Soon after, we all spent our first weekend together as part of my father’s new family. It was also the first time I saw snow. My dad and Polly were taking us to Tahoe, though none of us had ever been skiing before. I already hated the idea. The warmest piece of clothing I owned was a thick hooded sweatshirt with the logo of the University of Michigan, my father’s alma mater, across the chest, but Polly cheerfully outfitted us in ski clothes and puffy parkas and packed us all into the car. I sat squished between Daniel and Peter in the backseat, closing my eyes and wishing that when I opened them it would be my mother in the passenger seat, that she would start belting out show tunes and we’d all playfully join in, my brothers and father singing the low parts while I tried to hit the high notes with my mother. But when I opened them it was not my mother’s slender shoulder that my father’s hand rested on but Polly’s; she was in the driver’s seat, the seat my mother never took when my parents were in the car together. She caught my eyes in the rearview mirror and half turned with a grin, telling us how excited she was to be with us and to introduce us to the snow. I closed my eyes again.
“You’re going to love skiing!” she exclaimed.
Somehow, though, I had a feeling that a sport requiring grace, coordination, and quick instincts—and being out in the freezing cold—was not something I was going to excel at.
I didn’t see much on the drive up and was unusually sullen and quiet. But when we got to the cabin and stepped out of the car and into the snow for the first time, I couldn’t help but be awed by the huge white peaks against the impossibly blue sky, the snow making the sun seem brighter than I’d ever seen it. Daniel had never been in the snow before either, but with the instincts of a mischievous kid he instantly started gathering up handfuls of it and throwing snowballs at Peter and me. Our first snowball fight ensued, in our typical style, which meant that no one was giving up, no matter how pelted they got, and in no time we were rolling in the snow, shoving it in each other’s faces and down the back of one another’s sweatshirts.
When we were done, breathless and laughing, I looked up and saw my dad and Polly, still unloading the car, stopping to smile broadly at the three of us. I felt a pang of guilt for having this much fun without my mom being there and closed my eyes again, feeling the warmth of the sun hitting my face, not wanting to look at any of this and think about how much and how quickly my life had changed.
The next morning I pulled out my bulky ski wear and began to layer on what felt like an absurd amount of clothing. Polly had lent me some of her things, but since she weighed about a hundred pounds soaking wet, and I was already bigger than that, the clothes felt both too puffy and too tight. By the time I clomped into the dining room to meet everyone for breakfast I felt like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and was ready to go back to bed.
Polly had been an avid skier for years and was so genuinely excited to be doing this with us that some of her enthusiasm started to rub off during breakfast. Maybe, I thought, as we walked outside and were greeted by a bright blue, cloudless sky, it wouldn’t be so bad. Polly patiently had us fitted for boots and skis, checking each one of us, making sure we were comfortable and that our straps and snaps were properly done. By the time we were actually ready to ski it felt like hours had gone by, and then of course I had to pee, like I always do, which required an immense amount of work between the parka and the ski bib and trying to walk around in those ridiculous boots.
Finally we got to the gondola, and, as I freaked out about putting my skis in the ski rack and getting into the gondola in time, Daniel hopped right in next to Polly. Polly was a serious runner and an excellent athlete, and she and Daniel loved to compete and race one another; it was often too close to call a winner. There was no question, from the first time that Daniel stepped into his skis, that he was going to be awesome on the slopes. And it was clear that Polly was looking forward to having him pick up skiing quickly so that he could join her on the more challenging black-diamond runs. She showed us the first simple moves, and Daniel executed them expertly.
As in everything, Peter was a studious and diligent skier. He took his time but steadily made his way down the mountain, rarely losing the perfectly paralleled form of his skis. On the more difficult slopes he was careful, never falling and learning the rhythms of skiing, letting Polly and Danny race each other to the bottom of the mountain but quickly becoming competent.
Meanwhile, Dad and I were clearly far less coordinated than the rest of them, and generally wary of the entire sport. So, while Polly taught Daniel and Peter, Dad and I signed up for a beginner ski class. We awkwardly stumbled our way over to the bunny slope, made even clumsier by our bulky clothes, skis and poles jutting out from our sides in all different directions. I felt especially idiotic because I was wearing an old blue one-piece snowsuit of Polly’s, complete with a rainbow across the back, so different from the stylish women skiing by me in their fitted North Face jackets and Burton ski pants. Our ski instructor’s name was something like Dale or Chad, an interchangeable ski-dude name, I would learn, and when he lifted his sunglasses off his face he displayed a raccoon tan the likes of which I never would have believed was possible.
Dale or Chad instructed us “dudes and dudettes” to get in line next to the pulley circuit, where we would wait for each one to come around for us, then grab on to it and let it pull us to the top of the hill. As each pulley came around, I thought to myself that they looked like rubber chickens, and I tucked my head into my chest and laughed to myself just long enough to miss mine and barely grab on to the next one. Mortified, I held on with all I had, but I didn’t know how to prevent my skis and my legs from separating further and further apart from one another and before I knew it, I was in a deep split with my face planted in the snow and my butt in the air. Dale or Chad yelled for the operator to stop the circuit of rubber chickens so he could make his way up the hill to help me back up. As he effortlessly ran up the hill in his ski boots, his sun-kissed hair flowing behind him, yelling something that I couldn’t hear, my dad clumsily attempted to traverse his way over to me from where he stood at the top of the hill to help. Unfortunately, he, too, lost his balance and fell over, so the whole group waited and watched as this father-daughter spectacle slowly maneuvered its way back onto its four useless feet.
This was pretty much how the morning went, and when we all finally met up at the lodge for lunch, I felt like I had been to war, and lost. The lodge was warm and smelled like French fries, and I decided that I was done with skiing and the snow for the rest of the day and would stay right where I was. Dad agreed, and after lunch, when Polly, Daniel, and Peter enthusiastically jumped back up, Dad and I drank hot chocolate and people-watched for the rest of the long afternoon.
Apparently, Polly and my brothers were having so much fun that they stayed until the last possible minute, and by the time they got back to the lodge to get us the gondola had stopped running, and the only way to get down the mountain to the village was by skiing down a blue-square slope called Village Run. The sun was starting to fall below the trees and the wind was picking up, and as we all walked outside I looked up at the sky nervously. It was already hard for me to see at dusk, and I was clearly a useless skier, so Polly decided that the only way for me to get down before the sun set completely was by having me ski in tandem with her, with me in front and between her legs.
I’m sure it’s not easy for any kid whose parents have recently divorced to love her new stepparent. And I could not have been more embarrassed or looked more ridiculous, having this slender, competent woman spooning me from behind, our skis both in the classic “pizza wedge” beginner’s move as we slowly made our way down the mountain, with even the six-year-olds effortlessly whizzing by us. But as it got colder and darker and much harder to see, Polly began to feel more solid to me. She was a real person, a permanent part of my life now, and I realized that I felt safe with her.
11
One warm June even
ing when I was fourteen Dad, Polly, and my brothers and I sat down to dinner. Polly had made us pasta, as usual. The country was in the midst of the pasta craze. It was before low-carb diets were on the radar, and everyone was convinced that low-fat, high-carb diets, the staple of the long-distance runner, were the way to go. Oh, if only that had been true. Polly had been handed three constantly hungry teenagers to feed and invested in a thick cookbook full of pasta recipes, and each night we’d joke around the table about whether we were eating pasta number 128 or pasta number 215. My dad sat at the end of the table with the top few buttons of his work shirt unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up carelessly as we ate. Our three golden retrievers, Cubbie, Renner, and Star, lay outside, just behind the French doors that led to our yard, their big brown eyes staring at me with longing, wanting nothing more than to come gobble up whatever we (mostly me) had managed to spill and to lie at our feet. I already knew that when I had my own dog I would have no such rules; I’d never be able to resist those eyes.
My eyes were quickly diverted from dog watching and back to the table when my dad said, “Polly and I have special news to share with you guys . . .” By this time, I was not a big fan of “special news” or surprises, given all of the unanticipated news I’d received over the past several years, but I could tell right away that this was different. They were both smiling widely as my dad told us, “Polly is pregnant and we’re having a baby.”
Though it had been hard to accept a stepmother into my life, I was thrilled at the idea of a baby, and at being able to take care of a little brother or sister. “Are we going to find out the sex of the baby? When can we find out the sex of the baby? Do we know what we’re going to name the baby? Can we help choose a name for the baby?” I asked in a rush. The thought of having a sister brought waves of excitement over me, and I became instantly convinced that it was all I had ever wanted. Later, though, as I lay in bed, other thoughts crept in. I wasn’t sure what it all meant. Were Dad and Polly going to have a family of their own? Would we be included? How would our lives change? My dad had always been there for me: He would enlarge every paper and textbook page on his photocopier at work so that I could read them, advocating for me, always offering to help with anything that I was having trouble with. Would I still be his little girl? But the idea of having a younger sister kept breaking through these doubts, and I thought over and over to myself, Let it be a girl, let it be a girl. . . .
Three or four months into Polly’s pregnancy, I was sitting in my eighth-grade algebra class, willing the clock to move faster. I hated math and science, and they always felt twice as long as my English classes, which would fly by, because there was nothing that I loved more than reading and writing. Then there was a knock on the classroom door, and Francine, the middle school secretary, stepped in and whispered something in my teacher’s ear.
“Rebecca, your dad is on the phone and waiting to speak with you. Please go to the office.” At first I was not as surprised about having to take the phone call as much as I was at having my prayers answered, but my steps slowed as I neared the office, wondering what he could be calling for. I was sure it couldn’t be good. When we got back to the office Francine handed me the phone, and my hesitant “hello” was met with the eager enthusiasm of my dad’s voice. “Rebecca Ann”—this is what my dad called me when either I was in trouble or he was reporting serious news to me—“you’re going to have a sister!” I couldn’t believe it. Finally, at fourteen years old, I was going to have a little sister! I was grinning from ear to ear when I returned to algebra and was completely unable to focus for the rest of class. Would she look like me? Would she share my brothers’ and my goofy sense of humor? She would love them, but I was sure she was going to look up to me most of all. I would teach her everything that cool big sisters teach little sisters, and she would think I was so awesome.
I was so excited during the pregnancy that I wanted to spend lots of time with Polly, and this was when we first grew close. At night, after I’d finished my homework, I’d lie on their bed next to her to brainstorm names for the baby, laying my hand or head on her belly to feel my little sister kicking. We taped up a list of names for all of us to look over and play around with. We all had names that we liked that were included on the list: Zoe, Whitney, Madison, Caroline, Emily. Daniel came up with the name Sierra, which was generally a family favorite because we all loved the Sierra mountains. But Dad was worried that people would always mispronounce the name Sierra as “Sarah,” so it never went far on the list of names. I came up with the name Lauren, which had always been one of my very favorite names for a girl. Until the day my sister was born, we still didn’t know for sure what her name would be.
After a terribly long, drawn-out, and difficult delivery, Lauren Sierra Alexander was born on February 22, 1993. As it turned out, the woman who had just given birth in the room next to Polly had the last name of Sierra. We insisted that it had to be fate, and between that and Polly’s horrific labor Dad finally gave in.
When I held her for the first time I felt so proud, as if I had helped to make her. The name I had wanted for her had been chosen, she was my little sister, and I would be able to do what I wanted to do most in the world: take care of someone else.
12
In February of 2013, I got a call from my junior high school alma mater, the Head-Royce School. They wanted me, in their one hundred twenty-fifth year, to be their distinguished alumna of the year. Which was very flattering but also somewhat surprising (and ironic), because when I was in the eighth grade, one of the high school deans at Head-Royce sat my parents down and explained to them that the school really couldn’t “meet the needs of [their] daughter’s disabilities” anymore. So I left, while Danny and Peter remained there until they had both graduated from high school.
Now, even though I had only graduated from their middle school and not their high school, they considered me an excellent alum, and a distinguished one, complete with Ivy League degrees and an inspiring piece on the Today show. I accepted, and admittedly a part of me hoped that Head-Royce would acknowledge their unwillingness at the time to accommodate my needs so that I could continue there for high school. More important, I hoped that after having me come and speak, they’d be open to giving the next student who needed extra accommodations a chance, and that person would someday be able to stand where I was and say, with all honesty, that this was the place that made it possible for them to be who they were today.
• • • •
Honestly, at the time, I felt mostly relieved to be moving to a new school, a school that was bigger and more diverse. For the first time, I was ahead in my schoolwork and finally got a chance to fully get a handle on my academics, buckle down, and get really good grades. I had never excelled at Head-Royce, which was a small, extremely academically driven private school. Somehow the combination of changing schools and finding out about my disabilities made me want to do well, need to do well, and for the first time in my life I started to push myself academically. It felt great to look down at the questions on a test and know that I was going to nail them, and I loved the satisfaction of getting something back with a big, fat red A on it.
It felt especially great because I had already learned that there were a lot of tests that I was going to fail, and even though it wasn’t my fault, it upset me all the same. I knew by now that any test that took place in the doctor’s office wasn’t going to go well, and out on the soccer field, I wasn’t going to be a star anymore—not even close.
There was something about hearing the words “On your marks . . . Get set . . . Go!” that created such a rush of energy and adrenaline in me that to this day, even hearing those words brings up feelings of nervous excitement. I remember racing other classmates on the playground of my elementary school when I was a little girl, feeling the rush of wind and hearing the other kids around us yelling and cheering us on as we ran. I used my arms to propel myself forward just like I saw the football
players do on television, when they were running to score a touchdown. I ran as fast as I could, determined to be the first one to hit the wall with my hand, to be the winner. I wanted to be the fastest girl in my class just like Daniel was the fastest boy. Most important, I felt so alive, so free and empowered, even at seven or eight years old. I recognized my strength and ability and I loved nothing more than using it. There were a lot of things that I knew I did wrong—like lying—but I prided myself on my strength and coordination. I knew if I tried hard enough, I could win.
When I started my new high school, one renowned for its strong sports teams—especially girls’ soccer—I wanted more than anything to be on the varsity team. I love to compete: I was always one of the kids picked first to be on a team, and when I came onto the field the girls on the other team would nudge each other and nod toward me, knowing that I needed to be guarded. I relished the butterflies and uncertainty at the beginning of a game, and I always played to win. I would race down the soccer field knowing that I could outrun my opponent and that I was in complete control of the ball. The goalie would see me coming and get ready, focus with all she had, but I knew I was going to get it in. Not necessarily because I was the best, but because I wanted it the most.
Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found Page 4