Ariel's Crossing by Bradford Morrow

Author:Bradford Morrow
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781453212097
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2010-06-15T10:00:00+00:00

Her left side was partially paralyzed, though her fingers moved at the doctor’s command and her thin wrist rose with difficulty but nonetheless rose. She could feel the hands that held her own, and pleased everyone with her ready half smiles. The stroke had mildly slurred her speech—she didn’t feel much like speaking those first days, anyway—but her physician believed she had every chance of regaining full articulation. She fought sadness and fear as best she could. She prayed, though her prayers, begun with energy and commitment, would trail away before she got to a proper Amen. She tired, slept, awakened refreshed, then tired again.

Once they moved her out of intensive care and into her own room, she brightened up altogether. Fewer external stimuli, no moaning beyond the drawn curtain. Less frightening equipment, just intravenous and a catheter. Her cheeks blushed with new color when she found she could clasp a rubber ball. Bonnie Jean and Ariel worked out an alternating routine—Ariel in the morning, Bonnie the afternoon, either or both in the evening—so she was never alone during visiting hours. Daughter watched television with her, soap operas and talk shows. Granddaughter arranged orchids in a round glass bowl of water and set them on her windowsill. Granna saw that the mountains were upside down in the globular vase.

“Refrac … shion,” she said slowly, appreciatively.

Ariel chose books to read to her from Granna’s shelves. She brought a Bible to the hospital, and other volumes that appeared to have been left purposely within reach of her reading chair in the cottage living room.

“Wall Whitman,” the patient requested, impatient with her diffident tongue. Then tried again a bit harder, straining and succeeding with, “Walt Whitman or … or Eh … merson.”

Ariel read from an essay by the latter. “‘My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are.’”

She lifted her fingers then her braceleted wrist and quaking arm off the bedsheets and said the words Self and Reliance separately, enunciating each with painstaking care. Nodding, Ariel continued as the woman lay her hand on her chest with deliberate heedfulness, as if she were holding some gossamer string connected to life itself.

Sooner than any of them might have expected, the doctors advised Bonnie Jean that her mother had made wonderful progress and needed to begin physical and speech therapy. The prognosis for a complete recovery was entirely positive. Plans were made to transfer her to a convalescent facility where she could recuperate. Under cloudless blue skies and a white sun that made her blink and brought to her lips another partly lopsided smile, she was moved in an ambulette van. Her daughter decorated her new room with metallic balloons emblazoned with the words Get Well Soon and a huge—Bonnie might have thought a little overhuge—arrangement of gladiolas from Brice and Jessica. Explaining to her

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.