A Leg to Stand On

by Colleen Haggerty

My brother Matthew and his boyfriend, Kirk, accompanied me to Victoria. We stayed at the Empress Hotel on Valentine’s weekend. The irony that I would be meeting Harvey on Valentine’s Day didn’t miss me. Love is a bond that inextricably connects two hearts. Harvey and I were connected—no question about that. And so we were to experience a unique kind of love that Valentine’s Day.

  We agreed to meet in the lobby of the hotel. At the appointed time, Matthew and Kirk walked with me, steadying me as we descended the ramp into the lobby.

  “Do you want us to stay until you find him?” Matthew asked.

  “No, I need to do this alone,” I replied. They both gave me hugs and slowly walked back up the ramp, glancing over their shoulders as they walked. I peered over mine for one last encouraging glance.

  I felt as fierce as a lioness protecting her cub—and as vulnerable as the cub itself. I imagined seeing Harvey and running up to him, even though I can’t run, and hitting him repeatedly in the chest, screaming every profanity I could imagine. This fantasy of hitting and hitting and hitting him was very consoling. I couldn’t wait.

  Armored by my anger, shaking from my fear, I searched the lobby for a face I didn’t really remember. A sea of people checking in for the weekend congested the room. I started feeling lightheaded as I scanned the crowd. Then I saw him: a big lug of a man, walking toward me. Oh, no. I had forgotten how big he was. He’s too big to hit, I thought.

  As he got closer, I could see he was crying. Wait: I’m the one who should be crying, I thought. Aren’t I? I had it planned out in my head that I was going to yell and scream at him, hit him, and rub in his face how much the accident had impacted my life. I planned to shower shame on him, to take the mantle of pain off my shoulders and place it squarely on his where it belonged. His tears and my early training in empathy toward those who were suffering were going to make that very difficult. He walked right up to me and asked me for a hug. I didn’t want to hug him, but I didn’t know how to say no, so I hugged him.

  We decided to take a walk in the hotel gardens. Even when I put a lot of effort into walking correctly, I still limp. That day, as we strolled around the gardens, I did my best walking. I certainly didn’t accentuate my limp. But I was secretly glad that he could finally see me move, impaired by what he’d done to me.

  After a while we went into the bar and drank beer and smoked cigarettes—like any two people might do. He began to talk. And my resolve, my need to hurt him as he’d hurt me, dissolved with the outpouring of words I hadn’t known I needed to hear.

  “I’ve always thought about you … When I see a young woman who looks like you, my day is ruined … My life was devastated because of this.”

  Harvey and I talked about how the accident had altered his life. Anytime the reality of what happened hit him, anytime he saw a woman who looked like me, he became moody and mean. “I became like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: nice guy one minute and angry the next,” he sobbed. I could see the pain and guilt in his tear-filled eyes. “My wife couldn’t take it anymore. She finally divorced me.” He wiped away a tear. “I replay the accident over and over and try to see what I could have done differently,” he explained. His face contorted in anguish, expressing exactly what I felt inside but didn’t have the heart to say.

  I didn’t expect this. I had thought this was going to be my show. But now, I couldn’t spill my guts and slap him with the reality of how altered my own life had become. How I question my attractiveness as a woman because I limp around on a plastic leg. How I have to mentally prepare myself for a simple walk around the neighborhood with my dog. How I feel distant from others because they don’t understand my pain. I couldn’t paint for him the picture of how my amputation had affected my daily life. The obvious pain his guilt was causing him proved to me that he had been through enough.

  “I’d give you my leg if I could,” he offered.

  “I don’t want your leg, Harvey,” I told him. I just needed to see his remorse. And I clearly had that.

  Harvey told me that when he went to counseling, his therapist pushed the idea that what happened wasn’t his fault. It was an accident. This was a change in perspective for me: It was an accident. I had always said to myself, “I was in an accident; but it was Harvey’s fault.” I sat holding my cigarette pondering the possibility that accidents don’t have fault. They simply are. Could that be true?

  Harvey and I reviewed the accident in detail. Though we had heard it all at the trial thirteen years before, we both needed to review the specific facts now. I’d never really considered that Harvey would have his own perspective.

  “Our car had spun out on the snowy freeway. When we came to a stop, we were facing traffic,” I explained.

  “Why were you out of the car?” he asked.

  “No one was stopping to help us. I wanted to flag down some help. All the cars were driving slowly by us in the right lane; I thought for sure someone could help me stop traffic so we could turn the car around and merge back into traffic.” I paused. Here I was, retelling the story again, but this time to the other main character: Harvey. The moment felt surreal. “Why were you in the left lane going so fast?” I asked.

  “I didn’t think I was going fast. When I saw you, I tried to get out of the way and merge into the right lane, but the snow buildup between the lanes caused my car to swerve. I lost control of my car and started spinning. That’s when I hit you.”

  My mouth was dry from the beer, the cigarettes, and the emotion. We had said all there was to say. We couldn’t dissect it further. Though the resolution I’d hoped for didn’t feel perfectly complete, I felt as if I’d done all I could do by coming to Victoria and spending an afternoon with the man whose visage had tormented me all these years. And Harvey had given me this time. He’d done all he could do given his own pain.

  He walked me back to the lobby and I hugged him again. But this time I wanted to.

  I returned to the hotel room in a fog of emotions. Matthew and Kirk immediately turned off the TV and looked at me with expectant eyes. “It was good,” was all I could muster. They stood up and, with their four huge arms, protectively embraced me. I allowed myself to be enfolded in their love. My brain was full, and I could feel the stirrings of a shift in my heart.

  When I realized I could see the accident from Harvey’s perspective I felt a freedom I hadn’t known before. I didn’t know it earlier, but now I could see that bitterness only hurts the one who holds it in her body. During my visit with Harvey, I didn’t utter the words “I forgive you,” but after the visit, I forgave Harvey in my heart. That was one of the most empowering things I have ever done. Nothing on the outside had changed—I still didn’t have my leg, it still hurt to walk, and I still got stares from strangers—but so much on the inside was different.

  PART II

  The hardest to learn was the least complicated.

  —the Indigo Girls

  15

  TRUE LOVE

  I was on a journey of healing, and I was grateful to finally have a guide in Lynn. But the road ahead was going to be long, and I wasn’t getting any younger—wasn’t becoming more eligible or more fertile. After having the men I’d loved tell me how beautiful I was, how wonderful I was, but that they couldn’t marry me, I started to consider that maybe my life could be different than the norm in more ways than just the fact that I was missing my leg. Perhaps I wouldn’t ever get married like my siblings and friends. And maybe that was okay. Once I’d forgiven myself for the abortions and forgiven Harvey for indelibly altering my life, I allowed myself to consider life without a man. And this idea made me feel so free. Perhaps I could live life on my own terms, with a boy-toy thrown in for good measure now and again if that’s what I wanted. Perhaps I didn’t need a man—or children—to complete my life. Perhaps I could go through life by myself and still be happy.

  I started living my life as if I would spend the rest of it on my own. In my early thirties, I took a three-week trip to Mexico and had a great vacation. Alo
ne. I decided I was a great traveling companion. To myself. I thought about buying a house. For myself. I looked into joining the Peace Corps. I searched master’s programs at local universities. If a husband and family weren’t going to fulfill my life, I’d find other passions to bring me joy.

  Then something happened that often happens once a person starts forgiving her past and genuinely lets go of her dreams. They started to come true.

  I met Mark.

  I was Mark’s supervisor at a social services agency in Seattle for a year and a half before we connected romantically. I found myself looking at him, especially as he walked away, to catch a glimpse of his cute butt. I chatted too long at his workstation and was surprised at myself, both that I was flirting and that I was enjoying it without any sense of urgency or self-recrimination. Mark had been flirting with me, too, but he was proper and appropriate in the workplace. He was a part of a small group of us who occasionally went out together for drinks. The group had even been to my apartment a few times. When he told me he was applying to the Peace Corps and might be leaving in the months to come, I decided to throw caution to the wind. What the hell. I was in charge of my life now. If he was leaving, I had nothing to lose; we could have a little fun before he left.

  I invited Mark over to my place for breakfast. He came over on a hot August Sunday morning. I tried to pretend I was cool as a cucumber, but when I found myself on the phone with my brother David an hour before Mark arrived, frantically asking how to make a Greek omelet, my stomach tied up in knots, I knew I was in trouble. It was Mark who appeared casual and at ease during breakfast and even during our walk on Alki Beach, just a block from my apartment. As we sat on a log watching the Bremerton ferry slide across the sun-sparkled water, I watched his green eyes track a seagull through the air and his curly hair blow slightly in the wind. Then I just blurted it out: I was attracted to him.

  That was all we needed. Someone had to break the ice. We walked back across the beach, hand in hand. That was enough. That was everything.

  A month later, Mark and I took a camping trip to the coast for the weekend. I wore my peg leg. I knew I’d come a long way when I didn’t fear his attraction to me would dissipate at the sight of my crude water leg. Our hike was a three-mile trip on a boardwalk through a moss-laden forest. The boardwalk was covered in a thin layer of slime, making it quite slick. I suddenly found myself on my butt, my backpack laying catawampus by my side. Mark and I were equally surprised by my fall. I, the seasoned backpacker, was initially embarrassed, but then I accepted, again and sincerely, this was just who I was. Self-acceptance is a gentle but powerful feeling. I sat for a moment and collected myself.

  Mark quietly took my hand, and for the rest of the hike, we walked slowly over the boardwalk. I was hunched over like an old woman taking baby steps to avoid falling again, loving every minute with him. Had I really grown and changed so much that I could fall on my ass in front of someone I was attracted to and still enjoy myself? Or was Mark an incredibly special man? Maybe it was both.

  Regardless, I felt solid in who I was, both as a woman and as an amputee. Take me or leave me, I was finally in a space where I didn’t care more about what other people thought than about being myself. Mark and I talked and talked, and I fell in love with him on our hike. Truly in love. His kindness was quiet and powerful. He didn’t use words to prove his acceptance of me; his actions said it all.

  Together we talked to my administrator and requested Mark’s supervision be transferred to my peer. After three more months, he withdrew his candidacy for the Peace Corps.

  In February, we took a weekend getaway to Orcas Island. Over dinner, we got engaged. I felt as giddy as a little girl in Disneyland and as grounded as the cedar trees outside the windows. The next morning, as we stood on the grassy cliffs, overlooking the San Juan Islands, sailboats gliding across the water like whales, I broached the subject that was always at the forefront of my mind.

  “Mark, my leg will matter. If we get married, I don’t know how it will affect our lives in the long run. When I’m an old lady, walking may be hard for me.”

  “I know.” Quietly. Sincerely.

  “But I really don’t know what I will be like. What if I can’t walk?”

  “We’ll be fine.” Did I hear assurance in his tone, or did I just want to? He didn’t seem fazed by how my leg could affect his life. With Mark, I felt whole.

  Mark and I wanted our wedding and marriage to be different than the norm. We weren’t going to follow the traditional course of middle-class America: have a church wedding, buy a house in the suburbs, have two kids, and join the PTA. Nope. Not for us. Mark and I wanted to do it our way. We talked about taking our kids traveling, exposing them to the world, and living in a culturally diverse neighborhood. Yes, we did talk about children. For me, the topic brought up the tiniest tendrils of worry, since I didn’t know what my body was or wasn’t capable of, but the guilt I’d lived with for so many years was absent. Gloriously absent.

  We had an untraditionally traditional wedding. My brother Matthew signed up to be a legal minister by calling a number from an ad we saw on the back of a matchbook cover. He married us in a beautiful garden. Since I didn’t have Dad to walk me down the grass-laden aisle, Mark and I decided to walk together into the circle of a hundred and fifty of our closest family and friends. Standing at the altar, lighting the marriage candle with my groom, who looked so handsome in a double-breasted suit that matched his green eyes, my heart flooded with the warmth of joy and gratitude. I was in awe of this man who was willingly sharing his life with me, and in awe of our deep love. We had written our own vows. When we recited those vows, Mark, a soft-spoken man, read his so loudly he bordered on shouting. Shouting his love for me in front of everyone. My heart nearly burst. Ours was a perfect wedding. We felt held, loved, and supported by everyone there.

  16

  MY TURN

  Mark and I had been married just six months when I became pregnant, nine years after my second abortion. When I saw the plus sign slowly emerge on the pink pregnancy test strip, I was just as shocked as I had been the first two times. The circumstances were playing out once again. Mark and I had been using birth control, but not religiously; we’d assumed safety based on my cycle one too many times. The risk of getting pregnant barely registered. We were married, happy. Secure. Perhaps my sense of security itself loosened my caution.

  I should have been happy to see a plus sign, but I wasn’t, immediately. I wasn’t quite ready for this. We weren’t ready for this. I felt like our wedding had just been yesterday. We both wanted a child in the abstract, but I especially wanted a longer honeymoon phase before a baby came along. We were just settling in to a routine in a tiny one-bedroom duplex. There was no room for a baby there.

  I put down the strip and walked out to the living room. Mark was sitting on the couch, nervously shaking his leg. He looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “Well?” Tears flooded my eyes, and I nodded my head. He rushed over to me and held me tight. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be fine.” But the tightness in his voice gave his feelings away. The fear in my heart was echoed in his tone. I hugged him back. Tightly. We held on to each other for dear life.

  Though therapy was helping me heal my guilt and anger, it was also making me very aware of the many fears I carried around about how well I could care for another human being. It had taken me so very long to learn to care for myself with any kind of equanimity. As Mark and I stood embracing, a new level of anxiety began to cluster in my belly. I was no longer a college student afraid of what her mother would think. Instead, I was a grown woman who had worked tirelessly to create a life she could love and respect. Would a child change all of that for me? Would I lose what I had gained by becoming a mother? And what would happen to this body of mine?

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  He grabbed me by the shoulders, gently pushed me away from him, and looked me in the eye, confusion furrowing his brow. “What do you mean?” />
  “Can we do this?” I said, scared and worried. Did Mark share my fears? Or was I revealing myself as a coward to him?

  “I don’t know.” His brow softened. Did I see relief in his face at my faint suggestion that there was some other choice than having the baby? Then he stroked my hair and said, “Honey, we’ll be okay. No matter what, all right?”

  “All right. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said, giving me a squeeze.

  During my drive to work that morning, I avoided having a cigarette. If ever I needed one it was then. I smoked about eight cigarettes a day, always rationalizing that I deserved each one. They’d been my go-to gals when I was stressed since I’d announced to Rob that I planned to start smoking so many years ago. I felt myself shaking slightly, and my forehead was damp. I knew these telltale physical signs of fear all too well. My therapist had been helping me recognize when post-traumatic stress symptoms were present, and had been walking me through healthier ways of managing them. But right now, all I wanted was a cigarette. I told myself to wait until I arrived at work to have a smoke. The day before, a coworker, Cherie, who knew of my fondness for the color green, gave me two green cigarettes. I could tell how tickled she was to have found them. She could see how delighted I was to receive them. We promised to smoke them together the next day. I’d smoke one with her this morning.

  When I arrived, I felt the burden of my secret shrouding my shoulders, weighing me down. I put on my happy face for the residents of the transitional living home I worked at. Twelve men and women with AIDS lived at this facility; many of them were there to live out the rest of their lives, while others stayed until they got back on their feet after being homeless and learned how to manage their multiple medications. I was the house manager and occasionally sat outside to have a “butt break” with the residents as a way to connect. I wanted to beeline my way to my office, but like most mornings, Juan, one of the sicker residents, was sitting on the smoking porch, his long legs crossed and then nearly crossed again like a pretzel, so thin was his body. His deep, hollow eyes pierced mine, and as always, I was surprised at how they could still smile.