A WHOLE NEW LIFE by REYNOLDS PRICE

Author:REYNOLDS PRICE
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SCRIBNER CLASSICS
Published: 1994-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

BACK HOME I watched Jeff Anderson and his fellow builders construct a permanent wheelchair ramp from my back door to the driveway. L-shaped and built to ideal specifications, the ramp sloped at an angle I could climb and descend on my own—so many ramps are steep-pitched slaloms, negotiable only with able-bodied help. And soon I began regular home workouts with an excellent new physical therapist, Deborah Hodges (Diana had returned to full-time work in pediatric therapy at Duke). Dan and I made a second good visit to Marcia and Paul at the shore; and once we were back at our separate desks, we plunged into our separate jobs.

On September 5th ’85 I completed the writing of Kate Vaiden, a draft of her entire story at least. Through the next two weeks, I tinkered at minor but absorbing revisions; and on September 20th I typed page 394, the end of the final draft. My relief was immense. Now I had one more external object to show the friends I’d put off for so long, a sizable thing completed and polished after so many friends had thought I was dead. The next day Dan flew north to New York for his own earned rest and to pass the manuscript to my agent.

Jeff Anderson stayed with me, he and Lettie cooked for me, and during that weekend they made me an offer of astonishing friendship. It was an offer that flowed from the main predicament I’d still refused to deal with. Even with my new strength and skills, there could be no question that a three-tiered house was a minefield to movement. I needed new quarters with wide doorways, vacant floor space to maneuver in and a sensible bathroom. Now with no hint to me, and certainly none from me, Jeff and Lettie had redrawn their plans for a house they planned to build on ten acres of woodland I’d sold them uphill behind me.

Their revised plan included a wing designed for me and the wheelchair; I’d live with them for the rest of my life. I thought long and happily about their gift. As it turned out, in calm discussion we ultimately made other choices. We would go on living with a hundred yards between us yet separate for now, but no one since the death of my parents had made me the offer of such a long commitment, and that fact alone would be as strong a prop as I’d have in the bone-rattling change that waited for me six months ahead.

Meanwhile I went on dragging myself several times a day down the parallel bars, telling myself that my right leg was strengthening. In the physical therapy sessions with Deborah, we’d work on learning the complex method of lurching hip-swings that permits some paras to walk upright with crutches and long-leg metal braces. But though she and I seldom expressed discouragement at my slow and maybe illusory progress, we gradually abandoned the notion of braces and moved back indoors to work at more realistic projects.

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