Chapter 5
The pill had worked. That was the problem.
I woke up and the pain was a three instead of an eight, and the light coming through the blinds was the flat white of morning, and she wasn't asleep on my bed anymore. She was by the window in the light blue uniform, cap straight, folding the blanket she'd used. She'd moved to the chair in the corner sometime in the night without waking me. The glass of water from last night was empty and rinsed on the nightstand, and my throat wasn't dry.
I felt capable. That's the word that got me.
"Morning," I said.
She nodded. "Morning. Next dose is at ten. You want breakfast first?"
I checked the clock. Seven thirty. I had two and a half hours before I needed anything from her. "I'm good. I'm going to get up," I said. I meant I was going to go to the bathroom on my own, without the careful choreography we'd done last night.
She didn't move to help. She just set the blanket down. "Okay."
That was new. That distance was what I'd asked for.
I pulled the sheet off my legs and transferred the way the therapist had taught me, hands on the armrests, hop, settle. The chair was where I'd left it, angled toward the bed. My pajama pants caught for a second on the edge and I fixed them. Black pajamas with the white piping, same as last night. I wheeled back a foot to get clearance from the nightstand and then turned toward the doorway.
The bedroom door had been left open a few inches. Beyond it, the hallway was dark wood and runner rug, the one that went all the way to the bathroom.
I went for it.
The first three feet were fine. Warm air from the vent, wheels quiet on the wood. Then the rug. The front casters hit the edge of it where it had curled up a little by the threshold, and the chair stopped short.
I pushed harder. The big wheels spun but the small ones were snagged on that lip of rug and wood. The frame jolted and tipped forward an inch. My hands gripped the push rims and I felt that familiar burn in my shoulders, the one that said I was about to compensate with the wrong muscles.
I tried to back up. The rug came with me, bunching under the casters. Now I was stuck worse, at an angle, one wheel on wood and one half on rug. The hallway was narrow and I couldn't get leverage to straighten out without putting my hand on the door frame and wrenching myself.
Behind me, I heard her shift in the chair. She didn't get up.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. I wasn't. Sweat started on my neck. I tried again, a quick hard push, and the chair lurched but didn't clear. The rubber caught and squeaked. I was breathing harder than I should have been for something so small.
She stood now, but stayed by the window. "You want me to hold the rug down?"
I shook my head, though she probably couldn't see it well. "I got it." My voice was tight. I put one hand on the wheel and one on the doorframe, tried to muscle the chair sideways off the rug. My shoulder twinged, that deep ache that the pill had only turned down, not off. The chair moved two inches and stopped again.
I sat there for a second, forehead damp, staring at that half-inch threshold between bedroom wood and hallway rug like it was a curb.
This was the thing I'd been proving. That I could do the normal stuff without an audience. That the bedroom wasn't a cell. And the house I'd lived in for three years was now an obstacle course I hadn't noticed until I needed to use it differently.
I let go of the doorframe.
"Small push?" I said. My voice was lower. "Just to get the front wheels over."
She came forward right away, no rush, no sigh. She knelt by the rug, not by me. She smoothed the curled edge flat with her hand and held it down with one palm, fingers spread. "Tell me when," she said.
I didn't want her behind the chair. I wanted her hands on the rug. That felt different, like she was fixing the house, not fixing me.
"Now," I said, and pushed while she held the rug flat.
The casters rolled right over, smooth. The hallway opened up. I was free and level again, wheels quiet on the runner. The bathroom door was ten feet ahead, wide open, tile visible.
I stopped and looked back.
She was still kneeling, hand on the rug, looking up at me. Her ponytail had slipped a little over her shoulder, cap a little crooked from kneeling. She didn't let go of the rug until I nodded.
"You need a threshold ramp there," she said, like she was noting it for a grocery list. "Or that rug needs tape underneath."
"Yeah," I said. I wiped my palm on my pants. My shoulder was still burning, but less. "It never caught before."
"It catches now," she said. Simple. No pity in it.
We sat in that hallway moment, me in the chair straddling two rooms, her on the floor holding the house together with one hand. She'd only helped when I'd asked, and only the smallest part. That was the line we'd talked about last night after the first real pill exchange, and she'd held it.
"Okay," I said. "Intermittent help, then."
"Intermittent help," she repeated. She stood up, brushed her uniform off. "You want me to wait out here or...?"
"I'll holler if I need the door," I said. I wanted to finish this one thing alone.
May you like
She stepped back into the bedroom, not following, and I wheeled the last stretch to the bathroom myself, wheels turning easy now that the rug was flat behind me.
Behind me I heard her soft footsteps on wood, and the quiet tick of her pulling the rug flat again with her foot.
