Left Neglected

Chapter 17





It’s just after 10:00 a.m., and I’m already having a really bad day. I tried calling Bob a few minutes ago, but he didn’t answer. I wonder if he knows.

I’m in the gym, sitting at the puzzles and games table, tasked with transferring the red plastic beads from the white cereal bowl on my right to the invisible cereal bowl on my left with the spoon I’m holding in my left hand. My right arm is bent at the elbow and wrapped in a sling, immobilized against my chest. Constraint-induced therapy is supposed to help me resist the urge to use my right hand, and because we’ve eliminated the competition, this is supposed to help me feel more comfortable choosing to use my left hand. But mostly, it just makes me feel like a woman with no arms.

Even before I had to face straitjacket therapy, I was feeling upset and utterly demoralized. After some meeting my medical team had without me earlier this morning, it was decided that I will be going home in three days. It actually wasn’t so much decided by them as it was ceremoniously rubber-stamped. My insurance carrier figured out long before my accident through some cost-benefit outcome analysis, not unlike the kinds of analyses many of the Berkley consultants are likely running on Excel spreadsheets for various companies right now, that I’d be going home in three days. It was predetermined by the intersection of some billing code and the code for my medical condition, with only marginal consideration given to my progress or lack thereof. Or maybe it was determined all along by the intersection of Venus retrograde in Scorpio. Whatever the faceless bureaucratic or mystical reason, this is my fate. I’m going home in three days.

While my medical team delivered the good news to me in super-cheery voices and faces dressed in community theatre smiles, I sat silent, stunned, expressionless. Here I am, sitting in a rehabilitation bed in a rehabilitation hospital, working hard every day in my rehabilitation sessions, all the while thinking I would be here until I was rehabilitated. As it turns out, this was never the case. And the joke’s on me.

Here’s what I learned this morning. In the world of rehabilitation hospitals, if a patient’s condition is slipping downhill, the patient stays. Everyone believes, We must save her. Alternatively, if the patient is making significant strides toward wellness, the patient stays. Everyone hopes, We can still save her. Acceleration either up- or downhill means more rehab. But standing still with nothing but miles of flat terrain on the horizon means the patient is going home. Everyone agrees, Don’t waste your time. She can’t be saved. If the road to recovery plateaus, insurance will no longer pay the bill, which, by the way, is about as steep as the hill I’ve been trying to climb.

I should be thrilled. I’m going home in three days. In time for my wedding anniversary and Christmas. I’m going home. I’ve been praying for this day. I should feel triumphant. But instead, knots of terrified uncertainty are pulling tight inside my stomach, and I feel like throwing up. They’re done with me here. My insurance company has deemed that my rehabilitation effort here is no longer a wise investment. She can’t be saved.

This can’t be it. There has to be more for me. I can walk on my own, but barely and only if I use the cane they gave me. The cane they gave me is one of those hospital-grade, stainless steel granny canes, the kind with the four rubber-capped feet. My cane is wearing Crocs, for God’s sake. Not cool. There’s nothing subtle about my quad cane. It’s a cane that screams, Look out, I have a serious brain injury! I hate it, and I want to learn to walk without it.

I still can’t read the left side of a page without lots of correcting and prompting and reminding to use my L-shaped red bookmark. Scan left, find the left margin, keep going until you find the red bookmark. I’m still not getting dressed without assistance. I need help with brushing my teeth and showering. How am I going to take care of my kids and my house? How am I going to do my job? I can’t even release the spoon I’m holding in my left hand without professional coaching. I want the insurance analyst who determined my length of stay to come over here right now and look me in the eye while I point my spoon at his head and threaten, “Do I look rehabilitated to you?”

Martha explained to me that I’ll continue working at home on the techniques I’ve learned here. Heidi assured me that I’ll meet with other therapists doing the same kind of work on an outpatient basis. Dr. Nelson, the doctor here who oversees my care, said, The brain’s a funny thing. You never know. And he went to medical school for these words of wisdom.

None of what they’re telling me sounds like good news. It all sounds a bit vague and dismissive, less intensive, less committed to my progress, less committed to a belief in my progress. It sounds like I’m no longer on the road to recovery. It sounds instead like I’ve been detoured onto some slow, crappy dead-end road that leads to an abandoned, boarded-up building where everyone has given up on me.

The knots inside my stomach twist and squeeze. I lose my concentration and spill a spoonful of red beads. The beads spin and bounce and roll off the table. As I listen to them scatter across the linoleum floor and consider the thought of scooping out another spoonful, the twisting and squeezing dissolves into an acidic hot anger, scorching a hole through my stomach, seeping into every inch of me. I can even feel it burning into my left hand. I want to throw the spoon, but I can’t undo my own kung fu grip, so instead I squeeze the spoon as hard as I can, and I feel my fingernails dig into the tender palm of my hand. It hurts, and I think I might even be bleeding, but I can’t unfold my hand to see.

“I’m not doing this anymore. I want to go back to my room.”

“It’s okay. Just load another spoonful. You’re doing great,” says Martha.

What’s the point? How is this ridiculous task going to change anything? Why don’t I just go home today? What is three more days in this prison going to do for me? Nothing. It’s been determined. She can’t be saved.

My face is flushed and sweaty, and hot tears fill and sting my eyes. I want to wipe the tears away, but my right hand is unavailable and the best I could hope for from my left hand would be a poke in the eye with a spoon.

“I want to go back to my room,” I say, my voice cracking.

“Come on, let’s finish this first. You can do it.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t feel good.”

“She doesn’t look well,” says my mother.

“What doesn’t feel good?” asks Martha.

“My stomach.”

Martha checks her watch.

“It’s almost lunchtime. You think food will help?”

No, I do not think a crappy cafeteria lunch will help.

I shrug.

She checks her watch again.

“Okay, with the time we have left, how about you walk back to your room with your cane and your mom, and I’ll go get you an early lunch and meet you there.”

That sounds great. I’ll spend the next twenty minutes walking a length of corridor that should take me thirty seconds.

“Helen, will you help her out of the sling and guide her back to her room?”

“Sure,” says my mother.

Martha eyes my hand still clutching the spoon.

“I’ll get you some soup.”

My mother works my right arm out of bondage, hands me my granny cane, and we begin the journey back to my room. I have no more positive attitude. No more fist. No more fight. I have no interest in accepting or accommodating. I have a brain injury that has not healed and no promise that it ever will. I used to have a full and successful life. Now what do I have? I have a granny cane in one hand and a spoon in the other. And three more days.



“I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S WRONG, Sarah,” says my mother.

We’re now back in my room, my mother in her chair, me in my bed.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“This is great news. It means you’re not in medical danger.”

“I know.”

“And you’ll see, you’ll do much better in your own home.”

“Uh-huh.”

I am looking forward to saying good-bye to this place. In three days, I will have been here for five weeks, and I never wanted to stay one second longer than I had to. I won’t miss this uncomfortable bed, the weak shower, the coarse towels, the bland food, the pervasive smell of hand sanitizer and disinfectant, the gym, the miserable view of the prison, Martha. I especially won’t miss the creepy nocturnal hospital sounds that shake me awake and hold me wide-eyed and unsettled every night—the moans of unbearable pain, the panicked and wild shrieking of someone waking from a nightmare, probably reliving whatever gruesome accident precipitated admission here, the coyote wails of the young mother deprived of language and her newborn, the code blue announcements delivered over the intercom carrying their unspoken, chilling message that someone—maybe someone in the next room, maybe someone with a brain injury like mine—has just died. No, I will not miss this place at all.

But I imagined leaving on much different terms. According to the scene that I’ve been directing in my head for weeks, my exodus always went something like this: With joyful tears in everyone’s eyes, I would hug and thank each member of my medical team for their role in my full recovery and promise to keep in touch. Then, accompanied by the theme song to Chariots of Fire and while waving farewell with my left hand, I would walk with confidence and without a cane through the lobby, which would be packed with applauding therapists, physicians, and patients. The staff would be overwhelmed with pride, the patients would be filled with hope, and I’d be an inspiration to everyone. At the end of the lobby, the automatic doors would peel open, and I’d step through into a clear, sunny day. Into freedom and my old life.

And, conveniently forgetting that my car is in a junkyard, I even pictured driving myself home in my Acura. Sitting in my room now with three days left, involuntarily gripping a spoon in my left hand as I wait for Martha to come back with soup, exhausted from the embarrassingly short and granny cane– dependent trek down the hallway, I feel beyond ridiculous for ever constructing and then believing in such a far-fetched fantasy.

“And I’ll keep helping you with the therapy,” says my mother.

This is not an offer or a question. It’s an assumption, a foregone conclusion. I stare at her, trying to figure her out. She’s wearing black elastic-waist pants tucked into black imitation Uggs, a white cable-knit sweater, black-rimmed glasses, dangling red Christmas ornament earrings and lipstick to match. I can still see the young woman that she was beneath the makeup and old age on her face, but I have no actual sense of what she looked like in between.

I remember the shade of peachy pink rouge she used to wear on her freckled cheekbones, her favorite powder green eye shadow, the wisps of fine hair by her ears that never stayed in her long ponytail, how her nostrils bounced in and out when she laughed, the sparkle in her pale blue eyes, the smell of her lipstick (plus or minus Marlboro Lights and Juicy Fruit gum) that lingered on my mouth after she kissed me.

I’m pretty sure she stopped wearing any makeup or doing anything to her hair after Nate drowned. I know there were no more nostril-bouncing laughs and no more smelly kisses. But I have no specific memory of what she looked like or how she changed after 1982. When did she start getting crow’s-feet? And how does someone get crow’s-feet if she never laughs or leaves the house? When did her hair begin turning gray, and when did she cut it chin length? When did she start wearing glasses? When did she quit smoking? When did she start wearing lipstick again?

And I can’t imagine that she has any specific memories of me and what I looked like or how I changed after 1982. She didn’t spend even one of the thousands of tedious minutes of the last month sharing nostalgic stories of my childhood. Because, for the most part, after 1982, she didn’t witness my childhood.

After burying their only son, my mother then buried herself in her bedroom, and my father buried himself in construction work whenever he wasn’t at the firehouse. While my mother did nothing but feel the loss of Nate, my father felt nothing at all. Stoic and emotionally distant before Nate died, now he was emotionally gone for good. But physically at least, my father eventually came back to his job as my parent. He mowed the lawn and took out the trash, he did the laundry and the grocery shopping, he paid the bills and fees for my after-school activities. I always had food on my plate and a roof over my head. But no part of my mother ever returned. And it was always my mother whom I needed most.

She didn’t notice if I went to school wearing dirty clothes or clothes that were two sizes too small. She didn’t attend my soccer games or parent-teacher conferences. She didn’t guide or comfort me through the year and a half that I obsessed and lost myself over Richie Hoffman. She didn’t tell me about safe sex or good sex. She forgot my birthday. She didn’t praise my perfect report cards or celebrate my admission into Middlebury or Harvard. She preferred to be alone after my father died when I was twenty, and she didn’t welcome Bob into what was left of our pitiful little family when I was twenty-eight.

I suppose I resembled Nate enough to be a constantly throbbing reminder of inconsolable grief. I suppose I can understand, especially now having kids of my own, the paralyzing horror of losing a child. But she didn’t have one child. She had two. And I didn’t die.

My childhood after Nate died wasn’t easy, but it made me who I am today: strong, fiercely independent, driven to succeed, determined to matter. I’d managed to put my past behind me, but now my past is sitting in the chair across from me, telling me she’s going to be sticking around. She feels me studying her. A nervous smile tiptoes onto her red lips, and I want to slap it off.

“No, this is it. I’m going home, so you’re going home. Everybody’s going home.”

“No, I’m staying. I’m staying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

Martha is now standing in front of me holding a lunch tray, eyebrows raised.

“If I need anything, I’ll ask Bob.”

“Bob asked me to stay and help take care of you,” says my mother.

I stare at her, voiceless, an unleashed tantrum pounding its fists inside my chest. Martha and Heidi met without me this morning and decided that I’m leaving in three days, and Bob and my mother met without me who knows when and decided that I need taking care of and that my mother will be my caretaker. Betrayal and helplessness kick and scream as they sink into the deep, dark layers of my gut, where, even having lived there once for years, they don’t feel at all at home and can’t remember the way out.

“Since when do you care about me? You haven’t cared about me since Nate died.”

Her face loses all color but for her red lips. Sitting in her chair, her posture assumes a heightened stillness, like a rabbit sensing danger, readying to run for its life.

“That’s not true,” she says.

I would normally back off. We don’t talk about Nate or my childhood. We don’t talk about me and her. I would normally choose to say nothing and eat my soup like a good girl. And then she would continue to be the good mother and wipe the broth that will undoubtedly dribble down the left side of my chin. And I would be the good daughter and smile and thank her. But I’m done with this charade. So done.

“You never helped me with my homework or boyfriends or going to college or planning my wedding. You never helped me with anything.”

I pause, armed with a thousand more examples, poised to slay her if she tries to come at me with a reinvented history.

“I’m here now,” she says.

“Well, I don’t want you here now.”

“But Sarah, you—”

“You’re not staying.”

“You need help.”

“Then I’ll get it from someone else, just like I’ve always done. I don’t need you.”

I glare at her, daring her to contradict me, but I’ve already ended it. She’s crying. Martha hands her a box of tissues. My mother blows her nose and dabs her eyes as she continues weeping. I sit and watch her, encouraging her in my unapologetic silence. Good. I’m glad she’s crying. I don’t feel bad for her. I’m not sorry. She should feel like crying. She should feel sorry.

But as much as a part of me wants to see her tarred and feathered in the center of town, I can sustain this tough and heartless stance for only a minute or two, and then I do feel bad for her. She has helped me through the last five weeks. She’s been here every day. She’s helped me to walk and eat, to get showered and dressed, to go to the bathroom. I have needed her. And she is here now.

But I can’t skip over thirty years of abandonment and just pretend that she chose not to be my mother for most of my life. I can’t stand watching her cry anymore, but I’ll be damned if I’m apologizing or acquiescing to her plan to stay. We’re all done here. I’m going home and back to my life, so she’s going back to hers. I grab my granny cane with my right hand, lean on it, and swing my legs over the side of the bed.

“Where are you going?” asks Martha.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I say, planting both feet on the floor.

Martha moves to stand next to me in the spotter’s position.

“Don’t help me. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

She pauses, raises her eyebrows at me again, and then backs off and moves out of my way. I realize Martha must be thinking that I’m a spoiled brat and a horrible daughter, but I’m beyond caring what anyone here thinks of me. Well, I care what Heidi thinks of me, but she’s not here right now. And right now, I’m a spoiled brat horrible daughter who is hell-bent on getting to the bathroom without anyone’s help.

But walking with a left leg that fades in and out of existence is enormously frustrating and complicated. Even stepping forward with my right foot requires a conscious and continued faith in the existence of my left side, because when that right foot is in the space between here and there, I’m standing only on my left leg. My left leg and foot have to be appropriately activated, compromising between flexion and extension, responsible for balancing me and holding all of my weight upright—a tall order for an appendage that feels no loyalty toward me whatsoever.

I sometimes think it would be easiest to hop on my right foot to get from place to place, but I haven’t yet had the courage to try it. Logically, hopping should work, but somehow I just know I’ll end up sprawled out on the floor. Anticipating this outcome really shouldn’t deter me from giving it a shot, as I end up sprawled out on the floor most of the time anyway. I have big, colorful bruises all over me. I can’t believe I haven’t fractured a hip or dislocated my knee. Thank God I have strong bones and loose joints. I guess I realize that hopping isn’t a practical long-term solution for mobility.

This is where the granny cane helps. Before I take a step with either foot, I take a step with my right hand on the cane, gaining some stability and assurance. Then I shift my weight into my right hand as much as possible to lessen the burden on my untrustworthy left leg, and I step my right foot forward to meet the cane.

Now my left leg is somewhere behind me, and the trick is to first remember that I have a left leg and to believe that it is somewhere behind me. Then I have to find it and get it next to me. The natural way to do this, of course, would be to pick it up and take a stride forward. But, much to the dismay of my pride, I don’t do this. I lift my left leg up and try to walk like a normal person (well, a normal person with a granny cane) only if I’m on the mat in the gym and someone’s spotting me. If I lift my left leg up off the ground, I can and do lose track of where it is in the blink of an eye, and then I can’t anticipate when it’s going to make contact with the floor, and I always guess too soon or too late, and I end up doing something weird and painful to myself that concludes with me sprawled out on the floor.

So I drag my left leg. It’s much safer, and my chances of forward progress go up considerably if my left foot never loses connection with the floor. I know this looks pathetic, but I’m wearing black elastic-waist pants just like my mother’s, a hot-pink fleece hat, mismatched socks, and no makeup. I think it’s safe to say that vanity is no longer my biggest concern. Plus now’s not the time to be daring. If I fall, Martha and my mother will scurry over to help me off the floor. And I don’t want anyone’s help.

Cane. Step. Drag. Breathe.

Cane. Step. Drag. Breathe.

I can feel them watching me. Don’t think about them, Sarah. You can’t afford to get distracted. You are walking to the bathroom. You are walking to the bathroom.

Cane. Step. Drag. Breathe.

My mother blows her nose. She’s not coming home with me. She thinks she can just show up and be my mother. It’s not happening. It’s too little, too late. Stop it. Don’t think about her. You are walking to the bathroom.

Cane. Step. Drag. Breathe.

I can’t believe Bob talked about this with her without talking to me first. I can’t believe he decided this with her instead of deciding the exact opposite thing with me. What was he thinking? Don’t think about it now. Talk to him later. You are walking to the bathroom.

Cane. Step. Drag. Breathe.

Breathe.

I’ve made it to the toilet, and I want to yell out, I did it! and See, I don’t need either of you! but it would be premature to celebrate and probably unwise to gloat.

I haven’t done what I came in here to do, and I have miles to go before I pee. I take a deep breath, preparing to let go of the granny cane, aiming to grab the stainless steel safety rail next to the toilet. In the terrifying moment between cane and rail, I feel like a flying trapeze artist swinging from one bar, reaching for the next, high above the ground, showstopping catastrophe only the slightest miscalculation away. But I make it.

Breathe.

Next step. Dear left hand, I need you to find the waistband of my pants and underwear and pull them down. I know this is a lot to ask, and I hate to bother you with this, but my right hand is busy keeping us off the floor. And I don’t want to ask anyone else for help. So I really need you to do this. Please.

Nothing happens. Where the heck is my left hand? It has to be in here somewhere. I find my diamond ring and then my hand. Oh no. I’m still holding that damn spoon. Dear left hand, please let go of the spoon. You have to let go of the spoon so you can find the waistband of my pants and underwear and pull them down before I pee. Please let go of the spoon.

Nothing happens. Let go. Release. Open. Unfold. Relax. Please!

Nothing. I’m about to lose it. I feel like I’m trying to persuade an overtired, disobedient, willful toddler to see reason and cooperate. I want to scream, Listen to me, hand, do what I say right now or you’re spending the rest of the day in time-out!

I really have to pee, and I’m not at all good at holding it, but I refuse to ask for help. I can do this. I went to Harvard Business School. I know how to problem solve. Solve this problem.

Okay. Keep the spoon. That’s fine. We’ll use it. Dear left hand, find the waistband of my pants and underwear and spoon them down.

To my amazement, this works. It takes me several tries and calm coaxing, and I’m glad no one is in here to witness this process, but I manage to pry my pants and underwear down to my thighs with a spoon. Almost there. Holding on to the safety rail for dear life with my right hand, I lower myself onto the toilet seat.

Sweet relief.

The rest is relatively easy. I wipe with my right hand, wriggle my underwear and pants back on while seated with my right hand, grab onto the safety rail, hoist myself up, and lurch from the rail to my granny cane. Then I turn and take a few small steps over to the sink. I lean my pelvis against it and let go of the cane.

Like I’ve been working on in therapy every day, I scan left of the spigot to find the hot water handle with my right hand. I turn the hot water on and wash my right hand. I don’t bother trying to wash my left hand. I dry my hand on my pants, get a firm hold of my cane, and walk out of the bathroom.

Cane. Step. Drag. Breathe.

I’m almost there. See? You don’t need Martha. You don’t need any more rehabilitation at Baldwin. And you definitely don’t need your mother.

I hear Martha laughing. Against my better judgment, I look up from my cane and foot. I look up and see that Martha is laughing at me. And my mother is trying not to.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“You might want to reconsider your mother’s offer to help you,” says Martha.

That tipped the scale for my mother, and now they’re both cracking up.

“What?” I ask.

My mother puts her hand over her mouth like she’s trying to stop herself, but she makes eye contact with Martha and gives in, laughing even harder.

“Where is your left hand?” asks Martha, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand.

I don’t know. A tingling prelude to unrecoverable embarrassment rushes through me as I search for my left hand. Where is my left hand? I have no idea. I ignore their laughter and the fact that I’m not concentrating nearly enough on standing upright in the middle of the room and try to find my diamond ring. But I don’t see it anywhere.

Whatever. Ignore them. I’m about to carry on with getting back to my bed when I suddenly notice the feel of smooth metal against my thigh. My bare thigh. The spoon. I look down and scan left.

My left arm is tucked into my pants.