Chapter 9 - The Hallway Choice
The hallway looked longer from my chair than it did from the bed. I’d never really thought about it before.
That morning after breakfast she’d wiped the tray and put my cup where I could reach it. My bear was tucked against my left side, his head under my arm so he wouldn’t slide. I’d gotten good at holding him like that when I drove. She stood up from where she’d been kneeling and said we didn’t have to stay in here all day if I didn’t want to.
I looked at the door. It was open a crack. Light from the hallway cut across the rug in a thin yellow line. The curtains moved a little behind me.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said. I hadn’t planned to say it. It just came out because it was true and because I was tired of the same four walls.
She nodded. She didn’t jump up or grab my handles. She just glanced at the doorway, then back at me. “Okay,” she said.
My chair was already on. The little green light was on by my right hand. I put my thumb on the joystick. It clicked soft under my skin.
First I had to get turned around. The bedroom was bright and my eyes had to adjust when I swung away from the window. My wheels made a low hum on the wood floor. Bear’s fur brushed my wrist. I held my breath without meaning to.
She stepped back to give me room. Her beige pants made a soft swish sound when she moved. She didn’t say watch out or let me do it. She just moved her feet out of my way.
The doorway was the problem. From the bed it looked wide enough. From down low in my chair, with the headrest behind me, it looked narrow. The frame stuck out on both sides. My left wheel would have to miss the laundry basket Mom had left by the door yesterday. My right side would have to clear the doorstop.
I stopped about three feet back. My hands felt sweaty on the joystick and on Bear.
She walked over, but she stopped by the dresser. Not next to me. “You want me to walk ahead and hold the door all the way open?” she asked. “Or you want to do it yourself?”
I stared at the crack of the door. I could have told her to just push me through. That’s what most people did. They got behind me and shoved and my headrest hit the frame and they said oops like it was nothing.
“No,” I said. “I’ll drive.”
“Okay,” she said again. “Can I walk beside you? I won’t touch unless you say.”
I thought about it. My thumb was still on the stick. I gave it the tiniest push forward and felt the chair roll an inch. Bear tipped and I tucked him tighter with my elbow.
“You can walk beside,” I said.
She came up on my left, a half-step back so her shoulder wasn’t in front of mine. I could see her blue shirt out of the corner of my eye and hear her necklace clink once when she breathed in. She reached out and pulled the door wide with two fingers and then put her hand flat against it to keep it there. The hallway light got brighter.
“Clear on your right,” she said quiet, like she was just telling me the weather.
I pushed the joystick forward for real. The motor caught. We started moving slow toward the line of light.
The rug edge bumped under my front wheels. I stopped. Backed up half an inch. Went forward again, a little to the right. The joystick shook a little under my thumb because my hand was shaking.
She didn’t reach for me. She kept her hand on the door. “You’ve got about two inches on that side,” she said.
I went through.
My left wheel missed the basket by nothing. I heard the plastic crinkle as air moved past it. Then my armrest scraped – just kissed – the frame on the right with a soft tick sound. I flinched. Bear’s ear folded under my arm.
I stopped in the hallway. The air out here was cooler and smelled like laundry soap and the cleaner they used on the floors. The light buzzed a little overhead. Down at the end I could see the bathroom door open and the edge of the sink.
I’d done it. My heart was beating loud in my ears.
She let go of the bedroom door and it stayed open behind us. She came and stood beside me again, on my left, her hands down at her sides where I could see them. She smiled, but not big.
“Nice driving,” she said.
I looked down at my joystick. The green light was still on. My thumb was still on it. Bear was still there, safe under my arm, his brown fur pressed flat where I’d squeezed him.
“Don’t tell him I hit the frame,” I said.
She glanced back toward the bedroom. I knew what she was thinking. The screen. The little red eye up in the corner that watched. “I won’t,” she said. “That was yours.”
May you like
We sat there a second in the hallway, me in my chair and her standing next to me, not touching, not leaving. The house was quiet. Somewhere a clock ticked.
Then I pushed forward again toward the bathroom, and she walked beside me.
