogart wrong-- I fell asleep exhausted. .

  When I woke., I was surprised to discover I had

  slept for over two hours. Almost as soon as my

  eyelids fluttered open and I glanced at the clock. Mrs.

  Bogart was in the room with a tray on which she had a

  bowl of tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich. I

  had to believe she was looking in on me continually

  and knew I was stirring. How could I help but be

  impressed with such attentiveness, despite her poor bedside manners? I was equally amazed by what she had brought me to eat. She saw that in my face