Chapter 11
The suite was quiet in a way the foyer never was. My bedroom door was closed and the house settled around us with that soft hum the old heater made through the vents. My son had pulled the cot up near the window and laid a folded blanket at the foot of it. The maid had brought in a glass of water and set it on my nightstand, then stepped back toward the kitchen apartment like she said she would. She left her number on the small white card beside my lamp. I could see it from where I sat.
I was still in the chair. I hadn't asked to be moved to the bed yet.
My hands rested on the dark wooden cane across my lap. The brake levers were right there at the sides of the wheels, black handles I had watched other people press for me for months. I'd never really locked them myself. Someone else always reached down and clicked them before I could.
I looked down at them. My son was sitting on the edge of the cot, his suit jacket folded over the chair, his tie loosened. He wasn't looking at his phone. He was looking at my hands.
"You want to stay up a little longer?" he asked.
I nodded. My throat was dry from crying earlier, but my eyes weren't wet anymore.
He stood slowly and then stopped himself. "Can I move the footrests for you? They've been pressing your ankles."
That was new. He asked first. He waited.
I swallowed and said, "Yes. You can."
He knelt and lifted each footrest with a soft click, swinging them aside. His hands didn't brush my legs. When he was done he sat back on the cot and didn't touch the chair again.
I shifted my weight and looked at the right brake. I hadn't realized how stiff my fingers felt until I tried to curl them around the handle. I pressed down. The lever resisted, then gave with a sharp click that sounded loud in the quiet room. The wheel locked.
I breathed out. I hadn't known I was holding my breath.
"Good," he said quietly. Not praising me like a child. Just acknowledging it.
I did the left side next. It took me two tries. My wrist ached a little, but the second click came and the chair held. It didn't roll when I leaned. It stayed still. I put both hands back on the cane and felt the wood warm under my palms. No one was holding the handles behind me. No one was going to push me toward the door or away from it without a word. The chair was mine again because I'd locked it.
His phone lit up on the nightstand where he'd left it face up. The screen glowed blue in the dim lamplight. I saw her name. Then it went dark. Then it lit again. And again.
He glanced at it. He didn't pick it up.
"It'll keep buzzing," I said.
"I know," he said. "I'll talk to her in the morning."
It buzzed a fourth time and a fifth. He turned it face down. The light disappeared and the room went back to the warm yellow from my lamp. He didn't explain the texts or read them out loud. He just left the phone there and looked at me.
"Do you want to get into bed now? Or do you want to stay in the chair a while?" he asked.
I thought about it. Usually I would have been lifted and wheeled and parked and then helped to the bed in a sequence that happened to me while I smiled and said thank you. Tonight the brakes were locked by my own hands. I wanted to feel that a minute longer.
"I'll stay here a little," I said.
"Okay. Can I get you anything while you sit?"
"Just the water."
He reached for the glass but paused. "May I?"
I nodded. He handed it to me and I drank. The water was cool and it helped my throat.
After a while I heard soft footsteps in the hall outside the kitchen apartment side. A light knock, barely a sound. My son stood and opened the suite door a few inches.
The maid was there in her flats, not her heels, a cardigan over her dress. She didn't come in.
"Just checking you have what you need," she whispered. "I didn't want to assume."
"We're okay," my son said. He kept his voice low. "She locked the brakes herself."
The maid's face changed. A small, real smile. She looked past him to me and gave a slight nod. I nodded back. She didn't reach for my chair. She didn't need to.
"I'm right through the kitchen if you need me," she said. "No rush."
When she was gone, my son closed the door gently and came back to the cot. He didn't move my chair. He asked, "Are you ready for the bed when you are? No hurry."
I looked at the bed, at the turned-down quilt, at the lamp. I realized I wasn't afraid of being left alone tonight. The guest wing was far down the hall. The door to it was closed. For once no one was standing behind me with hands on my chair waiting to decide where I went next.
"Yes," I said finally. "You can help me now."
He stood and waited. "How would you like me to do it?"
"Just steady me. I'll hold the cane."
He unlocked the brakes only after I said to. I felt the clicks as he released them, but I had said yes first. He stood at my side, not behind, and offered his arm. I leaned on the cane in my right hand and his forearm with my left and stood. My legs held. He didn't pull me. He let me find my own balance and then I sat on the edge of the bed. The chair stayed where I'd left it, empty and still, the cane now resting against the nightstand where I could reach it.
He pulled the quilt up. I lay back against the pillows and he didn't adjust them without asking.
"Is this okay?" he asked.
May you like
"It's good," I said.
He turned the lamp down low and laid back on the cot with his clothes still on, the phone still face down and dark. The house was quiet. No wheels moving. No voices from the foyer. I listened to the heater and to his breathing and to my own, slower now, and I fell asleep without waking once until the light came pale through the curtains.
