Just not normal enough.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t made any progress. I could rattle off every muscle in the lower extremities like some kind of med student. My core strength, Rob said, was “phenomenal,” and I could do sit-ups all day long. My arms and shoulders were “beasts.” I had the gluteus muscles “of a champion,” and my adductors, hip flexors, gluteus medius, rectus femoris, sartiorius, and deep gluteal muscles were all in excellent working order. I could even stand pretty well—twelve minutes was my record—but only if I held on to something, or someone.

The problems were all with the muscles responsible for extending the foot forward when taking a step. They were falling down on the job. Aside from that one delightful big toe (thanks to one feisty flexor hallucis longus), everything below my knee, to use the technical term, was “flaccid.”

I preferred “floppy,” personally.

Either way, it wasn’t good. The tibialis anterior, tibialis posterior, popliteus fibularis longus, fibularis brevis, plantaris soleus, and gastrocnemius were all, um, pretty limp. Particularly frustrating were the semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris, which are the muscles that work to extend the leg. I could bring my thigh forward (thanks to a “boss” iliopsoas), but I couldn’t straighten it.

Still.

That’s why I wasn’t going to the Valentine’s party. That whole final week was a slow realization that, where walking was concerned, at least, despite the trying, and the determination, and all those hours of tutoring, and the many impressive gains I could claim—I was still going to fail.

I never failed. I’d never failed anything. Not even a spelling quiz.

It kept me from sleeping. Over and over that final week, I’d doze off for a few minutes at bedtime and then startle awake, restlessly shifting under my covers. Several nights I just couldn’t take the anxiety, and I wound up transferring to my chair, careful not to wake Kit, and then sneaking to the gym. There, I’d hoist myself up onto the walking bars, brace with both hands, and pace back and forth until I was on the verge of collapse.

It was probably a bad idea, going to the gym at night. I would no doubt have done better to let my body rest. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I kept thinking if I just pushed a little harder, I could break through. The prospect of failing this challenge—possibly the only one that ever really mattered—left me too panicked to think straight.

The night before Kit’s party, I went to the gym again. My arms were sore from all the laps on the bars, and I could hear Ian’s Scottish voice saying “arms are not legs,” but I didn’t care. It wasn’t my arms I cared about. I went back and forth, back and forth—ten times, then twenty, willing my lower legs to swing forward, willing the balls of my feet to push off, willing for something, anything, to spark to life.

Then, just short of thirty, my arm just gave out.

It happened fast. I crumpled, smacking down on the mat hard, and lay there, panting. And there, with my face against the mat, smarting like I’d been slapped, it truly hit me: I wasn’t going to walk again.

I really wasn’t.

I wasn’t going to overcome this. I wasn’t going to be good as new. I wasn’t going to show them all. I wasn’t going to be the exception to the rule. I wasn’t going to give an inspirational talk that would go viral on the Internet.

Every single thing I’d experienced, or thought about, or hoped for up until this moment seemed cartoonish. This whole experience had been so frantic and dreamlike it was almost like nothing at all had been real. Until now. Alone, on the floor, I finally, really got it. The only thing that was real anymore: I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

*

I’D BARELY FINISHED the thought when I heard a voice—a Scottish voice. “What the hell is going on?”

I didn’t move. Just lay there and calculated the odds of another Scottish person happening to pass through the rehab gym in the middle of the night.

Unlikely.

Then I heard Ian’s sneakers squeak the floor—fast, like he was running—and then he was saying my name, urgently, like I might be in danger: “Maggie, what happened?”

I couldn’t lift my face from the mat. “You don’t call me Maggie anymore.”

Then he was down on his hands and knees beside me. “What happened? Tell me.”

“Why are you even here?”

“Working late. What happened?”

He was perched to call for help. But I didn’t need help. I put my hand out to keep him right there, and then I explained everything the only way I could.

“I failed,” I said.

“Were you in here using the bars? By yourself? Jesus, Maggie, you’re not supposed to come here alone.”

But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

“Are you hurt?” Ian asked.

“No.”

“Can you get up?”

“No.”

“Let’s get you back to your room.” He gathered me into his arms.

“No,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”

Ian hesitated.

“Please,” I said.

Then Ian rocked back, without letting me go, and sat on the mat, still holding me.

Probably, all his medical training told him to get me back to my room, and check my vitals, and attend brusquely to my physical health. But he went against it. He believed me that I was not hurt. He trusted that I didn’t need to be hauled back out into the bright hallway. He understood what I’d been doing. He knew as well as anybody that I hadn’t made enough progress. He got it.

And so he didn’t ask me any more questions. He just held me there, against his chest, on the mat, in the dark gym, stroking my hair.

*

I MUST HAVE fallen asleep, and Ian must have carried me back to my bed in his arms, because the next morning, I woke up in my room with Kit still snoozing away—but I didn’t remember going back.

I went through the motions that day. This was it. This was really it. Everything was exactly the same, except for one crucial thing: There was no hope anymore.

Kit stayed with me the whole day, cutting hearts for the party and making organizational phone calls, but I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to argue with me. There was nothing to argue about. She popped out for a bit in the late afternoon while I had PT with Rob, and when I came back, she was still gone. I fell asleep hard that afternoon, and I didn’t wake until supper: hospital food. There’d be nothing delicious tonight. Kit would be at the helm of her epic party, and I would be in here. Alone. Eating Jell-O.

As my meal came into focus, something across the room came into focus, too. A dress, hanging from the television stand, with a note on it in Kit’s writing—big, in Sharpie: Genuine vintage roller-disco diva dress

off the (right) shoulder!

JUST YOUR SIZE!

$5 at Salvation Army! (I washed it for you!) Come to the party!!!!!!

It was a pink-and-gold, one-shoulder, polyester maxidress with ruffles. It was hilarious, and also strangely lovely.

But I still wasn’t going to the party.

I lifted the yellowish plastic cover on the dinner plate. Some kind of gray meat, rehydrated mashed potatoes, and canned green beans.

Nope.

I poked at the Jell-O. I listened to the nurses joke around out at the station. One of them had a little thing for Man-Bun-Rob, and she’d heard he was going to be there.

Guess that meant there would be no tutoring for me tonight, either.

Fine. It was pointless, anyway.

On the tray, dessert was a chocolate chip cookie, which seemed like a stroke of luck—until I bit in and discovered it was oatmeal raisin.

Things seemed quieter than usual. Everybody, I guess, was in the rehab gym.

Then the door pushed open, and it was Kit.

“I need you,” she said.

“What?”

“The mariachi band is terrible! The children are crying!”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, yes, it can!” she said, pulling back my covers. “Go pee. Brush your teeth. Put on your dress! You’re doing a love song medley in ten minutes.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

She put a hand on one hip. “How many times have I been there for you when you needed me?”

“Are we talking recently, or our entire lives? Because I think you started with a deficit.”

Kit pulled on my arm. “I need you. The kids need you. Valentine’s Day needs you. Ian’s mother needs you!”

What? She got my attention with that last one. “Ian’s mother?”

She pointed at me, and repeated the favorite saying of hers Ian had told us once: “When you don’t know what to do for yourself, do something for somebody else.”

*

SHE GOT ME with that.

I did go to the party—although, when I showed up, the mariachi band was totally normal, not one kid was crying, and it was clear that Kit had tricked me.

I glared at her. “Not cool.”

“Just try to keep that scowl on your face while you eat one of these cookies,” she said, handing me a heart-shaped one with sprinkles.