Chapter 29

I wasn’t sure why, but I expected my bedroom to look different. But, there everything was. The posters of baseball players still hung on the walls. The dark blue bedspread was still dark blue. My baseball trophies still sat cluttered on top of the shelf.

Right then, I felt most like my old self. My real self.

I set my iPod on the docking station, turned it on, slowly increased the volume, watched the blue bars move like waves, growing taller and taller, stretching into the red until the volume was up as loud as it could go and the display showed nothing but a red, digital block. The Smithereens. I knew the song that was playing, but I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear a thing, but I did feel something. The vibration from the music was coming through the floorboards, tickling the soles of my feet. The booming of the bass guitar and pounding of the bass drum pushed its way up from the floor, stimulating the carpet and igniting my feet. And the tempo was there. I felt it.

My legs began moving to the rhythm My body sensed the vibrations. I started to rock from side to side. I bobbed my head and twisted down toward the ground before coming back up again.

I felt the music. I could not hear the singing, but… I felt the music!

Spinning around to the beat, I caught Mom, Dad, and Marie standing in the doorway, holding their hands over their ears. I continued to dance, not missing a beat and smiling. “I can feel it!” I yelled. “I can feel the music!”

Mom clapped her hands together. She walked into the room and started dancing, too. She reached out her hands and caught hold of mine. She pulled me in, hugging me tight. Her hot tears wet my neck. When she let go, she was smiling. And we danced some more.

Dad didn’t wait long. He bowed before Marie. Marie did a curtsey. With the formalities out of the way, they jumped around dancing to the fast and heavy beat.

Saturday morning, the lights in the kitchen flickered. I went to see who was ringing the doorbell. Patrick stood on the front step wearing his leather mitt and cradling a baseball in it. He raised his eyebrows, silently asking if I wanted to play.

I did. I longed to play. Though my balance was a lot better, I knew I’d never be able to throw the way I used to, or catch, or hit, or run… Even if I didn’t fall down or embarrass myself, the truth would always be right there in front of me, staring me in the face. I could never be the player I was before I became sick. Never. “Nah. No, thank you.”

Patrick took off the mitt and tucked it with the ball under his arm so he could sign. Why not?

“I just don’t feel like it,” I answered.

He pretended to ride a bicycle, and then raised his eyebrows again.

I shook my head. “Nah.” The bike was in the garage where it belonged. It had been terrifying during the summer when we’d ridden to the ballpark. I hadn’t tried riding it since. The last thing I needed was to have a car hit me and be laid up with broken bones for the next few months—or worse. “Want to come in?”

He shrugged. It was a sunny morning. We never spent sunny days inside. Or, we never used to. “We could play video games,” I offered. I had slipped in the baseball game last night after dancing with my family and was surprised to find that I really enjoyed it. I might not be able to hear the sound effects, but it was still fun to play.

Okay, he signed.

We set up in the living room and played for about an hour. Patrick wanted to be the Mets. I, of course, had first dibs on the Yankees. We played seven innings. We took turns being up to bat, on defense, in the field. The game involved a lot of fast finger action, hitting one button on the controller to have a man steal a base, selecting the right pitch to confuse the player up to bat. Patrick and I played the same way. We couldn’t sit still and just work the controller. We had to twist our bodies this way and that, as if our doing so made the electronic players respond more favorably. Unfortunately, the Mets won, 10 to 7.

“Play again?” I was ready to hit the reset button.

Patrick made up an excuse about needing to head home to help his mother with something. But I saw the way he picked up his mitt and ball on the way out. He was headed to the ballpark. On a day like today, there’d be a game going on. He would want in. I couldn’t blame him. A part of me wanted in, too.