Left Neglected (26 page)

A classic winter nor’easter socked all of New England on St. Patrick’s Day, and while the foot of snow in Welmont for everyone over the age of eighteen was mostly an endured nuisance—school cancelations, flight delays, slow and sloppy roads, traffic accidents—the twenty-plus inches of snow here in Cortland was welcomed by everyone as a fluffy white blessing from heaven. The conditions on the mountain on this sunny, windless Saturday couldn’t be better.

I’ve been making all kinds of exciting progress on my snow-board. Last weekend, Mike removed my rider bar, and in its place I now use only a single pole in my right hand. The pole has a small, barely noticeable ski attached to the bottom, which gives me the security of additional stability and contact with the hill, much like an outrigger does for a canoe or my granny cane does for walking. But my outrigger pole is significantly cooler than my granny cane. There’s nothing grandmotherly about it.

I’m also tethered to Mike, who now snowboards behind me, by a cord that runs through a loop at the toe of my board to Mike’s hands. He must look like Santa Claus holding the reins to his reindeer, which would make me Dasher or Dancer or Rudolph, but I don’t really care what we look like to anyone else. From where I’m standing, I see a normal snowboard and a gorgeous trail of fresh packed powder. From his position behind me, he keeps my speed in check with the reins and calls out encouragement, reminders about technique, and warnings about anything happening on our left. He says that I might want to keep the pole, but by the end of the season, I should be able to snowboard alone, which is both thrilling and almost unbelievable to imagine. But for now, I still don’t notice icy patches, turns in the trail, or other skiers and snowboarders to my left unless Mike points them out (and sometimes even then I don’t), so I know I’m not ready to give up believing in this Santa just yet.

We’ve advanced past Rabbit Lane to my favorite intermediate trails, and I’m beyond happy to be off the Magic Carpet lift and the beginner hill and onto the real mountain. Right now, we’re in the middle of Fox Run. I’ve got my eyes and ears open for Charlie. Every so often I see him on his board, delighted to see me, then even more delighted to shred on by. He makes snowboarding look effortless. I don’t know what I look like doing this, but I’m guessing that the extraordinary effort and concentration I’m exerting shows. But again, I don’t care what I look like. I may not look like a cool snowboarder, but I feel like one.

Even though the conditions are pristine, I’m enjoying Charlie’s flybys, I have complete faith in Mike to keep me safe, and I feel like Shaun White, I’m not experiencing the pure visceral joy and tranquil hush I typically experience when I’m on the mountain. I’m concentrating on my technique and the feel of the board on the hill with extreme focus, but a small part of my focus is listening to a dramatic monologue running in my head, thoroughly captivated by the performance.

What if Bob is right? What if Berkley was the only way back?
What if I’m giving up on my only chance at returning to a real life? Maybe living in Vermont is a crazy idea.

I sit back onto my heels and turn right. But I’m a little too far back on my heels when my edge catches, and I wash out, slamming down hard onto my bottom. Mike stops beside me and helps me up.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, even though I know both my tailbone and ego are bruised.

I point the toe end of my board down the mountain, and we’re sliding again.

What would Bob and I do up here? I don’t want to open a coffee shop, sell lift tickets, or open an art gallery (my mother’s idea). Maybe there isn’t anything here for us. Would living here mean abandoning our expensive and hard-earned educations, everything we’ve wanted to achieve and contribute in the world, everything we’ve dreamed about?

“Hey, Goofy!”

It’s Charlie. He calls me Goofy because I lead with my right foot on the board, which is called Goofy-footed. He thinks this is a riot. I think the nickname fits me perfectly. He doesn’t slow down this time, and I see only the back of his orange coat as he bombs past us. I smile.

“Show-off!”

Maybe I’m just disabled and scared and trying to drag Bob down with me. Maybe I’m trying to run away and hide. Maybe I’m crazy.

Am I crazy?

My board is aimed directly downhill, and I’m already going as fast as I feel comfortable going when the slope abruptly dips, and I accelerate. My heart jumps, and every muscle in my body tightens. Mike senses my panic and pulls back hard on the tether, and instead of tumbling into a painful fall, I ease into a gentle stop.

“Everything okay?” Mike calls from behind me.

“Yup. Thank you.”

I wish he could similarly pull back on the reins of my out-of-control thoughts. We continue down the hill again.

I don’t want to go back to Berkley. There has to be another choice. Another dream for my life. I know it like I know snow is white. But what? Where? Can we have a full and successful life here? It feels impossible.

I shift my weight up onto my toes. To my own amazement, I don’t freeze up, and I don’t fall. I realign my weight over my hips and continue downhill. I just made a clean left turn.

Nothing’s impossible.

Maybe, but do I trust my intuition or Bob? Do I return to my old life or start a new one? Am I crazy to think that I could even go back to my old life? Am I crazy to want something else? I don’t know what to do. I need some sort of sign
.

God, please give me a sign.

We finish our last run of the afternoon, my mind still un-spooling doubt and worry without offering any answers, leaving the whole tangled, messy, heaping pile on the floor somewhere just behind my eyes, giving me a headache. For the first time since I began snowboarding, I’m glad to be done for the day. Mike and I make our way back to the NEHSA building where I can return my equipment and retrieve my granny cane.

I sit on the wooden bench and remove my helmet. I find my boots and my cane.

“You felt a little tentative today,” says Mike.

“Yeah.”

“That’s okay. Some days you’ll feel braver than others. Just like anyone, right?”

“Right.”

“And some days you’ll see big improvements, and others you won’t.”

I nod.

“Don’t get discouraged, okay? You coming tomorrow?”

“First thing in the morning.”

“Good girl! Oh, I have that packet of literature for your friend. It’s on my desk. Can you wait here a minute?” asks Mike.

“Sure.”

I offered to pass along information about NEHSA to Heidi so she can let her patients know about it. I don’t have any scientific or clinical data to back this up, but I think snowboarding is the most effective rehabilitative tool I’ve experienced. It forces me to focus on my abilities and not my disability, to overcome huge obstacles, both physical and psychological, to stay up on that board and get down the mountain in one piece. And each time I get down the mountain in one piece, I gain a real confidence and sense of independence I haven’t felt anywhere else since the accident, a sense of true well-being that stays with me well beyond the weekend. And whether snow-boarding with NEHSA has a measurable and lasting therapeutic effect for people like me or not, it’s a lot more fun than drawing cats and picking red balls up off a tray.

Mike returns with a stack of folders in hand.

“Sorry to take so long. I got caught on the phone. Our director of development is moving to Colorado, and we’re having an impossible time finding someone to fill his position. Too bad you don’t live here year-round. You’d be perfect for it.”

I’ve been wishing on stars, knocking on wood, picking up pennies, and praying to God about one thing or another my whole life, but never have I received a more obvious, direct, and spine-tingling response before now. Maybe it’s just serendipity. Maybe Mike Green is an angel on earth. Maybe God is throwing poor Goofy a bone. But this is it. This is the sign.

“Mike, you of all people should know,” I say. “Nothing’s impossible.”

There’s no Mangia in Vermont,” says Bob. I say nothing. We’re all piled into Bob’s car, going to dinner at Mangia, my favorite family restaurant in Welmont. But I’m not conceding any points to Welmont for Mangia. There are plenty of decent restaurants in Vermont. Normally, I can’t see Bob when he drives, but for some reason my field of vision is expanded to include part of his profile, enough to see his right thumb poking around on the screen of his phone.

“Stop!” I yell.

He hits the brakes. My seat belt locks and presses into my chest as I lurch forward. Sandwiched in a long line of 35 mph traffic, we’re lucky we weren’t rear-ended.

“No, not the car. Put the phone away,” I say.

“Jeez, Sarah, you scared me. I thought something was wrong. I have to make a quick call.”

“Have you learned nothing from what happened to me?”

“Sarah,” he says in his singsong, please-don’t-be-over-dramatic-and-ridiculous voice.

“Do you want to end up like me?”

“There’s no right way for me to answer that question,” he says.

“I’ll answer it for you then. No. No, you do not want to end up like me. And you don’t want to kill someone either, do you?”

“Stop, you’re going to scare the kids.”

“Put the phone away. No more phones in the car, Bob. I mean it. No phones.”

“It’s a quick call, and I need to catch Steve before the morning.”

“No phones! No phones!” chant Charlie and Lucy from the backseat, loving the chance to tell their father what to do.

“It’s a two-second call. I could’ve already been done with it.”

“We’re ten minutes from Mangia. Can your call wait ten minutes? Can steve and the big important world wait ten minutes to hear from you?”

“Yes,” he says, drawing out the word in an exaggerated calmness, an attempt to mask his annoyance towering behind it. “But we’ll be at the restaurant then, and I’m not doing anything now.”

“You’re
DRIVING
!”

I used to fill my morning and evening commutes with calls (and even texts and emails in stop-and-go traffic). Now I’ll never use my phone in the car again (assuming I’m someday able to drive again). Of all the lessons I’ve learned and adjustments I’ve made so far following this experience, No Phones in the Car is probably the most elementary.

“How about this?” I ask. “You could talk to me now. Let’s have a nice ten-minute conversation, and then when we get to the restaurant, and you park the car, you can make your call, and we’ll all wait for you.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

Bob drives and says nothing. The kids have stopped chanting. The six of us sit in the car through an entire red light with the radio off and no DVD playing, and the silence feels oppressive. He doesn’t get it, which worries me at first, but through the catalyst of his silence, I quickly convert from being worried to being mad. When we wait through the next red light, and he still doesn’t say anything, I go from being mad that he doesn’t get why I don’t want him using his phone in the car to being mad that he doesn’t get why I don’t want to go back to Berkley or why I want to live in Vermont. We slow down behind the car in front of us, which is turning right, and I can’t believe that he doesn’t get me.

“What do you want to talk about?” Bob finally asks, Mangia now only a couple of blocks away.

“Nothing.”