The Road to Home by Vanessa Del Fabbro

Author:Vanessa Del Fabbro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2005-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Monica

With her tanned, sculpted muscles, short hair slicked back with gel, and no-nonsense air, Laura was my own personal drill instructor. She didn’t pity me, nor did she want to know any of the gory details of my attack. She was interested in one thing only: seeing me walk from one end of the rehabilitation center to the other. I liked her the minute I met her.

She’d increased my twice-weekly sessions to daily ones, and, each morning at nine, Francina would help load me into the car for the three-mile trip and Laura would off-load me on the other side.

The rehab center was a fake Art Deco building in pastel-blue with yellow trim. Sago palms filled the white marble lobby, and from behind her spaceship console the elegant receptionist looked as though she were navigating a tropical universe. There were two floors of exercise equipment, most of it computerized, and glass cubicles that served as offices for the physical therapists. Black wooden gangways crisscrossed the charcoal-colored carpet, giving wheelchairs access to the exercise stations. Each basin in the white marble bathroom was surrounded by a collection of imported bath soaps, creams and perfumes, and the four saunas, five steam baths and six massage rooms were clinically clean. I wanted to move in.

Most mornings I had the center to myself, but sometimes I shared it with an elderly man who was learning to walk again after a stroke. Once I saw a little boy being taught how to use his new artificial leg. Laura said he’d been knocked down by a car. For almost an hour he did nothing but fall over, but each time he brushed away his frantic mother and pulled himself up again with the parallel bars. Watching his freckled, eager face, I’d wanted to cry.

“Okay, we’re going to try something here,” said Laura, lifting me out of my wheelchair. “Grab hold of the parallel bars.”

I propped myself up between them, with my legs dangling beneath me like a marionette’s.

“Straighten your legs and plant your feet firmly on the ground.”

Slowly, I did as she commanded.

“That’s it. See how easy it is. You’re standing.”

I was. I was really standing, even if I was holding all of my weight up with my arms. My mother applauded. After a few minutes my arms started to shake, and Laura plucked me down like a cat from a tree.

“I’m so weak,” I said, massaging my triceps.

“What did you expect?” she asked.

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