The Running Dream (13 page)

Not the one I’ve lost.

The one they’ll build me.

How does that work?

What will it be like?

Hank tried to explain it when I was in the hospital, but I couldn’t bear to listen. He had a brochure with pictures of legs. They had plastic feet, a pipe for a calf.… They were Frankensteinish.

In my mind he became Hankenstein.

Somebody I didn’t want to see.

But now … now the idea of a leg—any leg—seems better than crutching.

Or wheeling, or hopping, or scooting, or crawling.

What a liberating luxury walking would be.

It’s the first time I’ve thought about this without someone else bringing it up. It’s the first time I
haven’t
thought that the only leg I want is the one I can’t have.

It’s the first time I’ve felt ready.

And suddenly I want it
now
.

M
ONDAY DURING SCIENCE
a note from the office gets delivered to me. There’s a single line scrawled beneath the checked
REPORT TO OFFICE IMMEDIATELY
box:

Dr. appt
.

I’m a little stunned. I knew Mom was going to get me an appointment with Dr. Wells, but I wasn’t expecting one so soon. I strap on my backpack, and Fiona helps me down the ramp. I’m crutching my way around school today, and it’s been going okay, except for the ramps. I have a tough time with them, which I find strangely ironic.

“I’ll be fine,” I say to Fiona as she starts to follow me to the office. “You need to go in there and take notes for us, okay?” She hesitates, but I shoo her off and hobble across the campus.

It’s quite a distance to the office, and I’m relieved to finally get there. The backpack has become heavier with every step, and my arms are sore. But my mom’s waiting for me, full of energy. “Dr. Wells had an eleven-thirty cancellation. If we hurry, we’ll make it!”

We do hurry. And we do make it. And then we fidget in the waiting room for almost an hour.

The meeting itself is short. When we’re finally in an examining room, Dr. Wells appears almost immediately. “Hello, Jessica!” he says, then wheels over to me on his doctor’s stool. He inspects my stump, prods it, measures it, then says, “Outstanding!” He whips a prescription pad from his white coat pocket. “You are definitely ready for a preparatory prosthesis, and in record time.” He scribbles on the pad, then peels off the prescription and hands it to me. “Good work, and congratulations!”

He’s already on his way out the door when my mom says, “So we take this to Hank Kruber?”

“Or any other prosthetist.”

“Uh—who would you recommend?”

Dr. Wells stops in the open doorway. “Hank’s a good choice. And you do want to stay local. Jessica will be needing regular adjustments—especially since she’s almost certainly still growing.”

When we get home, my mom looks up prosthetists in the phone book, and what she discovers is that if we are going to stay local, Hank Kruber is our only choice.

“Hankenstein’s fine, Mom,” I tell her.

She turns to look at me. “Hankenstein?”

I shrug. “My head was in a bad place in the hospital. He thought a pipe leg was something I should be thrilled about. But if he can get me walking, let’s go.”

“Hankenstein,” she chuckles, then finds the number and makes the call.

When she’s done, she says, “The receptionist was so nice! She’ll work us in at ten tomorrow morning. She says to wear shorts.”

So the next day I miss more school and report to Hankenstein’s lab. It’s on a busy part of Grand Avenue, behind a fenced-off gas station and next to a Laundromat. The asphalt parking lot is full of potholes and there’s trash blown up against the building. A faded blue sign reads
QUALITY ORTHOTICS AND PROSTHETICS
, so we know we’re in the right place; it just feels wrong.

My mom unstraps her seat belt. “Let’s just go in and see what we think, okay?”

I nod and work myself and my crutches out of the passenger seat. I feel strange in shorts.

Vulnerable.

“If you don’t like it here,” she whispers as we near the entrance, “we’ll take you someplace else.”

I know she’s just being nice and that I don’t really have a choice. Still, I’m glad she said it.

The waiting room is set up like a doctor’s office, only the chairs are plain molded plastic, and instead of carpeting there’s chipped linoleum. There’s an odd smell to the place, too. Not bad, just sort of … industrial.

An elderly couple is already in the waiting room. The man is in a wheelchair, and he’s holding a fake leg across his lap. His wife is sitting beside him with her purse in her lap. They look us over without smiling or saying hello, and the old man seems very unhappy. Like he’d sooner hurl his leg than wear it.

We go up to the reception counter and I try to ban thoughts of my future from my mind.

I do not want to be a crabby old lady holding a leg in my lap.

I just don’t.

The receptionist is younger than my mom. Actually, she’s not that much older than I am. Maybe in her early twenties?

“Hi!” she says across the counter. “You must be Jessica!”

She’s like sunshine through my cloud of uncertainty. I smile and nod, and since she’s wearing a name tag, I say, “And you must be Chloe.” We both laugh, and suddenly I feel more at ease. Nothing’s changed but the vibe in the room, but it helps.

She gives my mom a clipboard with paperwork to fill out, then leans forward a little and says to me, “Hank will have you walking again in no time. He’s really good.”

I nod and smile, and in that moment I believe her.

Then my mom and I sit in the hard plastic chairs, and I’m confronted with the reality of the old man and his leg again.

He just sits there, sullen.

His wife just sits there, quiet.

Mom’s completed about half the paperwork when Chloe appears in the waiting room. She’s not wearing a nurse-type smock or shoes, just regular clothes—jeans, a knit top, and flats. The only thing that gives away that she works there is her name tag.

She smiles at the old man and says, “You can come on back, Mr. Benson.”

His response is a frown and a grunt. It is also, apparently, a signal for his wife to roll him out of the waiting room.

Chloe tosses me a little shrug and follows them.

Then we sit there for what seems like an eternity. Chloe splits her time between the desk and … somewhere in the back. She apologizes several times for how long it’s taking and finally comes out into the waiting room and sits beside me. “He’s almost done.” She looks at my mom. “I really didn’t think it would take this long. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right,” my mom says. “I appreciate you working us in.”

Chloe looks at me, looks away, looks at me again, and finally says, “Things will change. From here on, they’ll get better.”

She seems to be choosing her words carefully. Like each one carries a meaning beyond its definition.

She gives a nervous laugh. “I don’t usually come out and accost the patients, sorry! It’s just that Hank told me about you and … and I can relate.”

Again, there’s more to these words than I can puzzle out. I’m trying, but I’m not quite there.

My mom’s trying too. “Was somebody in your family in an accident?”

Chloe shakes her head. She knocks on her leg with a solid
clunk, clunk
. “I’m a BK amputee too. I lost mine to cancer when I was a kid.”

From the hallway we hear, “Chloe?”

She jumps up and hurries across the room, and in the blink of an eye she’s gone, leaving me with my jaw dangling.

M
R
. B
ENSON LEAVES IN HIS WHEELCHAIR
, his leg still in his lap. He looks even grumpier than he did before.

“Remember to practice with it, Mr. Benson,” Chloe calls after him.

He doesn’t say a word.

Chloe smiles at me. “Your turn.”

As she leads us down the hallway, I watch her legs. Her movements are smooth. Assured.

Part of me doesn’t quite believe she’s got a fake leg.

The rest of me is enormously encouraged.

She takes us to a small room with a patient table and a service sink. The floor is stained dusty white. Like a chalkboard that won’t come clean. It’s not just the floor, either. The cupboard doors, the sink, the chairs … there’s chalky whiteness everywhere.

“Just sit up here,” Chloe says, pulling fresh paper over the table. “Hank will take some measurements, do a cast”—she smiles at me—“nothing that hurts.”

When she’s gone, my mom whispers, “That’s amazing! I sure can’t tell—”

Hank walks in. He’s the same guy I remember from my hospital nightmare: stocky, bald, partially preoccupied. Like half of him is somewhere else.

I notice his shoes, his pants, his shirt … they’re all smudged chalky white.

“Jessica!” he says, like the other half of him has finally arrived. He seems genuinely happy to see me. “Good to see you looking so well!” He turns to my mom. “Hello, Mrs. Carlisle. How are you?”

Mom nods. But he’s waiting for a real answer, so she says, “Better than the last time you saw me.”

“Good.” He scoots a chair up to me and says, “So let’s get you fitted for a leg, shall we?”

He has me take off my shrinker sock, and my left shoe and sock, too. Then he starts measuring. He uses tools like I’ve seen my dad use. A metal caliper. A tape measure. Something that looks just like a carpenter’s square. He takes all sorts of measurements of my stump side, and of my good side, too. And when he’s all done, he nods and says, “And what kind of shoe do you normally wear?”

I point to my running shoe. “These.”

He picks up the shoe and makes a note of the size, then says, “Okay. We’re ready to make a cast of your residual limb. From that we’ll be able to make a plaster model, and from
that
we’ll build your first socket.”

Mom asks, “The socket’s the part that goes over her … over the residual limb?”

“That’s right. Once we’ve got a comfortable socket, we’ll add the pylon and the foot. But first things first. We do a cast.” He goes to a cupboard, pulls out a box of supplies, and hands
me a long, simple belt with a sliding clasp. “Fasten this around your waist,” he says, then proceeds to untangle three adjustable straps that have little clamps on both ends. He puts the straps aside, then produces a short, very thin stocking, which he pulls onto my stump. It’s smooth and soft. Almost silky.

“We cover your residual leg with this first,” he says, “because it makes it much easier to remove the cast.” Next he attaches the stocking to the belt around my waist with the three straps, and when he’s sure it’s secure and the stocking is on smooth and tight, he says, “Just a few markings and we’re ready!”

Right on top of the stocking, he begins marking places. Around my knee. Along what’s left of my shin. My scar. Points where bones stick out …

The pencil he’s using is blue, and when he’s done, the stocking looks like a little kid scribbled on it.

“These markings will transfer to the cast,” he explains. “They’ll show me where we can put pressure, and also where we should relieve it.”