by Ruth Behar
Why is it that bad things have to happen so you learn there are lots of good people in the world?
Then there’s a knock on the door. It’s Chicho. He comes to the bedroom and says, “Hello, Ruthie, I’m so glad your cast is off. Now you’ll learn to walk and everything will be all right.”
“I’m afraid to get out of bed, Chicho.”
“But you’ll do it anyway, mi cielo. Have faith.”
“Chicho, why do you look so sad?”
“I have to go back to Mexico.”
“But you’re not going forever, are you?”
“I don’t know yet. You see . . . my father died, mi vida. He sat down in his favorite chair to read the newspaper and his heart gave out. Just like that. Now my mother is alone.”
“Oh, Chicho, I’m so sorry.”
I want to give Chicho something to console him and I remember the embroidered handkerchief from Cuba that Mami let me keep.
“Here, Chicho,” I say, passing it to him.
“Gracias, mi corazón, it’s sweet of you to offer me such a beautiful gift.”
“It’s from Cuba. The only thing I still have from Cuba.”
“Oh no, mi cielo, keep it, then. I am grateful for your kind thought.”
“I want you to have it. Please.”
“Well, if you are sure.”
“I’m sure, Chicho.”
“Gracias. I know I will need it.”
He holds up a corner of the handkerchief to his face and dries the tears that have formed in his eyes.
“This is only the beginning, mi cielo. I know I will shed many tears when I get to Mexico. It’s terrible I lost my father, but even more terrible that I didn’t get to say good-bye. I left and came to America and didn’t make peace with him. Now I don’t know if my home is in Mexico or here.”
“Chicho, didn’t you say you love New York?”
“Sí, sí, I do, but there’s so much to think about, mija. I won’t know anything until I’m back in Mexico. It’s the land of my ancestors. I need to set my feet down on that soil and see how I feel. I have missed my mother’s warm tortillas and many more things than I can name.”
“But you left Mexico to breathe free. Don’t you breathe free here?”
“I am grateful for that freedom, but my roots are calling to me now.”
“Promise me you’ll come back, Chicho.”
“I will try, mija. And I want you to keep getting better. Will you promise me you’ll get out of bed and try to walk?”
“Okay, Chicho, I’ll try.”
But after he leaves, I fall back down into my bed and stare at the ceiling. I don’t think I’m going to budge until he returns.
welcome back to the world
They send a nurse to teach me how to walk with crutches, but when she sees I don’t want to get out of bed, she gives up on me fast. “I’m not going to force you. If you don’t want to walk, then stay there.”
The next nurse is nicer. “Honey, I know you been bedridden a long time, but you need to get up and try to walk. Come on, please try.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Let me show you. Please.”
I feel sorry for her. I can see a tear in her eye as she leaves.
Mami is furious. “Aren’t you tired of making pee-pee and poop in your bed?”
I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am.
But I cannot leave my bed.
I am scared to death.
Then the third nurse comes. Her name is Amara. She’s from the Bronx and her family is from Puerto Rico. She has a scar on her cheek, from a street fight, she says. She’s really tall. She towers above everyone. When she takes off her sweater, I see muscles on her arms.
“I hear you don’t want to get out of bed, young lady. Is that right?”
“Yes,” I say, my teeth chattering. “I’m scared my leg will break again.”
“That’s not going to happen. Not when you’re with me.”
She pulls away the sheets. I’m wearing a flowered nightgown that comes down below my knees.
“Let’s start by getting you out of those pajamas or you’ll never want to leave your bed. Where are your clothes?”
I point to the chest of drawers by the wall. Amara rustles around and chooses a few things and tosses them to me.
“Here, put on this blouse and skirt. Here’s some underwear. Start getting used to wearing underwear again. Come on, put it on. It’s not that hard. Lift up your hips and butt. You can do it. Use your arms. It’s just a backward push-up. Stop acting so fragile. You didn’t break an arm too, did you?”
After I’m dressed, Amara says, “The only way to deal with fear is to treat it like an unwelcome guest. If you keep entertaining it, you’ll never be rid of it.”
And then, without saying another word, she reaches over, picks me up, and flings me onto her right shoulder. She’s so fast I don’t even have time to be scared. A second later she sets me down on the floor, so all my weight is on my left leg, and she positions the crutches under my arms.
“I don’t like this,” I moan. “I’m all wobbly.”
“You’ve been in bed for almost a year. Your muscles have atrophied. What do you expect?” She looks at me with her tough boxer’s gaze. “Stay there. Don’t move. Get used to just standing.”
“I feel like I’m going to topple over. Can I get back into bed now?”
“No, you can’t. You’re going to walk to the living room and say hello to your mother.”
“That’s too much. Please don’t make me.”
“Girl, listen to me, don’t wear out my patience on the first day.”
I’m about to start crying when I see her reaching for the crutches. She grabs them and tugs on them hard.
“Stop! What are you doing? I’m going to fall.”
“Move your foot and you won’t.”
I hop forward with my left foot and catch up to the crutches.
“Keep doing that over and over again and you’ll get there.”
My left leg is weak, my arms are weak, and my broken leg, which they say isn’t broken anymore, feels heavy, heavy, heavy.
But I keep on going.
Amara coaches me as if we were in the boxing ring.
“That’s it. Crutches, and then leg. Keep up the momentum. Breathe, girl, breathe. You’re not diving underwater.”
Huffing and puffing, I make it to the living room.
Mami starts crying when she sees me. “Mi niña, mi niña,” she says. She hugs me so hard she nearly knocks me over, but Amara is there to catch me.
“Hay cariños que matan,” Amara says, chuckling.
She speaks Spanish too!
“Así es,” Mami replies.
And the two of them share a laugh.
“What does that expression mean?” I ask.
“It means there are loves that can kill you,” Amara explains. “Your mother nearly tackled you to the ground she was so happy to see you. In other words, too much love can be a dangerous thing.”
Mami pours steamy black coffee into one of her tiny cups and passes it to Amara. “Un cafecito,” she says, smiling.
Amara savors the coffee. “Gracias, qué rico. The sugar is just right.” Then she turns to me and says, “Good work, girl. You’ve been standing there on your crutches for a good long time. Now I’ll show you how to sit down in a chair and how to get up after you’ve been sitting. Then you’ll get the rest of the day off.”
Thanks to Amara, I can walk around the apartment, I can eat at the dining table, and I can finally go to the bathroom by myself.
But I still have a long way to go.
I can’t go outside because there are five steps from the entrance of the building down to the street. I don’t know how to go up and down stairs y
et.
A few days later, Amara flings open the door of the apartment. “It’s April,” she says. “It’s time you got some fresh air. Let’s go out into the hallway. We’ll learn to do steps here.” She points to the steep flight of stairs leading from our sixth floor to the fifth floor below.
At the top of the landing, she says, “You’re going to lower one crutch down to the step below, slowly, and follow with the other crutch. Steady yourself. Then lower your left foot and let the right leg follow. That’s all there is to it.”
I look down and see the dark at the bottom of the stairs. It looks like a gaping wide dragon’s mouth.
“I can’t.”
“Okay, let’s try going up the steps first. It will be easier.”
She presses the button for the elevator.
I dread it, but I follow her into the elevator and we go down one flight, to the fifth floor.
“Now, you’ll set one crutch on the stair, then the other crutch, and you’ll lift yourself up. Go ahead. I’m right behind you. I’ll catch you if you fall back.”
I do as she says. Crutches first. Lean forward. Hop up on my left foot and put all my weight on it.
“Wait! Did I do it?”
“Yes, you did, girl,” Amara replies. “Keep going.”
I go up another step! And another! And another!
It’s when I get to the middle of the staircase that I’m scared out of my wits.
“Don’t lean back, girl! You’ll lose your balance. Take a deep breath. I’m right behind you. Keep going. Up, up, up. You’re almost there.”
When I reach the top, I feel I’ve climbed Mount Everest.
“I made it,” I say to Amara. “But going down is still going to be impossible.”
She smiles and the scar on her cheek twitches a little.
“Today it’s impossible. Next week it won’t be. You’ll see.”
But Amara is wrong. I can easily climb the stairs with my crutches, go up, up, up, but when I stand at the top of the landing and look down, down, down at the dark dragon mouth at the bottom of the stairs, my head spins like a top.
“Girl, I got you out of bed. Now I want to get you out of the building and into the street. Why do you make things so difficult?”
“I’m sorry.”
I swallow the tears that slip down my cheeks. How I wish I were strong. How I wish I were brave.
“Look, I’ll stand in front of you as you take each step down the stairs. If you trip, I’ll catch you. Let me be your pillow.”
I want to please Amara but the stairs are so steep and they go on forever. How will I balance on one foot and crutches? If I miss a step, I’ll go toppling down and break my neck and break my back and break my leg and break my skull and be so broken not even Dr. Friendlich will be able to put me back together.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” I say, whimpering pathetically.
We are standing outside the door of the apartment. Amara’s back stiffens, and she turns and presses the button for the elevator. When the door opens, she steps in, looking back at me angrily. “Okay, girl, you’ve worn me out. Go back to bed. I guess that’s what you want to be for the rest of your life—an invalid.”
The door closes shut and she’s gone.
I collapse into my bed after Amara leaves. I only get up to go to the bathroom and to eat when Mami calls me to the table.
I’m going to stay in bed for the rest of my life. What’s wrong with that?
There are lots of things I can accomplish in my bed.
I surround myself with all my books. I can do all my homework and get lots of gold stars from Joy.
I can type a lesson a day. I already type a hundred words a minute without having to go anywhere.
I can paint in bed like Frida Kahlo did. I just made a picture of a girl rolling down the stairs tangled up in her crutches. It hurts to look at, but it’s beautiful.
It’s amazing how much a girl can accomplish staying in her bed.
Wait till Amara comes back. I’ll show her!
But I don’t think Amara is coming back.
A few days later Amara knocks at our door. Mami gives Amara a cafecito in the living room. I hear Mami saying, “She’s gone back to her bed. I don’t know how you’ll get her up again.”
“All right, girl,” Amara says, entering the room. “I gave you a break. Time to get back to work.”
I pretend I don’t care she’s returned.
“I’m doing fine in bed. Look at all the gold stars my teacher gave me. And look at all the pictures I painted. And I can type a hundred words a minute with my eyes closed!”
“That’s good, but there’s a whole world out there waiting for you. Don’t you want to touch the leaves on the trees? Feel the sun warming your back?” She opens her arms wide. “Come on, girl, you’ve got to get out of bed.”
“Nah, I’m okay.”
“How about friends? Wouldn’t you like to play in the park with your friends?”
“I forget what friends are. No one comes to see me.”
“Maybe they think you’re upset with them. Anyway, listen, I figured out a way to make it easy for you to go down the stairs.”
“I’ll never go down the stairs. Never! If I slip and fall, I’ll break like Humpty Dumpty into hundreds of pieces and then who’ll put me back together again?”
“Listen to me, girl. You can go down the stairs. I’m going to show you how. I was so upset the other day I wasn’t thinking clearly. I think your problem is vertigo. And we can take care of that. Come on, girl, please. Get up for just a moment.”
I see the scar on Amara’s cheek stretch as she winks at me.
“You must have been in a pretty bad street fight to get that scar.”
“Yeah, it was bad.”
“Can you tell me the story? I like stories. I’m going to type it up.”
“Well, I always say it was a street fight so I don’t have to go into the details of the real story. You see, it was a neighbor who did this to me. I was on my way home from school one day and no one was around. He stopped me and said it was his birthday and he wanted me to kiss him. ‘Come on, just one little kiss. It won’t hurt,’ he said. When he tried to put his arms around me, I pushed him away as hard as I could. I watched boxing matches on TV, so I knew how to strike back. But then he took out his knife and left me with a memory of that day.”
I finish typing just as Amara finishes telling her story.
“Wow! That’s really scary, Amara. And now you have that scar for your whole life.”
“We all have scars, Ruthie. Some of us have scars you can see and some of us have scars that we hide deep inside, hoping no one will ever ask about them.”
She runs her fingers lightly over the scar and lets herself be sad for just a second. Then she says, “Now what do you say we stop talking and get moving? Ready to get out of bed?”
“Just for a little while, right?”
“Yeah. Come on, girl.”
I follow her out the front door and we get into the elevator. She presses the button for the fifth floor. When we arrive, she says, “All you have to do is climb one step. That’s it. Then stop. You think you can manage that?”
“Okay. Sure.”
I do as she says. “Now what, Amara?”
“Turn around slowly. Pivot and turn your crutches around. That’s it. Keep going until you’re facing forward.”
She stretches her arms out, so she can catch me if I lose my balance.
“It’s just one step. Lower one crutch, then the other. Put both crutches down on the step. Now lift yourself up. Steady, steady. Okay, now make a smooth landing on your good leg. That’s it! You’re there!”
“I did it! I did it!”
Amara lifts me into the air, with my crutches and everything, and gives me a hug. I notice she�
��s sweating as much as I am.
“Now what do you say you go up two steps, then come down two steps?”
“Sure!”
I keep going, and do three steps and come down, then four steps and come down, then five steps and come down.
Amara says, “Let’s stop there. Five steps are more than enough for one day. Want to go outside? It’s five steps down to the street. Now you know you can do it.”
We get back in the elevator and go down to the first floor. Amara holds the front door open for me.
“Ready to go outside?”
“I’m ready.”
Amara watches as I make my way down the five steps. Crutches, then feet, crutches, then feet. Slow and steady.
“Think you can walk a bit?”
“Sure.”
I’m shaking from the excitement. I’m outside!
Everything looks fuzzy—the cars whizzing by, the sun in the sky, the budding trees, the woman pulling a shopping cart filled with groceries. I rub my eyes. It feels like I’m dreaming.
Someone runs toward me.
“Ruthie, Ruthie!”
I know it’s Danielle from her voice, but I can’t make out her face until she’s standing right next to me.
Danielle disregards the “Keep Off the Grass!” sign and pulls up a dandelion from the earth.
She hands the dandelion to me. Should I accept it? I was angry with her. But I’m too happy now to be angry.
As I take her gift, Danielle says, “For you, Ruthie. Welcome back to the world.”
Part V
IF YOUR DREAMS ARE SMALL,
THEY CAN GET LOST
true friend
Today is my one-year anniversary. A whole year has passed since the accident.
Joy says I should finish up the school year at P.S. 117 with my classmates in the sixth grade. “You’ll fit right in. You’ve done all the same assignments, plus extra reading and math. And you can type a hundred words a minute. And you’re a budding artist!”
Amara agrees with Joy. “Ruthie, you need to jump back into your normal life and go to school.”