Left Neglected

Chapter 23





Come on,” says Bob.

He’s wearing his blue North Face ski jacket, ski pants, his reflective sunglasses hanging from a black cord around his neck, and his very best cheery optimism. He’s holding my new skis. K2 Burnin’ Luvs. They’re sleek and shiny, sporting a rusty orange swirl design on never-used white, my big Christmas gift from Bob. They’re gorgeous, and normally I’d feel giddy at the sight of brand-new skis, imagining how great they’ll respond, anxious to get onto the slopes as early in the morning as possible. But all I feel is pressure.

“I’m not ready,” I say.

It’s three days after Christmas, and we’re in Vermont. Linus is napping, and Charlie and Lucy are in the mudroom getting dressed for a day of ski lessons. I’m sitting at our dining table still in my pajamas with last Sunday’s New York Times spread out in front of me. Bob’s here through the weekend, and my mother, the kids, and I are staying for the week of school vacation. Bob’s not too keen about leaving me up here for a whole week without him and in a house that hasn’t been professionally Sarah-proofed, but I convinced him that a week in Vermont would be good for me. A week in Vermont is always good for me.

“This was your idea,” says Bob.

“I never said I wanted to ski,” I say.

“Then why are we up here if you don’t want to ski?” he asks.

“I like it here.”

“Come on, I think you should give it a try,” says Bob.

“How am I going to ski? I can’t even walk.”

“Maybe it’ll be easier than walking.”

“How would that be possible?”

“I don’t know, maybe the thing that reconnects you to the left isn’t picking balls up off a tray. Maybe it’s getting back to doing the things you love to do.”

Maybe. Maybe skiing would awaken that dormant part of my brain that doesn’t seem to be jazzed one bit about picking up red balls. Maybe I could simply point myself down Mount Cortland in my new K2s, and my left and right appendages would naturally work in concert, carrying me safely to the bottom. Or maybe, and more likely, I’d fall and break my leg or tear the ligaments in my knee, or I’d veer off the trail and crash into a tree. My red ball therapy may not be my recovery’s magic bullet, but at least it doesn’t carry the risk that I could end up in a wheelchair and even more dependent on my mother than I am now.

“What’s the worst that can happen?” asks Bob.

Two broken legs. Another brain injury. Death. Bob should know better than to ask me, of all people, an extreme question loaded with doom. I tilt my head and raise my eyebrows. Bob sees that he’s chosen the wrong tactic.

“The only way to know if you can ride the horse again is to get back in the saddle,” says Bob.

A lame cowboy cliché. I shake my head and sigh.

“Come on. Give it a try. We can take it nice and slow. We’ll stay on the Bunny slope with the kids. I’ll hold on to you and be with you the whole time.”

“Bob, she’s not ready to ski. She could break a leg,” says my mother.

She’s standing behind me in the kitchen, cleaning up the dishes from breakfast. She made buttermilk pancakes and sausage. It feels strange to have my mother here, making breakfast for my family. And it also feels strange to hear her come to my defense, to be of the same opinion. But I have to admit, her pancakes are delicious, and her voiced concern gives me the best possible excuse to stay home in my pajamas. Sorry, my mother says I can’t go.

“You’re not going to break anything. I promise, I’ll stay with you,” says Bob.

“It’s too soon. You’re pushing me,” I say.

“You need a little push here. Come on, I think it’ll be good for you.”

Skiing would be good for me. But even if I subtract out the possibility of death or serious injury, I still can only envision myself in a constant tangled knot of legs and skis, my skis popping off with each embarrassing fall, the impossibility of balancing on my left foot on a slippery hill while trying to fit my right boot back into the binding, and the equally impossible thought of balancing on my right foot while trying to coax a less than responsive left foot, toe first, into the binding of my left ski. Not one second of this sounds fun to me. And it can hardly be called skiing.

“I don’t want to.”

“You know, you’re the one who said you wanted to ski this year,” says Bob.

“This Season,” I say, correcting him. “I do. I will. But not today.”

He stares at me with his hands on his hips, thinking.

“Okay, but you can’t stay squirreled inside forever,” he says and looks over at my mother for a pointed second. “You have to get back to all the things you used to do—your job, skiing. We’re getting you on that mountain this season, Sarah.”

“Okay,” I say, knowing he means well but feeling a bit more threatened than inspired.

Bob leans my new skis against the kitchen table across from where I’m sitting, probably so that I can see them and think about what I’m missing, the consequences of my decision. I kiss Bob and the kids good-bye, wish them a fun and safe day, and listen to them swish in their nylon shell pants and clomp in their heavy boots out the door.

After I hear the car pull out of the driveway, I sigh and prepare to settle into a nice, quiet morning of reading. I look for where I left off in the paper. I read a couple of words and look across the table at my shiny new skis. Quit staring at me. We’re not going today. I read a couple of words. My mother is clanging dishes and pans in the sink. I can’t concentrate. I need a coffee.

I bought Bob a new coffeemaker for Christmas, the Impressa S9 One touch, the best of the very best, top-of-the-line cappuccino, café mocha latte, latte macchiato machine. It’s insanely expensive, so it wasn’t a smart purchase given our current financial situation, but I couldn’t resist it. With the touch of a single button on its polished stainless steel panel, it grinds beans, froths milk, and brews coffee to the precise temperature, volume, and strength desired. It cleans itself automatically, boasts being the quietest coffeemaker available today, and looks oh-so-pretty sitting on our kitchen countertop. It’s like the perfect child—well groomed and educated, it does exactly what we want, does its chores without even being asked, and brings us nothing but joy.

Bob and I both drank ourselves silly yesterday. I must’ve peed at least a dozen times, including the three times that necessitated pit stops on the way up to Cortland (Bob was ready to diaper me), and I lay in bed wide-eyed, caffeine still grooving in my veins, unable to put the brakes on my buzzing thoughts for hours after I should’ve been sound asleep. But it was worth it.

Since both of us couldn’t bear to spend the weekend apart from our new baby, we brought the Impressa up to Vermont with us. But unfortunately, we somehow forgot to bring any coffee beans, and the closest grocery store up here that sells coffee worthy of touching the Impressa is in St. Johnsbury, which is about twenty miles to the south. As much as I crave another perfect latte macchiato and to breathe in that rich and comforting aroma throughout the house, the quickest way this morning to a cup of coffee (and relief from the caffeine-withdrawal headache twisting its screws into my temples) is to go to B&C’s Café.

“Mom?” I call over my right shoulder into the kitchen behind me where she’s washing the dishes. “Will you go to B&C’s and get me a large nonfat latte?”

She followed us up last night in her Volkswagen so we’d have a car to get around in while Bob is gone for the week.

“Is that in the village?”

“Yes.”

Everything is in the village. There’s only one traffic light in Cortland, and the handful of country roads all lead either to the town village, to the mountain, or to the highway. And the village itself is nothing more than a short section of Main Street dotted with mostly quaint mom-and-pop shops selling quilts, cheddar cheese, fudge, and maple syrup. The village also has a sporting goods store, the only gas station, a church, a library, the town hall, a couple of restaurants, an art gallery, and B&C’s. My mother has been here for less than twenty-four hours, and she already seems comfortable with the lay of the land, even without Bob’s GPS. A five-year-old could figure it out. Heck, even a thirty-seven-year-old with Left Neglect could probably navigate without incident to the village and back.

“You’ll be okay here without me?” she asks.

“I’ll be fine. It’s just a few minutes.”

She’s not convinced.

“I’m reading the paper. Linus is asleep. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

I hear the door close behind her and then her car pulling out of the driveway. I smile, knowing that I’ll have a steaming hot cup of coffee in a few minutes. And in those same few minutes, Charlie and Lucy will probably start their full-day lesson, and Bob will be riding the quad lift to the summit. I’m surprised I don’t feel left out or the slightest twinge of jealousy. The view from the top of Mount Cortland of the snow-frosted treetops, the majestic Green Mountains, the glacial lakes, and the rolling valley below is breathtaking. Bathed in soft early morning light, the whole world from the summit feels quiet and peaceful and still. Glorious. I’ll get there. I will.

In the meantime, with Linus asleep and everyone else gone, it’s quiet and peaceful and still here. I gaze out through the sliding glass doors overlooking the yard—three acres of sprawling meadow abutting wooded conservation land. A zigzag of animal tracks, probably deer, break up the otherwise untouched smooth blanket of snow. There is no picket fence to keep the wildlife out or to cage our kids in or to obstruct the panoramic view. The nearest neighbor’s house can only be seen from the front and only once the leaves have fallen off all the maple trees. Life here is private, tranquil, expansive. Glorious.

I’ve been reading this same newspaper for the last six days. I’m now on the Sunday Business section. The last section. Hallelujah. To be fair and honest, I didn’t read every word of every other section. I read most of the front-page articles. This took all of last Sunday and most of Monday. Those columns are dense and labor intensive, and are generally national and international scale stories of misery, corruption, ruin, and political finger pointing. I feel informed after completing these pages but not necessarily better off for the effort.

I skipped the Sports section entirely. I’m not at all interested in the NFL, NHL, NBA, N-whatever, whatever. I never have been. I’ve never read the Sports pages, and I’m not about to start now for the sake of some type A need to prove that I can read the whole Sunday paper. I also skipped the Book Reviews (since the newspaper is challenging enough) and Style (since I’m relegated to elastic-waist pants and mules). Pre-accident me is shaking her head in disapproval, wagging her index finger, and calling me a slacker. But post-accident me tells her, in a firm and not-open-for-discussion voice, to lighten up and shush. Life may not be too short to read the entire Sunday New York Times, but the week certainly is. At least it is for me. Skip, skip, and skip!

The Business section is by far my favorite and not just because it’s the last one. Because Berkley consultants service every industry in pretty much every developed nation, most columns in this section are relevant in some way to a past, present, or future Berkley case. Almost every article is a delicious taste of the juicy, salty, bittersweet corporate world I used to inhabit and love. Wall Street, trade with China, the auto industry, big pharma, fuel cell technology, market shares, mergers and acquisitions, profits, losses, IPOS. The Business section feels like home.

And probably because I love the content, I find it the easiest section to read. Huh. I look up at my shiny, new skis. Maybe there is something to Bob’s Ski Therapy theory—that healing and normal functioning might come more readily from immersing myself in doing something that I love to do rather than dutifully going through the motions of some meaningless, emotionally void task.

“I know you’re dying to go, but I need some time,” I say to my skis. I swear they look disappointed.

I have noticed that I can now read every word on the page, and this exciting development isn’t limited to the Business section. In addition to the red, vertical left-margin bookmark that I brought home with me from Baldwin, I now use a second bookmark, a regular white cardboard one from Welmont Books, held horizontally beneath the line of text that I’m reading. When I reach the end of the line, I scan left across the words I just read until I hit red, then I slide the white bookmark down, and begin reading the next line. I feel like I’m the carriage return on a typewriter when I do this, and I even play that ding in my head each time I return to the left and move down.

Without the horizontal bookmark, I often got hopelessly lost on the page as I worked to return to the left margin. I would get to the red bookmark, but like a weak swimmer aiming to cut a straight line across a strong ocean current, my focus drifted up or down along the way, sometimes whole paragraphs from the words I’d just read. And I always knew when I was somewhere north or south of my intended destination because the sentence I was reading would suddenly become a nonsensical Mad Lib. The additional bookmark keeps me in line. Interestingly, the idea to use this second bookmark didn’t come from Martha or Heidi or Bob or any of my outpatient therapists. It came from Charlie. This is how he reads. And now it’s how we read.

Using this technique, I’d consider my reading accuracy and therefore comprehension back to normal. Which is incredibly fantastic news. It’s so incredibly fantastic, in fact, that I should be jumping up and down (metaphorically of course) and calling Richard to let him know that I’ve recovered and am ready to return to work. But I haven’t told anyone about my incredibly fantastic news yet, not even Bob.

I don’t understand the reason for my own uncharacteristic secrecy. I think it’s because I know I’m still not ready. My reading pace is still much, much slower than it was. And where I used to skim, I don’t dare to now. I read every word, which is great for accuracy but lethal for efficiency. Read, scan, ding, down, read. It works, but it’s a tedious process, and I’d never be able to keep up with Berkley’s daily volume of email and paperwork at that rate. My job is already seventy to eighty hours a week, flat out. There isn’t room for slower. So it would be premature to announce my return. Wise to keep quiet.

But the real reason I’m hesitant to reveal my reading recovery to the world doesn’t feel like it stems from responsible caution or a fear that I’ll never pick up the pace. And it’s certainly not because I’m modest or have a need for privacy. In fact, I usually brag quite shamelessly about my successes, to a level bordering intolerable, especially to Bob, who is always proud to hear them. But I don’t want to tell anyone, and until I do, I’m respecting my instincts and keeping my incredibly fantastic news to myself.

I finish the Business section and turn the last page of the newspaper. Done! Well, except for the Sports and Style and the Book Review. Shush. Hardly something to celebrate. Shush. It took you seven days! You should be able to read it in a single morning. shush, shush, Shush! I banish pre-accident me from my mind and insist instead on basking in the glory of this moment. I’m in Vermont, the sun is shining, the house is quiet, and I finished the Sunday New York Times. I smile at my skis, looking to share my accomplishment with someone. I swear they smile back. The only thing missing from this moment is a hot coffee. Where is my mother? She should be back by now.

Feeling unable to wait one more minute for some form of caffeine and boosted with confidence from my reading prowess, I decide to walk over to the refrigerator for a Diet Coke. If Bob thinks I’m ready to ski down two thousand vertical feet of trails, then I should be able to walk a few horizontal feet into the kitchen, right? I take hold of granny, and the two of us hobble the few steps over from the dining table to the fridge. I find the door handle, which is on the left and not even bandaged with brightly colored tape. So far, so good. I let go of granny and lunge for the handle. Got it. I pull the door open, but I’m standing square in front of the refrigerator, so I only succeed at banging the door into myself. I push the door shut. I’ve got to step out of the way first. To the left. Using the door handle as a grab bar, I shuffle myself sideways enough to give the door clearance, and I pull again.

But here’s the important difference between hospital grab bars and refrigerator handles. Grab bars don’t move. I can lean, teeter, push, and pull with all my weight, and that grab bar (like Bob in most arguments) won’t budge an inch. Not so for a refrigerator door handle once the door is open. I realize this is an obvious fact, but it’s one I never physically relied upon before, and so I didn’t consider the significance of this before I pulled.

As the door swings open, my arm and body go with it, and I’m unexpectedly flung over at the waist, feet still planted, every muscle in my outstretched arm quivering from the burden of posing in this awkward position. Staring down at the floor and clinging on to the handle for dear life, I gather my strength and wits and try to rock myself upright, but I overestimate the reverse force needed, and I end up leaning too far backward, and I slam the door shut. I try again and do the exact same thing. I try again and again. I weeble out and wobble back. And each time I weeble out, I catch a teasing glimpse of the silver Diet Coke cans sitting on the top shelf. Then I wobble back, the door suctions shut, and they’re gone.

Sweating and panting, I decide to give myself a minute to catch my breath. Despite the seriousness with which I’m taking this quest, a tickled laugh bubbles out. For God’s sake, I’ve become Laverne De Fazio. Okay, Sarah, come on. There’s got to be a way in.

This time as I pull, I sneak a quick step and drag forward. This keeps me from weebling out, but now I’m pinned between the door I’m still holding on to and the shelves inside the refrigerator. Not ideal, but it’s progress. I’m face-to-face with five cans of Diet Coke.

Because of the way I’m standing, I’m not sure that I can let go of the door handle with my right hand and not go crashing to the ground. With no one else home, I don’t want to risk it. So it’s my left hand or bust. The refrigerator shelf edges are chilly and pressing into my left shoulder, elbow, and wrist, which is uncomfortable but also fortunate, because the sensory stimulation makes me aware of the existence of my left arm and hand. But when I send my cold left hand the message, Dear Left Hand, please reach up and grab a Diet Coke, it won’t budge. It’s wedged against the shelf. I try to free it by easing up a touch on the tension of my pull on the door handle, but as I do, I start to weeble out. I tense up and snap back. I think and come up with nothing. I’m stuck in the fridge. Good going, Laverne. You’re really in a pickle now.

I stare at the Diet Coke cans, inches from my nose. So close and yet so far away. As I try to come up with a plan to either get a Coke or get out of the fridge (or both really), I happen to notice a bag behind the cans. It’s the bag of coffee beans! We did remember to bring it! How on earth did Bob not see it in here?

This drives me absolutely crazy. Bob’s never been good at finding what he’s looking for in the fridge. A typical example (and I’m always in another room of the house when he does this):

Sarah, do we have any ketchup?

On the top shelf !

I don’t see it!

Next to the mayonnaise!

I don’t see any mayonnaise!

Check the door!

It’s not in the door!

Touch everything!

I’ll eventually hear the refrigerator alarm beeping, announcing that the door has been left open for too long, and decide it’s time to rescue him. I’ll walk over to the fridge where he’s still searching, look at the top shelf for one second, reach in, grab the ketchup (which was next to the mayonnaise), and hand it to him. It’s like he has Refrigerator Neglect. With what he’s put me through this morning, he should have to go to some kind of rehabilitation program.

After I’m done imagining the lecture and taunting I’ll subject Bob to when he gets home, I grin, thrilled and proud of myself. I found the bag of coffee beans! I get to use the Impressa! Yeah, but you’re a thirty-seven-year-old woman stuck in a refrigerator. Shush.

I have a renewed sense of determination. This mission now isn’t for some crummy, cold can of Diet Coke. It’s for the Holy grail of caffeine—a hot, fresh-brewed latte. Time to step it up, Sarah. Come on. You went to Harvard Business School. Solve the problem.

I lean my head forward and aim to knock over the cans I no longer care about, like my head is a bowling ball and the cans are pins. I knock them all down in two tries, a respectable spare. Then I stick my neck out as far as it will stretch, and I bite the rolled top of the coffee bag with my teeth. Gotcha!

Now to get out. I decide that I’ve got to walk backward. This sounds simple, but I have no confidence that it will be. I haven’t walked backward since before my accident. I guess backward walking isn’t something the occupational and physical therapists at Baldwin foresee as a necessary skill. Clearly, they didn’t foresee one of their patients stuck in a refrigerator biting onto a bag of coffee beans. I’ll have to tell Heidi that they should add it to their regimen.

Here I go. I take a step backward with my right foot, but before I can even think about what to do next, my backward momentum sends me into an outward weeble. The door swings open too fast, and the force rips my hand off the handle. I fall backward and bang the back of my head on the tile floor.

I’ve wiped out so many times now, falling doesn’t even really faze me. The pain, the bumps, the bruises, the indignity—I’ve learned to take them all on the chin (literally and figuratively). It’s all part of the delightful everyday experience that is having Left Neglect. So it’s not the fall itself that makes me cry.

I’m crying because I opened my mouth on the way down and dropped the bag, and it opened when it hit the ground, spilling my precious coffee beans all over the floor. I’m crying because I can’t walk a few horizontal feet to the refrigerator and get a Diet Coke. I’m crying because I can’t drive to B&C’s myself. I’m crying because I wish I were skiing with Bob. I’m crying because I’m now sprawled out on the floor until someone rescues me.

While I indulge in my pity party on the floor, I’ve forgotten that Linus is napping, and my pathetic wailing wakes him up. He wails along with me.

“I’m sorry, baby!” I yell up to the second floor. “Don’t cry! Everything’s okay! Grandma will be home soon!”

But the sound of his mother’s voice faking reassurance from another floor isn’t what Linus wants. He wants his mother. He wants his mother to walk upstairs and pick him up. And I can’t. I cry.

“Oh my God, what happened?” says my mother’s voice.

“I’m okay,” I sob.

“Are you hurt?”

She’s standing over me now, a Styrofoam cup in her hand.

“No. Go get Linus, I’m fine.”

“He can wait a minute. What happened?”

“I tried to get coffee.”

“I got your coffee. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“You took too long.”

“Oh, Sarah, you’re always so impatient,” she says. “Let’s get you up.”

She pulls me by my arms to a sitting position, wipes a spot on the floor next to me clear of beans, and sits down. She hands me the cup of coffee.

“This isn’t from B&C’s,” I say, noticing no label on the cup.

“B&c’s is closed.”

“On a Saturday?”

“For good. The place is empty, and there’s a ‘for lease’ sign in the window.”

“Where is this from?” I ask.

“The gas station.”

I take a sip. It’s terrible. I resume crying.

“I want to be able to get my own cup of coffee,” I whimper.

“I know. I know you do.”

“I don’t want to be helpless,” I say, my crying intensifying as soon as I hear myself say the word helpless.

“You’re not helpless. You need some help. They’re not the same. Here, let me help you all the way up.”

“Why? Why are you helping me?”

“Because you need it.”

“Why you? Why now? Why would you want to help me now?”

She takes the coffee cup from my hand and replaces it with her hand. She squeezes and looks me in the eye with a steady resolve I’ve never seen in her before.

“Because I want to be in your life again. I want to be your mother. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you were growing up. I know I wasn’t a mother to you then. I want you to forgive me and let me help you now.”

Absolutely no way! She had her chance, and she abandoned you. What about all those years you needed her? Where was she then? She’s too selfish, too self-absorbed. She’s too late. You can’t trust her. She had her chance.

Shush.