All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Author:Jacquelyn Mitchard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

The days passed, spring racing along in the world, plowing forward like steps in wet sand in the rehab ward. Maureen began to use a walker. The physical therapist pushed her every day to keep going, just one more step, then just to the end of the counter. Once, exhausted and sweaty, Maureen slipped and fell to her knees. She wasn’t hurt at all; but when the PT helped her up, Maureen tried to spit in her face. Nothing came out, but Shannon Stride said, “Don’t you dare. You’re fortunate, Maureen. Do you know how much harder it’s going to be when you go home? Is there going to be a bathroom with a shower three steps from your bed? No. Is there going to be a button for you to call someone whenever you want to change the channel on the TV and you can’t reach the remote? No. You have to win yourself back, Maureen. The prize is what you had before. Yeah, it sucks. All this work to be not quite as good as you were before. But remember. Kids here would give their eyeteeth to be able to do what you can do.”

“I got no eyeteeth,” Maureen snapped.

“But you have so much else. You look normal. You got so lucky. You think they want to look the way they do? You ever look at the pictures in their rooms? You think they weren’t as cute as you before? You ever talk to them? Or are you too good for them?”

Maureen was ashamed. With every ounce of her strength, she pushed toward the end of the nurses’ station countertop.

“Well done,” said Shannon. “Well done.”

That night Maureen sat next to Charles and Zoe in the hospital’s little theater and watched the old version of The Parent Trap. It was better than the new one. Zoe was funny and sweet. She was fifteen and had been a figure skater. She fractured her skull when her pairs partner dropped her. Every kid in rehab, except the little babies, seemed to have been something great. And from that day until she left, Maureen visited Zoe’s room every afternoon to watch Days. Zoe’s speech was much better than Maureen’s. But Zoe’s mother had told Maureen that Zoe would never be mentally more than ten or twelve years old. She would always have to live with her parents.

How did they know?

Maureen doubled her efforts.

She asked Jeannie to bring her sheet music; and when the music therapist came in, Maureen begged for fifteen minutes of piano “lessons.” Within two weeks she had begun to sight-read. After two weeks she could play songs from The Lion King—but only with her left hand. Her right hand was still too weak. Still nobody could believe that she’d actually learned something new, and something that was traditionally linked with math.

At night, she squeezed her exercise ball until her right hand ached and sweat trickled down her breastbone. She asked Shannon for something more challenging than the ball. Shannon gave her a device that looked like a slingshot.

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