Left Neglected

Chapter 14





It’s the first week of December, four weeks since the accident. I’m not back home. I haven’t returned to work. I missed the most important part of recruiting season at Berkley and Thanksgiving. Well, Bob and my mother brought the kids and an entire Thanksgiving feast here to Baldwin, and we all ate dinner in the cafeteria, so technically, I didn’t miss Thanksgiving. The home-cooked meal was delicious (certainly far more delicious than the grayish-looking turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy I saw on the plastic trays in front of some of the other patients), and we were all together, but it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving. It felt sad and weird.

I’m sitting in a room they call the gym. I chuckle a little to myself every time I come in here, thinking, Look at what it takes to get me into a gym. But it’s not a gym in the traditional sense, not like the one I never go to in Welmont. There are no treadmills, free weights, or elliptical machines. There is one Nautilus-like machine, taller than Bob, with pulleys and a harness hanging from what looks like the machine’s giant, extended steel arm. I want no part of whatever goes on in that thing.

In addition to this medieval contraption, there are two long tables pushed against one of the walls. A tidy stack of paper-and-pencil tests rests on one and a wild assortment of Rubik’s Cube–type puzzles and games are piled on the other. There are some Reebok steps and blue PhysioBalls, which I guess can probably be found in a real gym, a set of parallel bars for practice with assisted walking, and a big mirror on one of the walls. And that’s about it.

There’s a poster on the wall above the puzzles table that I’ve become fascinated with. It’s a black-and-white photograph of a fist positioned below the word attitude written in bold red letters. The message and the image don’t seem quite right for each other, but the more I visit the poster and turn it over in my mind, the more the combination inspires me. The fist is power, strength, determination, fight. And attitude. A positive attitude. I will bring a positive attitude to my fight to get my life back. I clench my hand in solidarity with the fist in the picture. I am strong. I’m a fighter. I can do this.

I’m sitting directly in front of the wall with the big mirror. I spend a lot of time in front of this mirror, searching for the left side of me. I do manage to find pieces of me every now and then. My left eye for a second. The laces of my left sneaker. My left hand. It’s a lengthy and grueling effort for such a temporary and tiny reward. I have found that my left hand is easier to locate than any other left part of me because I can look for my diamond ring. I used to think of my ring as a beautiful symbol of my commitment to Bob. Now it’s a beautiful, two-carat, flashy target. I told Bob that my recovery would probably benefit from more jewelry—a diamond tennis bracelet for my left wrist, a cluster of diamonds dangling from my left ear, a diamond anklet, a diamond toe ring. Bob laughed. I was only half kidding.

Martha’s late, and my mother’s using the restroom, and there really isn’t anything left to look at in here but me in the mirror, so I go ahead and check myself out. I’m not a pretty sight. It’s always hot in this room, so I’m not wearing my fleece hat. My hair has started to grow back but just enough to stick straight out in every direction. I look like a Chia Pet. I’m wearing no makeup. Yet. That’s part of what I’ll probably do in here today. Martha will ask me to put on my makeup, and I will, and then my mother, who is usually hovering in the background, will either giggle or gasp depending on how the day is going, and Martha will tell me that I didn’t apply anything on the left. The left half of my lips will have no lipstick, my left eye will have no mascara or liner or shadow, and my left cheek will have no blush.

And then I’ll study my face in the mirror and really try to see what they see, and I’ll see myself in full makeup, looking pretty good, minus the Chia Pet hairdo. It’s a spooky and sometimes embarrassing moment, becoming aware of what they see, comparing it to what I see. And what I don’t. I’m missing a whole continent of experience, and I’m not even aware of it. I’m not aware that I’m not noticing the left half of my face, the left half of Martha, the left half of that page of Junie B. Jones. To me, nothing is missing.

The first step in my recovery is to become aware of my unawareness, to constantly and repeatedly remind myself that my brain thinks it’s paying attention to all of everything, but in fact, it’s only paying attention to the right half of everything and nothing on the left. Every second of the day, it seems, I forget that this is so. While the part of my brain normally responsible for this awareness has taken a leave of absence, I have to recruit another part of my brain to be my own baby-sitter, to monitor my every move and to chime in whenever I need prompting.

Hey there, Sarah, you think you’re seeing your whole face, but you’re actually only paying attention to the right side. There’s another half there. It’s called the left. Honest to God.

Hey, Sarah, that page you’re looking at? You’re only reading the words on the right half of the page. And sometimes only the right half of the words. Really. There’s a left half. That’s why it doesn’t make any sense to you. Trust me.

But so far, my inner babysitter has been less than reliable, not even showing up for the job most of the time. She’s a flaky teenager obsessed with her boyfriend. I may have to fire her and start over with someone new.

The second step, once I become aware of my unawareness, is to expand this knowledge over to the left, to stretch my focus and imagination past what seems like the edge of the earth, and find the other half. What used to be automatic and entirely behind the scenes—seeing the world as whole and seamless— is now a painstaking and deliberate process of trying to reel a disconnected left into consciousness. Look left. Scan left. Go left. It sounds simple enough, but how do I look, scan, or go to a place that doesn’t exist to my mind?

Bob keeps insisting that I can do anything I put my mind to. But he’s referring to my old mind. My new mind is broken and doesn’t give a whack about the left or my old mind’s reputation for success.

Attitude. Fist. Fight. I can do this.

The strangest thing about sitting in front of this big mirror every day is seeing myself sitting in a wheelchair. Handicapped. I don’t feel handicapped, and yet, there I am. But I’m not actually paralyzed, thank God. My left leg can move. The muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves in my leg are all connected, poised and ready, waiting for confident instruction, like one of Charlie’s Wii avatars waiting for him to press the A button. Come on, Sarah, press the A button.

Martha enters the gym and stands behind me.

“Morning, Sarah,” she says, talking to my reflection in the mirror.

“Morning.”

“Did you make your way here on your own today?”

Here we go again. This is how Martha and I begin every morning together. I knew she was going to ask this, and I know she knows my answer, but I play along anyway. It’s our shtick.

“I did not,” I say like I’m a witness on the stand.

“Then how did you get here?”

I point to the guilty reflection of my mother, who is now standing behind Martha.

“Did you give it a try?”

“I don’t see why I should waste any time learning to use a wheelchair. I’m walking out of here.”

Attitude. Fist. Fight.

“How many times are we going to go through this? You should take any opportunity you get to use your left side.”

Before I can get out my rebuttal, she grabs the back of my chair, spins me around, and wheels me out of the gym. I hear my mother’s shoes tap-tapping at a quick clip behind us. We travel down the long hallway past my room to the elevators and stop. Martha spins me around.

“Okay, Sarah, let’s see you get to the gym.”

“I don’t want to use this thing.”

“Then you’re spending your session today sitting in the hallway.”

“Good, I like it here.”

Martha stares down at me, her hands on her broad hips, her mouth pinched shut. I grind my molars to keep from sticking out my tongue at her. This woman does not bring out the most attractive side of me.

“Helen, let me know if she changes her mind,” she says and starts walking away.

“Wait,” I call after her. “Why can’t I practice using my left side trying to walk in the gym?”

“You will. We’re doing this first,” she says, pausing to see if she should continue down the hallway.

Attitude. Fist. Fight. Fine.

“Fine.”

Martha walks back toward me, a smug hop in each step of her navy blue Crocs. She places my left hand on the wheel and taps it.

“Feel your hand?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Feel the wheel?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let’s go. Down the hallway. Follow the line.”

A straight yellow line is painted on the floor and runs the length of the hallway, probably to guide handicapped patients like me. I roll the chair. I roll the chair. I roll the chair. I crash into the wall. And although this is what always happens, I’m startled by the collision. I didn’t notice that I’d veered away from the yellow line, and I never saw the wall before I hit it.

“You have to use your left hand, or you won’t go straight,” says Martha.

“I know,” I say in a tone dripping with adolescent annoyance.

Of course, I know this. I understand the fundamentals and physics of how to use a wheelchair. That’s not the problem. The problem is I can’t sustain my attention on my left hand or the left wheel or the left wall that is looming closer and closer. I have it to begin with. Left hand on left wheel. Got it. But as soon as I start rolling my right hand over the right wheel, everything on the left vanishes. Poof. Gone. And with no special-effects smoke, good-byes, or fanfare of any kind. While I’m rolling the chair with my right hand, I’m not only unaware that I’m no longer using my left hand, but I actually become unaware that I have a left hand. It feels like an impossible problem to solve, and it’s a homework assignment I don’t want to begin with. I don’t want to learn how to use a wheelchair.

Martha backs me up and straightens me out.

“Let’s try it again,” she says.

She places my left hand on the wheel and taps it.

“Feel your hand on the wheel?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, keep feeling it, keep remembering your left hand, and follow the line.”

I close my eyes and picture my left hand dressed in its sparkling diamond ring and resting on the rubber tire. Then I think of what I want to tell it. Dear left hand, please roll the wheel of this chair forward. But instead of simply telling my bejeweled hand to do this in words, I picture my mind turning this polite request into warm liquid energy and pouring it into the nerves that feed my left hand. I imagine feeling this deliciously warm liquid flowing from my head, down my neck, into my left shoulder, down my arm, and into each of my fingertips.

“Good, Sarah, keep going,” says Martha.

My liquid mojo must be working. I whip up another batch and send it down my arm.

“You’re doing it!” says my mother, sounding both surprised and thrilled.

I open my eyes. I’m not sitting next to the elevators anymore, and I haven’t crashed into the wall. I’ve made real progress. My mother bounces her knees a couple of times and claps. If someone were to give her a set of pom-poms, I think she’d start cheering.

“That’s it,” says Martha. “Do it again.”

I look down the length of the yellow line. I still have a long distance to cover. My mother’s last clap ended with her hands together, so she looks like she’s praying. Okay, Sarah, do it again. I pour another liquid cocktail into my hand.

But I must not have followed the same recipe as before because something goes wrong. I’m off the yellow line, and I feel pain, but I can’t pinpoint what hurts. I look up at my mother, and the tight grimace on her face suggests that whatever it is should hurt. A lot. Then I realize it must be my left hand.

“Stop. Stop. Your hand’s tangled in the wheel. Hold on,” says Martha.

Martha squats down and edges my chair backward as she works my left hand out of the inner nucleus of the wheel.

“I’m going to go get an ice pack. Helen, will you take her back into the gym, and I’ll meet you there? We’ll try some assisted walking next.”

“Sure,” says my mother.

My mother wheels me down the hallway and into the gym and parks me in front of the big mirror where I started. My fingers kill, but I’m smiling. I used my left hand, and I got out of using the chair. If I could walk, there’d be a smug hop in each of my steps.