Each morning I took a shower, dried my hair, and put on my makeup; dressed in my workout pants, running bra, workout top, and hoodie; and made my way down to the basement. Walking on the treadmill, although strenuous, never caused a sweat. I meticulously recorded how far and for how long I was able to walk before needing a rest. My limit at Lyndhurst had been twelve minutes, but three months after returning home I was able to complete thirty-two un-pretty minutes. I bobbed and weaved and listed side to side, but I refused to grab hold of the sidebars to steady myself. I bodychecked the wall twice. I looked like a giant drunken boxer throwing punches at an invisible toddler.
I started taking small treks outside without my walking sticks. If I passed my reflection in a store window I stopped to take a look—not at my face but at my feet. Walking toward my reflection in the windows of bus shelters was also an excellent way to keep my feet in check, to ensure I didn’t have “swag,” that I didn’t look too stiff, that my knees were bending just the right amount. And then, the ultimate test: walking past a bunch of construction workers.
I had just left a friend’s place when I saw a convoy of trucks parked on the street, thick hoses stretched out beneath them. Men in sunglasses and orange reflector vests hung around with their legs spread wide. There was very little sidewalk for me to navigate, so I asked one of the men if it would be okay if I walked around the trucks and into the road so I could get to my car. I was graciously waved ahead. I tried to play it cool, to walk smoothly, to not veer too dramatically to one side or the other, when I heard it: an unmistakable woo-hoo kind of whistle, one that lingered on both the woo and the hoo. This was a solid “I’m just appreciating the view” whistle. Maybe, probably, definitely, there was a far younger, far more attractive woman walking right behind me who was the real object of their whistles, but I couldn’t risk turning around to look. And anyway, just the thought that I was whistle-worthy motivated me to keep taking these treks outside, alone, without my sticks.
This taste of independence was the sweetest I’d ever known. Soon after that walk, I took a road trip by myself to visit my friend Paula, who had left for Alberta to start a new life just before I left for St. Mike’s to start mine, which meant she was one of the blessed few who had never seen me in a wheelchair. Our reunion took place in Guelph where she was visiting her mother. She ran out to meet me in the driveway. We hugged like long-lost lovers. I had forgotten to warn her that hugging was easy but letting go could throw me off balance. Luckily, Paula was the kind of hugger who let go with every part of her body except her hands, which she used to grasp my arms and hold me in place to take a good, long look at me. She didn’t let go of me all the way up the stairs and into the house.
“Paula,” I said. She was gripping me so hard it was starting to hurt. “I can walk by myself, you know.”
“Shut up. I’m not doing this for you. This is for me.”
Once inside, I walked around for her.
“I don’t see any difference,” she said, slapping her thighs. “No difference at all.”
Paula and I had worked together on a television series for several years. She is an excellent actress, which meant I couldn’t tell if she was lying.
“Really? You can’t see any difference in my walking between then and now?”
“None.”
We drank an entire bottle of wine and then fell asleep around midnight, mid-sentence. For the first time in a long time, I was pleasantly—not maddeningly—buzzed.
At home, having a glass of wine with dinner was fine. When my coordination felt wonky, I just parked myself on the nearest couch. But drinking away from home was another matter entirely. I was concerned that my new feet might become that secretary at the office Christmas party who, after one too many mojitos, ends up in the broom closet making out with her boss’s wife.
Then, one day, Rich announced that the two-time flower-sending movie star and his famous director wife had invited us out to dinner.
“That might be fun!” I meant it. I was excited to dress up and show off how well I was walking.
But after only one martini, I knew I was in trouble.
“When I drink, I don’t walk very well,” I confided to the movie star, who was sitting next to me, but I couldn’t tell if he had heard me or not.
The meal ended. I bent down to get my purse. I put my scarf around my neck and gingerly pulled my jacket on. My back was sparking, a warning that the steel rods would soon be forcing their way up between my shoulder blades. I pushed my chair far back so I would have plenty of room to stand. I unbent my legs slowly. The tension in my back and chest was unbearable. What will my first step away from the table look like? And where the hell are my feet? I surreptitiously checked under the table to make sure they hadn’t migrated up the famous director’s pant leg. I wasn’t drunk, but my feet might make me look like I was.
We partnered off for the walk to our cars. I was with the movie star. The whole way, I walked like a crazy person. I farted frequently. I was fairly certain the latter was lost on him (if not on Rich and the famous director walking right behind us), but my loopy walking couldn’t have possibly gone unnoticed. My ankles kept slamming into each other like I was walking in a canoe. I banged into the movie star. If I had been with anyone else, I would have blamed my inebriated feet, laughed about it, slipped my arm through theirs, and moved on. I don’t know if the movie star’s absence of a helpful arm was because he really didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary or because he noticed but, kindly, didn’t want to embarrass me. Either way, I was furious.
On the ride home, I ranted to Rich about this perceived insensitivity to my needs.
“Honestly,” Rich said. “Why do you hate him so much?”
“I don’t hate him.” In fact, I thought he was wonderful. But there was no denying that he stirred me up. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but the truth was that he underscored that my career was in limbo.
Lying in bed that night, with my drunken feet passed out below me, I wondered if I would ever act again, and if I didn’t, what on earth was I going to do?
•
“I have an announcement and a question,” I said to Dr. Bright during one of our frequent appointments.
“I’m ready.”
“Rich booked us a trip to Las Vegas!”
“Fantastic! You’ve been before, right?”
“Many times. We love it. So that should be good. It’s three months away. End of May. I think I should be perfect by then, don’t you?”
She laughed but didn’t answer. “What’s the question?”
“It’s about my wheelchair permit.”
I don’t remember the day that I officially began walking on my own without the aid of a stick, only that it snuck up on me so gradually it was several days before I realized I didn’t even know where my sticks were. But I still had my wheelchair permit. Six months had passed since it had been issued, which meant it was either time to renew it or give it up. What had originally felt so shameful, so demoralizing, so necessary, now just felt like a crutch.
“It’s up to you,” Dr. Bright said. “If you want me to sign the renewal papers, I’m happy to.”
The winter had been hard. I was constantly on the lookout for black ice. I was terrified of falling. “Maybe just for another six months?”
I left the appointment with the papers signed and drove to Service Ontario. I parked my car and walked the remaining block to the license office. It happened to be just a couple of doors away from the Starbucks closest to Lyndhurst where I had routinely gone with Joey and other visitors. I felt triumphant, strolling back through my temporary old ’hood wearing a long black pair of boots with the tiniest of stacked heels. I had only just started wearing them. They were lined with fake fur, precluding the need for dreaded socks. The boots made me feel like my old self.
The sidewalks were clear and dry even though there had been a massive snowstorm days earlier. I was thinking about where I might go for lunch and who I might corral to join me, when I crashed. I don’t remember the fall, only the hard bounce of my mouth on the sidewalk and the sharp smack of my sunglasses cutting through the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t get up. One arm of my glasses was around my ear, the other pushed up to the top of my head. I was sure my teeth had gone clean through my lip. My face was burning. I blinked several times. I could see three pairs of shoes very close to my cheek.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh my God!”
“Can I help you?”
“I, I can’t. Just gimme a second. I need . . . uh, I don’t really walk very well.”
Somebody lifted me up and helped me into the paint store I had tripped in front of. My helper gently sat me down at the table at the front of the store and offered me some water. I accepted and then I took off my glasses, covered my eyes with my hands and burst into tears. The man tried to soothe me.
“I’m so embarrassed. So humiliated.”
“No, no, ma’am,” he said. “No.”
And then the whole story—all of it—tumbled out of me. I told this poor stranger about the tumor, the surgery, Lyndhurst, recovery, walking, wheelchair permit. I don’t know why I kept going; I don’t know why or when I stopped.
“Is something going on with my face?” I finally asked. “Am I bleeding?”
I looked up so he could assess me. Shawn was written in cursive on a badge sewn to his shirt.
“Well,” Shawn said. “You’re bleeding a little.”
“Where?”
He pointed to my forehead and the bridge of my nose.
“Do you have a mirror, please? A washroom, please?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
He walked me there. I passed two employees with their names also embroidered on their shirts. They looked at me, then quickly looked away. Were they the ones who had helped me off the sidewalk? Instead of asking, I just tried to bleed a little less as I walked past. I looked in the bathroom mirror and a sad-sad face stared back at me. I was full of cuts and blood. What kind of woman falls flat on her face on the bone-dry sidewalk and then can’t get up on her own? What kind of woman babbles and blubbers and bleeds in front of strangers? What kind of woman tells a perfect stranger her long-winded tale of woe without even being asked? Only one kind: a divorcée who eats Xanax for breakfast and gets plastered while her children are in school. I dabbed at my bloody nose and forehead. I pressed some wet paper towel to my burning lips, and then I walked the gauntlet back to Shawn.
“Thank you, Shawn,” I said. “You’re so kind. I’m sorry about all this.”
“No, no, ma’am. Not at all, ma’am.”
I left the store on shaky feet.
Service Ontario was right next door. If I was worried about them questioning the renewal of my permit based on how well I was walking, I’d pretty much taken care of that problem. My jeans were ripped right through on both knees. I didn’t even care. I kept my sunglasses on. The right lens was all scratched up. It was uncomfortable to stand. I had “sway,” as Mitch, my outpatient physiotherapist at Lyndhurst, called it, which meant that my ankles couldn’t keep still, always ready to do a little dance, shake a leg, drop to the ground.
The line moved forward and I moved with it. I don’t know if anyone was looking at me. At Lyndhurst, I had perfected the art of looking straight ahead. Once at the front of the line, I pushed my permit renewal toward the woman behind the counter.
“We’ll send the new permit in the mail,” she said.
“Okay.”
I waited for her to say something else, to ask me if I was okay so I could barf out my entire story to her, too, but she had already gestured toward the next person in line.
As I walked back to my car, I searched for the huge obstacle that had obviously tripped me. There was none, only flat pavement. My body had betrayed me.
I called Rich from the car, sobbing.
“I broke my face and now no one will look at me! I carry myself like I’m luggage too difficult to lift. And listen to me, listen to what I’ve become! My response to everything is to cry first, process later. And the kids are going to come home from school and take one look at my face and think, ‘That lady’s damaged goods.’ And I’m scared, Rich. I’m scared you’re going to die. I miss my old life. I want to live long enough to grow old.” I stopped at a red light and looked at the driver in the car next to me. He was looking straight ahead and singing with gusto to the radio. “I feel so old, Rich.”
He listened to me for the entire drive home.
“Go inside and rest,” he said.
“Okay.”
I went straight upstairs, took a bath, then got into bed and pulled the covers over my head. I closed my eyes and wished I was more religious. I wished I could conjure a psalm or a biblical verse to console myself. The only one I knew by heart was the middle section of the twenty-third psalm—Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. It helped. It also made me think of a stranger I had met at the bookstore just a few days earlier. He looked like what I imagined God to look like. He had a fuzzy gray beard and matching fuzzy gray hair and round wire-rimmed glasses. His teeth leaned this way and that, but still, he had a whiff of the regal about him.
“That is a really beautiful cane you’re holding,” I told him.
It was my first week leaving the house without my stick. I felt vulnerable without it.
“Since I’ve had this old piece of driftwood,” he said, tapping it lovingly, like it was his pet, “I get stopped by about two women a day. Do you know where Picton is?”
“I think so,” I said.
“I have a place out there. If you walk along the shoreline you’ll find lots of these.”
“May I touch it?”
I was wearing my heavy winter boots that laced halfway up my calves and sported some serious treads. They held my feet in pretty well but they weighed a ton and standing too long in one spot made me wobble like a Weeble. I touched his cane. It was beautifully shaped and sanded down. It even had a handle and a nice flat bottom.
“Thank you,” I said.
He smiled a wide, knowing smile and winked at me.
Thinking about that Godly man, I felt calmer. The kids would be home from school soon. I needed to get out of bed, wash my face, and pull myself together. When they saw me, I knew exactly what I would say: “Who wants pizza for dinner?”