It bounced down the first step and then the second and I held it as tightly as I could, but now I was at a very awkward angle. It was hard to inch myself forward and down and hold the chair at the same time. Finally. I decided to let it bounce down the steps on its own and then follow as quickly as possible.
As soon as I uncurled my fingers, the chair, carried forward by its weight, rolled down the remaining steps, only it didn't stop as close to the bottom as I had hoped. The momentum of bouncing forward kept it going and it rolled and rolled until it reached the driveway.
"Stop!" I screamed at the chair as if it was a living thing and could hear and obey.
It slowed down, but didn't stop. It rolled on until it reached the descending incline and then picked up speed again and rolled faster and faster down the driveway until I could see it no more. I stared after it in disbelief. I wasn't going to have to drag myself just down these steps now. I was going to have to drag myself quite a distance down the driveway as well.
I glanced back at the house. Even getting back inside and to my room would be a major endeavor.
What had I done?
Damn her. I thought, damn her for putting me in this horrible predicament.
"Help, someone!" I screamed.
My thin shout was carried away in the breeze. Who would hear me anyway? Maybe the grounds people would soon arrive. but what would I do in the meantime? I thought and decided I had little choice but to follow my chair. It might take me hours and hours. but I would get to it.
I turned and pushed my limp legs toward the stairs. Then, taking a deep breath. I pushed until my rear end bounced on the next step. It nearly bounced the breath out of me. I swallowed, closed my eyes and did another step and then another until I was down the stairway. My poor rear end felt raw and quite sore. I caught my breath again and then turned around, put my hands behind me and began to drag my body toward the driveway.
Gravel and dirt soon made my palms sting with pain. I had to stop often to wipe them off and rub them against my thighs. The noon sun beat down on my face and the warn breeze I had welcomed the moment I had opened the door now seemed like the tormenting hot breath of some giant creature hovering over me. I could feel the sweat beads trickling down my temples.
After another moment's rest. I pulled myself along again. My choice of clothing this morning wasn't exactly right for this exercise. I thought. The skirt didn't do much to protect the skin on my legs, especially about the calf muscles. I couldn't feel the pain at all on my left leg, but I could see the scratch marks and the red blotches. I did feel some stinging in my right leg.
After what must have been at least an hour, if not a little more. I reached the crest of the driveway and turned to look down the small hill. There was my wheelchair on its side near the road. It would probably take me another hour to drag myself down to it. I thought. My palms had started to bleed. too. It really was painful to put the full weight of my upper body on them and push along the dirt and gravel.
How was I going to do this now? I looked back at the house. It would be horrendous to try to return. I would have to get myself up those steps. too. I started to cry. The whole world conspires against me. I thought. The ground, the air, all of it is against me. Finally, nearly exhausted. I pushed myself up on my hands and in a moment of pure anger and frustration.
I turned myself into a ball by embracing my upper body and deliberately falling forward to get enough momentum to roll.
And roll I did, but my legs swung over like dead weights, bouncing me hard on my shoulders. I hit the side of my head on a small rock once and felt the warm trickle of blood under my hair. but I kept up my turning and spinning. The blue sky and clouds seemed to spin with me. Twice I felt as if I had knocked the air out of my lungs and gasped; finally. I stopped and lay on my stomach, looking up at my chair which was now only a few feet away.
I lowered my head to my arms and rested, feeling the stings of cuts and bruises from my hips up my arms to my head and my right ear. I was sure I looked a mess. My clothes were all stained and my blouse had ripped at the right elbow. I felt a scrape there and saw the blood.
Nevertheless. I had come this far. It was no time to stop and wail about it. I pushed myself up and struggled to get to a sitting position again so I could put my arms behind me and pull myself along until I reached the chair. I was nearly to it, too. when I heard the sound of an automobile and turned my head to see it coming at me. I shouted, for fear the driver hadn't seen me when he or she had come around the turn. It came to a stop in what was surely no more than a few inches from me. The bumper was so close I would hit it if I leaned back.
I heard the door open and I looked around hopefully, but the moment I saw her shoes and thin legs. I lowered my head like a flag of defeat. My aunt stood over me, her hands on her hips.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded. "What sort of a crazy thing is this? Have you gone completely mad? Look at you. Look at what you've done to yourself."
Through my tears I cried. "It's all your fault. Why did you have the ramp removed? Where were my van keys? Why didn't you leave them on the kitchen table as you promised?"
"Let's get you back into the house and cleaned up," she said. "How did you do this to yourself? Did you fall out of your chair? Why didn't you wait for me to come home? What was so important about you driving around now?"
She went for the wheelchair and brought it up beside me. Then she leaned down to scoop her arms under mine.
"Leave me alone!" I cried. This is your fault."
"Stop acting like a fool and cooperate. I know you can move that right leg a bit, now help me to help you," she commanded.
I had no choice but to do what she asked and somehow, she had the strength to lift me high enough to drop me in the chair. I fell back against it, my arms so tired and weak, they dangled over the sides.
"Just relax." she said and struggled with pushing me up the driveway.
"Why did you have the ramp removed?" I asked weakly.
"We're selling the house. remember? How could I have real estate agents bring prospective buyers around with that ramp there? It would turn them off. People have to have a good feeling about a house before they'll consider buying it."
"Couldn't you wait until I left at least? How was I supposed to get down?"
"Who thought you would try to leave without someone helping you? You didn't have to go and try to leave on your own, foolish girl. You've always been so impulsive."
"What are you talking about? You hardly know me," I said shaking my head. "You shouldn't have had the ramp removed," I insisted.
I was surprised at how strong she was for someone so thin. Somehow, she managed to turn the chair around and pull it up with me in it, step by step until we were back on the portico.
"There." she said and took a deep breath. "You've nearly exhausted me with your nonsense. "Now we've got to get you inside and cleaned up. You need to put some antiseptic on those cuts and bruises. too."
She turned the chair and wheeled me back into the house. I dropped my chin to my chest. My brave and determined attempt at escape had failed, heroic as it was, and I had been only moments from getting myself back into my chair and wheeling myself onto the road. Little did I know how important and precious those final moments were to be.
I would soon learn.
She got me back into my room and started to take off my clothing immediately.
"How do you think this would look if they came to visit and found you like this today? How do you think this would reflect on me? I'm capable of running a multimillion-dollar business, but not looking after one crippled girl? It would be a terrible embarrassment. Grant would wonder if I was as capable as I seem to be and he'd have every right to wonder.
"Your mother would run from the sight, of course. She would get so upset she would have to rest, and he would go to her and have to comfort her. We can't let something like that happen; we can't let that ever happen." she said.
I was too tired and in too much pain to stop her from babbling, but her words registered and I did feel shocked and a little terrified by the crazed look in her eyes when she rattled on and on.
I screamed when she washed some of the cuts and bruises, the soap cutting into me like tiny teeth.
"It's all your own fault, all the pain. Pain's good when it teaches you something. Hopefully, this time you'll learn," she said. As she worked, her eyes continued to widen and narrow like some telescopic lens being opened and closed.
"What do you mean, this time?"
She looked lost in a daze, her lips trembling softly above her teeth.
"We have to put antiseptic on it. Sister dear." "I'm not your sister!" I screamed.
Her eyes blinked and then she pulled up stiffly.
"It's just an expression," she said curtly. "You don't have to get so uppity about it. We'd be better off if you now thought of me more as your sister and not some distant aunt anyway."
I closed my eyes and groaned. I've got to get out of here. I thought. Her mind is like some clock that stops ticking and then starts at a different hour or on a different day.
When she put the antiseptic on, she did it with a vengeance, enjoying my screams and cries. I know it was supposed to be good, but in her hands, it was like some Chinese torture invented nearly two thousand years ago. Finally, it was over.
"You'd better lie down for a while," she advised.
I sat there, breathing hard, struggling to regain my composure. but I was exhausted and the pain was coming at me from so many different places. I was on the verge of passing out. Too weak to oppose her, even with shouts, I did little to prevent her from lifting me and swirling me onto my bed.
"I imagine you didn't even eat," she said, standing over me and breathing hard, her narrow shoulders lifting and falling. Her eyes drifted and she blinked rapidly. When she looked at me now, it was as if she was looking through me.
"I don't understand how you continue to look so well with the junk food you eat. You never even had a pimple problem and if you did have an occasional ugly little bump, you acted as if it was Mount Vesuvius erupting on your cheek or something," she said.
"What are you talking about. Aunt Victoria?" I asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.
'Of course you wouldn't remember. Anything ugly you block out immediately. Go to sleep. I have work to do," she said and started out.
"Wait." I called weakly. She didn't turn and a moment later, she was gone.
I'll rest. I thought. I'll rest and get back my strength and then I'll get out of here. She's going mad, drifting in and out of her own unpleasant memories. I let my eyes close and in moments, I was asleep.
I had been so exhausted from the ordeal. I slept hours and hours. In fact. when I awoke, the twilight had already begun and clouds made it even darker. Without a light on in my room, it looked so dreary. I groaned and pulled myself forward on my elbows, but the aches in my arms and in my hips were so great. I cried and collapsed on the pillow.
"Aunt Victoria,' I called. "Aunt Victoria!"
I waited. Except for the sound of the wind, now stronger, brushing over the windows and the walls of the house. I heard nothing. Was she even here? My head began to pound and I realized I hadn't eaten a thing all day and not even sipped a little water. My lips felt like two strips of sandpaper.
"Aunt Victoria!"
How could she not hear me? I was shouting now at the top of my voice?
"Are you here?"
The hallway looked dark. She was probably not here. I thought. I looked at my wheelchair. She had left it too far from my bed. Back to crawling if I wanted to get into it. I thought, but just the thought of making that effort exhausted me again. I might as well decide to climb Mount Everest, I lay there, trying to think of what I could do. The pain in my head felt like a band of electricity stretching from one temple around to the other like a crown of static.
"Aunt Victoria, please answer me if you're here," I pleaded. but I heard nothing.
Maybe she was in her office on the phone and that was why she didn't hear me. I continued to listen hard, waiting for a sound to indicate I wasn't alone in the house, but the silence lingered and seemed even deeper.
I called again and again and lifted myself on my elbows and shouted as well. Still nothing.
Desperate now. I reached over and grasped my alarm clock. As best I could. I flung it out the door and into the hallway where it hit the far wall and bounced. It made a great deal of noise.
I listened.
Finally. I heard footsteps, but they were so slow and so weak sounding, more like an old person shuffling. I couldn't imagine them to be Aunt Victoria's footsteps. It seemed to take forever for her to reach the door, but she finally did. She was dressed in that ugly, faded pink robe and she was wearing what looked like man's leather slippers. She appeared more distraught and tired than I felt. Her hair looked like a pack of rats had run through it. Her eyelids drooped and her eyes were as dark as two pools of ink. Without her usual perfect, if not stiff posture: her sloping shoulders made her older. thinner. She moved as if her muscles and joints ached more than mine and for a moment I wondered if her efforts to get me off the driveway and back into the house hadn't exhausted her after all.
"What is it? What's going on now? I was asleep," she muttered.
"I want to get out of bed." I said. "I need my wheelchair and I want to get something to eat and drink. I'm parched."
She stood there, staring at me as if she hadn't heard a word. "Aunt Victoria, did you hear me?"
"Guess what came in the mail this afternoon,"" she said instead of answering.
She smiled and dipped her hand into the big robe's side pocket to produce what looked like a picture postcard. She held it up and waited as if she expected I would understand.
"Who's that from?" I asked. Was it from England or from Roy?
"From them. Who else? Who else would have the audacity, the nerve, to send me such a card? I'll read it to you."
"Aunt Victoria..."
"Dear Vikki," she began and then lowered the card and looked at me. "She likes to do that sometimes, call me Vikki like we're loving sisters and she can use a nickname. She knows I hate nicknames and always have. I never let anyone call me Vikki in school. I wouldn't answer, but she got them to do it just for a joke. She began again:
Dear Vikki,
I just couldn't help but send you this card so you could see how beautiful it is here. We are having a very nice time. It as if Grant and I are on our honeymoon. We're getting to know and love each other all over again.
I hope you're well.
Love, Megan
She lowered the card and the put it back into her pocket.
"Love Megan." she said. "They're getting to know and love each other all over again. You see? She always gets what she wants in the end." She laughed.
"Don't work hard. Cry at the first sign of unpleasantness, wilt in front of your man, bat your eyelashes, sulk and you'll get what you want in this life. That's the lesson to follow as long as men hand out the prizes.
"So why am I working so hard. right? Go on, ask me. Ask me," she commanded.
"I'm hungry and thirsty," I said. "Please push the chair up to the bed for me."
She smirked, shook her head and went for the chair. After she brought it to the bed, she shuffled out of my room and down the hallway.
"Got to get strong, got to get out," I chanted. My mantra gave me the strength to get myself into my robe and into the chair. As soon as I had. I wheeled myself out of the room.
I was truly surprised at how dark the rest of the house was. She hadn't bothered to turn on the hallway lights. I glanced at the office. The door was open and from the look of it inside. I imagined a single small lamp was lit and nothing else. I went to the kitchen, turned on the lights and began to prepare myself some supper.
As I worked and finally ate. I kept expecting her to appear, but she didn't until I had finished and put the dishe
s in the dishwasher. Eating and drinking restored some of my strength and energy. The cuts and bruises were at least only dull aches. I had just turned to start back to my room when I heard an unfamiliar click of heels in the hallway. The sound of the footsteps suggested someone full of energy. Who was here? I wished for my mother.
At first I didn't recognize her. My instant response to who is this was maybe she was someone from Aunt Victoria's office, maybe her secretary. It took a moment for me to get past all the changes and realize who it was.
I felt my own blood drain down toward my feet: a stinging sensation began behind my ears as my strength grew small, and I stared at the woman who seemed a stranger now, a distorted exaggeration of some fantasy.
Her hair had been rinsed in some coloring that had turned it into dry straw. Her face was caked in makeup to the extent that some of it flaked on her forehead. A bright red lipstick had been applied to those thin lips, making them look thick and wide, but clownish, too. The eyeshadow wasn't put on badly, but the false eyelashes just didn't fit and looked very artificial.
She wore high-heeled shoes which lifted her into the stratosphere. Drop earrings, gold with diamonds in their center, dangled to match the gold necklace. Her small bosom had been enhanced by one of those Wonder bras-- or something-- because she suddenly had cleavage, clearly visible in the low Vneck collar, tight dark blue cotton dress that was so snug it revealed her boner hips. The skirt of the dress was the shortest I had ever seen on her.
"Well?" she sang lifting her arms above her head and turning slowly in a circle while she stood in the doorway. "how do I look?"
I couldn't find my voice. She was so bizarre. I was frightened. I tried to swallow, but the throat lump was heavy and large and wouldn't go down.
However, when she looked at me,
disappointment flooded her face at my reaction, those eyes of excitement quickly turning cold and alloy.