A Month of Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

new pain was a sign of returning function. Perhaps I could will it to happen, just because these were desperate times.
    Gazing through the broken place in the window blind, I imagined a sudden healing, and wished I could see the rest of the parking lot and the lawn beyond. Gretchen always closed the blind. She was probably afraid that if anyone passed by, they’d call the police, or the investigative reporter on News 9, and she would be turned in for torturing helpless, infirm people.
    I pictured Gretchen in handcuffs, trying to avoid TV cameras, pursued by a hoard of reporters with microphones, as the police dragged her out the doors.
    I heard myself laughing, an odd, chugging sound like an old car sputtering on a cold morning.
    I was instantly sad. That wasn’t my laugh. That wasn’t anyone’s laugh. It was only a strange, uneven, embarrassing tangle of noise. I wanted my laugh back. Edward always loved it. I suppose I did, too, but I’d never thought about it. You never imagine that you’ll wake up one day, unable to do such a simple thing as laugh, missing such a basic part of who you are.
    Claude passed by in his wheelchair and noticed that the window blind was down. “Well, hey there, Birdie. Who come along and closed the drape?” He always called me Birdie. I wasn’t sure why, because my name was there on the door.
    Claude went on talking as he scooted himself across the room, his feet shuffling, then slapping with each step, like the flippers of a seal, pulling its body along behind. “Why’d they close yer window blind, Birdie? That’s no good. You won’t be able to see if someone drives up.” Bracing a hand on his chair, he stretched upward, his legs folding under his weight like wet toothpicks, the chair teetering dangerously on one wheel as he tried to reach the little plastic pole that would swivel the blinds open.
    If the nurses came by and saw him doing that, they would have a fit.
    “Ooh-oh-o-o,” I forced out, watching the wheelchair tilt further to one side. I could picture him collapsed on my floor.
    “Don’t worry. I can get it.” He extended his thin fingers as far as he could, still six inches from the plastic pole.
    “Nnnooo-o-o,” I said again, the word so clear it shocked me. Claude glanced over his shoulder, still teetering above his chair. Hope soared in a part of me that had been hopeless, and I felt momentarily triumphant. You’ll fall, I added, but the words were just gibberish. It sounded like “Ooogllall.”
    I closed my eyes and started to cry.
    “Don’t cry, Birdie,” Claude soothed, and I heard him sink back into his chair. “We’ll just pull this cord and raise up the whole thing. That’ll work.” I heard the slats slapping together. Sunlight flooded the room and blanketed the bed, turning my eyelids yellow and soft pink. I imagined that I could feel the sun, warm and soothing on my legs. I imagined the sunlight melting away the lingering twinges from Gretchen’s ministrations, strengthening muscles, repairing nerves.
    For a moment, I thought I could feel it.
    “Well, blame it!” The light faded, and I opened my eyes. Claude was struggling to raise the blind again. “Darned thing’s broke. It won’t lock in up there.” He sat holding the cord. “Guess I could tie it to my chair, but then I’d probably forget and take the whole shebang with me when I go.” He grinned at me, his faded blue eyes twinkling. “Back in the day, I’da hopped right up there and fixed it, but I guess for now I can just sit here and hold it awhile. Reckon that’d be all right, Birdie? Say, did I ever tell you I was over fifty years with the Angelina and Neches Railroad? Drove them lumber trains back and forth to Chireno in Nacogdoches County, down in the Piney Woods. . . .”
    A tickle began in my stomach, and I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. For a fraction of a second, it sounded like my laugh, then it turned back to the chugging sound. I let myself keep laughing