Chapter 1 - The Screen Was Already On
The screen was already on when I woke up. I saw it from my chair because the big monitor across the room was showing our bedroom back to us, bright and white from the sheer curtains. I was in the picture with my back to the camera, in my black powered wheelchair with the headrest hard against my neck, holding my teddy bear tight against my stomach. The woman was kneeling beside me like she had been waiting a long time.
That didn't make sense and it made my hands sweat. She was right there next to me in real life too, in her blue collared shirt and beige pants, her dark hair pulled back in a low ponytail, her little gold necklace catching the daylight. But she was also inside the screen. And somewhere in a dim room with warm blurry lights, he was watching us. I couldn't see him yet, but I heard him first, low and worried.
That morning I was eight and tired of being talked over.
It was morning-morning, the kind where the light comes straight through the white curtains and makes lines on the floor. My joystick was right under my right hand. My teddy bear was in my lap where I kept him. His fur was worn down on one ear from where I rubbed it. The woman wasn't touching my chair. She was down on one knee so her eyes were level with mine. I watched her breathing. She didn't reach. She didn't smile too big.
"What is she doing?" His voice came thin out of the monitor speaker.
I stared at the teddy bear instead of her. My pajamas, light blue with the white trim at the sleeves, felt soft against my arms. The wheelchair hummed a little under me because I'd left the power on. I liked that sound. It meant I could go.
She looked at me, not at the screen. "Do you want my help?"
My chest got tight. Everybody asked it that way and then they just did what they wanted anyway. They pushed my chair without asking which way. They lifted the bear off my lap like he was in the way. I squeezed him tighter and looked off past her shoulder toward the window.
"You're not going to treat me like a baby?" I said. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.
She didn't laugh. She didn't do the soft oh-honey voice. She shook her head once, and her gold earring moved a little.
"No. You're eight. I'll treat you like you're eight."
Behind her words I heard him move in that other room. Later I would learn how he sat in the dim warm light in his dark collared shirt, his dark hair slicked back, his wristwatch clicking against something when he lifted his hand to his chin and just stared. Worried. Like if he blinked he'd miss me deciding.
I looked down at my bear. "You're different," I said, because she was. She was still kneeling. She hadn't touched my joystick.
"She really is," he said quiet, almost to himself.
May you like
The room went still except for the daylight and the little hum under my seat. She kept eye contact and waited. I could hear myself breathing. I didn't say yes and I didn't say no. My thumb rested on the joystick, ready.
Then out in the hall, past the bright bedroom, a doorknob turned.
