If It Comes Back
- July 28th, 2011
- Posted in Share
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Charles saw them both at the same time: a small white bird and the girl wheeling down the walk. The bird glided downward and rested in the grass; the girl directed the chair smoothly along the sunlit, shadowy walk. She stopped to watch the ducks on the pond and when she shoved the wheels again, Charles stood up. “May I push you?” he called, running across the grass to her. The white bird flew to the top of a tree.
It was mostly he who talked and he seemed afraid to stop for fear she’d ask him to leave her by herself. Nothing in her face had supported the idea of helplessness conveyed by the wheelchair, and he knew that his assistance was not viewed as a favor. He asked the cause of her handicap.
“It was an automobile accident when I was 12,” Amy explained.
They went for lunch, and he would have felt awkward except that she knew completely how to take care of herself.
“Do you live with someone?” he asked the next day when they met.
“Just myself,” she answered. Asking the question made him feel uneasy because of his own loneliness even though he was hoping for this answer.
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