“Dad,
I’m so excited for you to see my performance next month.” She
held her new costume up in front of her face. It was coral in color,
longer in the back and short in the front. Her father let her get it
custom made, and they were driving back from the seamstress. “It’s
my first time having a lead solo for competition,” she sighed.
“Thanks, Dad, for buying this for me.” Before he could reply, a
car crossed over the double lines going the wrong way and got in
front of a semi truck. The truck swerved to miss him and caused their
car to run off the road into a ravine. They slammed into a tree.
Jenny heard a knock at her door. She grabbed the blanket and rolled
over, covering her face and her tears. She heard the familiar knock
again and mumbled a sleepy, “Come in.”
“Jenny,
are you not up yet?” her mother asked. “Today is the day we meet
with Doctor Miller.”
“Okay,
whatever,” Jenny replied, not getting up. Her mother pulled the
covers off. “Mom!” Jenny sat up, grabbed the nylon cover for her
right leg, and sighed as she looked at the scar below her knee.
“Jenny,
you should be excited for today,” her mother told her, helping her
out of bed.
“Excited
isn’t exactly the word I would use,” she replied, taking a brush
to her hair.
“Jenny, it’s
been three months since the accident. It’s time you got on with
your life.” Her mother opened her closet and a tear rolled off
Jenny’s cheek as she saw the coral costume still in the clear bag
hanging on the back of the door.
“A nice man who
wishes to remain anonymous is paying for everything. Your father and
I will have no--”
“I
know, Mother. I know,” Jenny interrupted as her mother handed her a
t-shirt and a pair of shorts. “You’ll have no bills and ‘Mr.
Anonymous’ heard the story on the local news, blah- blah- blah.”
“Why are you so
against his generous offer?”
“Why does a
complete stranger want to help me? He doesn’t know what I’m going
through or what I’ve been through. “
“Maybe
he doesn’t know, but it’s nice of him to want to see you fulfill
your dream of becoming a ballroom dancer.”
“He
wants to see me? A complete stranger wants to see me dance again?”
She let out a long sigh. “Mom, please don’t think that what I am
going to say means that I am ungrateful. I’m not.” She leaned on
her crutches. “But what good is getting a new leg to dance again if
my own father can’t see me do it?”
~*~
Jenny entered the
large building as her mother nudged her inside. The familiar smell of
medicine and illness hit her nose, and she shook her head in disgust.
A nurse met her at the door with a wheelchair, but she shook her head
and gave a polite, “No, Thank you.” She hobbled down the hallway
on her crutches, her mother behind her. She entered the room and was
greeted by Doctor Miller.
“Jenny, how are
you doing today? I see you’ve refused the wheelchair again.” He
laughed, his brown hair shaking as he said it. He pulled out a pair
of latex gloves from his white jacket and looked at Jenny’s stump.
“Doctor
Miller, I’m fine and I don’t need the wheelchair; my left leg
works and so do my arms.”
“Jenny,”
he frowned, “the wheelchair lets you sit, to give your arms a
break. And the new leg will do the same thing.”
“Doctor,
we’ve been through this. I don’t need the new leg. Just like I
don’t need the wheelchair! If my father has to live life blind, I’m
going to live life legless.”
“Don’t
you miss dancing?” he asked, putting the nylon cover back on her
leg.
“Yes,
about as much as I bet my father misses watching me doing it. He
never missed a single performance.” She grabbed her crutches and
got down off the table before another argument started.
Jenny
hobbled out of the doctor’s office as her mother stayed behind and
tried to convince Doctor Miller that her daughter would come around.
Doctor Miller suggested a different approach for her next
appointment. When Jenny and her mother got home, Jenny’s father was
waiting for her.
“How
did it go?” he asked his wife as she entered the house.
“She
refused again. I’ve left it up to Doctor Miller. I don’t know
what else to do!” He gave her a kiss on the forehead and sent her
through the door. He waited for his daughter. She rolled her eyes at
him.
“Don’t
roll your eyes at me,” he whispered.
“Daddy,
how did you know I did that?” she asked, giving him a hug.
“You
always rolled your eyes when I waited in the doorway for you. Come in
here. I want to talk to you.”
“Dad!”
she whined.
“Don’t
‘dad’ me. Help me to my chair,” he told her as he closed the
door.
“Dad,
we’ve been through this. I don’t want to walk again if you can’t
ever see again.” She slumped herself into the sofa and wiped her
eyes.
“A
new leg will let you drive, you’ll be able to go to prom without
crutches, and you could dance with your date. I haven’t heard a
single note of music come from your room in months.” Jenny stood up
with her crutches and hopped over to her father.
“You can’t see me dance, and so I will not dance again! I don’t
want a new leg!”
The
truth was, she did want a new leg. The thought of not having to use
those awful crutches anymore was reason enough to do it, but every
time she saw her father trip or stumble because he couldn’t see,
she immediately changed her mind. She had her mind made up.
On
her next visit, the nurse met Jenny with only a smile. Jenny smiled
back and said, “Thank you.” She hobbled slower than usual.
Another discussion about the leg was not what she wanted right now.
What she wanted was to be left alone. Summer was coming and she
didn’t want to spend it in more doctor offices. She wanted to
travel with her friends, not go through weeks of therapy.
As
she entered the room, a strong smell of cologne met her nose. She had
to admit that it was a welcome scent compared to the normal hospital
smells she had grown accustomed to. She turned the corner and found
Doctor Miller talking to a tall, slender man with grey hair. She
cleared her throat to let them know she was there.
“Jenny!”
Doctor Miller almost shouted. “Take your place here on the table.”
She looked at her mom who shrugged her shoulders.
“Jenny,
this is Mr. Watkins.” Doctor Miller motioned for him to come over
and he shook Jenny’s hand.
“Who
are you?” Jenny asked.
Before
Mr. Watkins could reply, Doctor Miller spoke up. “He is the man who
is has given us the funds to make your new leg a reality.”
“Mr.
Anonymous,” she mouthed to her mother, who sat there with that
smile on her face, the smile that spoke of hope. Jenny sat up
straighter. She was prepared to give this “Mr. Anonymous” the
same speech she had given Doctor Miller. A small smile came across
her lips. If he didn’t know what she was going through, he would
soon. She quickly removed the smile, not wanting to lead anyone to
think that she had changed her mind.
“I asked Mr. Watkins here today because I felt that maybe he could
help with your resistance to this new leg.”
“Mr.
Watkins,” she started. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me,
but it’s not that easy. There is so much more to this than you know
or could even begin to imagine. My father — ” She began to cry
and looked away. Mr. Watkins stepped closer and placed one hand on
her shoulders. He raised both pant legs and revealed two metal bars.
Jenny gasped.
“I
lost my legs in Vietnam after I joined the Army at eighteen. I was
fresh out of high school and was ready to serve my country.” He
paused. “I had only been there a couple of months when a bomb went
off on me and my platoon. I passed out, and when I woke up, I
couldn’t walk.” Jenny put her hands on her stump as tears came
down her face. He picked up one of her crutches. “I sat in a wheel
chair for years.” He put it back next to her table. “I honestly
believed I would never see past four feet tall.”
Jenny reached for
her mother, who came over to her. “Mr. Watkins, I want to walk
again, I do. I hate those stupid crutches! My arms hurt and my left
leg is always sore. But – ”
“But,”
he questioned, “Jenny, why are you so against this?”
She
wiped her eyes. “My- father- is- blind! He hit his head so hard
that no surgery will allow him to see, ever! It’s not fair that I
can get to walk, or even dance.” Her mother handed her some
tissues. “My father will NEVER be able to see me dance ever again.”
“Do
you ever think that even though he can’t see you dance, he could
hear you?”
~*~
“Let’s
give a hand to all of our previous performers; they have all done a
fabulous job!” The applause died down and the announcer started
again. “Our final performance for tonight is called ’Can You Hear
Me, Father?’.”
Without
any applause, he walked off the stage. The lights went out and the
red curtains parted. White Christmas lights were hung from the stage
ceiling, looking like the night sky. The spotlight came on and shined
on a very handsome teenager wearing a black suit with a white shirt
and red tie. In his top pocket was a white handkerchief. His feet
were barefoot. The light moved to his dancing partner. Jenny wore her
coral dress, and the metal from her new leg glowed in the spotlight.
Her partner tapped his left foot and their dance began.
There was no music;
the only sound came from Jenny’s black tap shoes. The two of them
seemed to glide across the stage. When they finished, the auditorium
was silent. Jenny’s father stood up and shouted to her, “I heard
every step!”
Tears from her dance partner’s eyes glistened under the lights as
he watched Jenny’s father clap until the whole room was applauding
and standing up in a standing ovation. Her mother held her husband
and cried into his sleeve, not taking her eyes off of their daughter.
Jenny’s partner removed his handkerchief, passed it to Jenny, and
she dried her eyes.