Chapter 14
The therapy room didn't look like the exam room. It had pale walls too, but the light was warmer and there was a blue mat on the floor instead of a cot with white paper. My leg still hurt when I bent it, but not like before. The scab on my knee was dark and tight and it pulled whenever I tried to walk straight.
Mara was the physical therapist. She had short gray hair and sneakers that squeaked. She knelt down next to the little steps they used for exercises and didn't touch my leg right away.
"We're going to unwrap it and look, then wrap it clean," she said. "You want to help?"
I nodded. She had three rolls of wrap on the table beside her. One was blue, bright like the splint. One was green and one was plain tan.
"Your pick," she said. "For today."
I stared at them. My hands were tight on the edge of the mat. Last time someone had picked the color for me, it had meant something else. Dad had said the blue was special, that it was our colors. I hadn't chosen it. I'd just kept it on because he gave it to me and because what was underneath would get me in trouble if anyone saw.
"I don't want blue," I said. My voice was quiet.
Mara didn't ask why. She just slid the blue roll back. "Green or tan?"
I reached for the green. It wasn't bright. It was dull like the grass behind the apartment.
"Green's good," she said, and she started to peel back the old gauze. The air hit my shin and I sucked in a breath, but I didn't pull away. She let me hold the end of the new wrap while she wound it. My fingers got to do the work, so I could feel how tight it should be. Not too tight.
"Tell me if it pinches," she said.
"It doesn't," I said, and I kept holding.
Later at the house, Julia let me do the same thing. She was my caregiver, and she kept the kitchen table wiped clean and had a plastic box for the gauze and tape. She washed her hands first and I washed mine, and she laid out everything so I could see.
"You remember the steps from the clinic?" she asked.
I nodded. She watched while I dabbed the ointment where Mara had shown me, light, not pressing hard on the scab. My hands shook a little but I didn't stop.
"That's exactly right," Julia said. She didn't take over. She just handed me the tape when I needed it. When I was done, she said, "You did your own care. That's big."
I looked down at the green wrap. It felt different because I'd put it there. It wasn't hiding anything. It was just covering it until it healed.
The child therapist's room was smaller and had a rug and a low table with crayons. Her name was Ms. Ellis. She didn't wear scrubs. She had a notebook but she didn't write much while I talked.
On the table she'd put the blue splint. Not on my leg. Just sitting there. The black straps were loose. The plastic was scuffed where I'd worn it for days.
"You've been taking care of your leg really well," she said. "Can we talk about this thing for a minute?"
I didn't touch it at first. I kept my hands in my lap.
"Your dad gave you those colors," she said, quiet. "You told the nurse that."
I nodded. My throat felt tight.
"What do you think he meant when he gave it to you?"
I shrugged. "He said it was special. That it was ours. So people wouldn't ask."
Ms. Ellis waited a breath. "Do you think he wanted to give you something nice, and also wanted people not to see your hurt?"
I frowned at the splint. I'd never thought two things could be true at once. I wanted to stay loyal, but my knee had bled under that plastic for a long time.
"Maybe both," I said finally.
"Both can be true," she said. "A gift can feel kind when you get it, and still be used to hide something that needed help. One doesn't erase the other. Do you understand the difference?"
I thought about the green wrap I'd chosen. No one gave it to me to hide anything. I chose it so I could see the healing.
"Colors don't fix hurt," I said. "They just cover it."
She smiled a little, not big. "That's exactly it. Colors don't hide hurt. Care does."
At the end of the week the nurse from the first exam room came to check in. Not in scrubs this time, just a regular shirt, at Julia's house. She knelt down again the way she had that first day, but now she asked first.
"Can I see it?" she said, like before.
This time I didn't say don't take it. I pulled my shorts up a little and showed her the green wrap. She looked, she didn't unwrap it, she just checked around the edges.
"Healing nicely," she said. "You chose green, huh?"
"Yeah," I said. "I picked it."
She nodded like that mattered. "You got to choose. That's good medicine too."
Before she left, Ms. Ellis brought the blue splint back out and set it on the table between us.
"You get to decide what happens to this now," she said. "Some kids want to keep it to remember they got through it. Some want to throw it away because they don't need it anymore. There's no wrong answer. What do you want?"
I looked at the bright blue. For a long time it had been the thing dad gave me, so I thought keeping it meant I loved him, and throwing it away meant I didn't. But Ms. Ellis had said both things could be true. I could care about dad and still know the splint had hurt me by hiding.
I reached out and touched one of the black straps. It was stiff.
"I don't want to wear it again," I said. My voice was steadier than I expected. "But I don't want to throw it away like it never happened. Can we put it in the closet? Not on my leg. Just there."
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Julia got a small box from the hall closet. I put the blue splint inside myself and closed the lid. It wasn't on me anymore. It wasn't gone either. It was just a thing that had happened, in a box.
I looked down at my green wrap. "This is my color now," I said. "Because I chose it."
