Elevation(26)

“May I say something before we go?” Myra asked.

“Of course,” Scott said, but wished she wouldn’t. He wished they would just leave. He thought he had discovered one of life’s great truths (and one he could have done without): the only thing harder than saying goodbye to yourself, a pound at a time, was saying goodbye to your friends.

“I was very foolish. I’m sorry about what’s happening to you, Scott, but I’m glad about what’s happened to me. If it hadn’t, I would have stayed blind to some very good things, and some very good people. I would have stayed a foolish old woman. I can’t hug you, so this will have to do.”

She opened her arms, drew Deirdre and Missy to her, and embraced them. They hugged her back.

Doctor Bob said, “If you need me, I’ll come at a sprint.” He laughed. “Well, no, my sprinting days are actually behind me, but you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Scott said. “Thank you.”

“So long, old man. Take care where you step. And how.”

Scott watched them walk to Doctor Bob’s car. He watched them get in. He waved, being careful to hold onto the clamp as he did it. Then he closed the door and made his half-walking, half-leaping way to the kitchen, feeling like a cartoon character. Which was, at bottom, the reason it felt so important to keep this a secret. He was sure he looked absurd, and it was absurd . . . but only if you were on the outside.

He sat down at the kitchen counter and looked at the empty corner where Bill’s food and water dish had been for the last seven years. He looked at it for a long time. Then he went up to bed.

*

The following day, he got an email from Missy Donaldson.

I told DeeDee I wanted to go with her, and be there at the end. We had quite an argument about it. I didn’t give in until she reminded me about my foot, and how I felt about it when I was a young girl. I can run now—I love to run—but I was never a competition runner like DeeDee, because I’m only good for short distances, even after all these years. I was born with talipes equinovarus, you see, which is more commonly known as clubfoot. I had surgery to correct it when I was seven years old, but until then I walked with a cane, and it took me years afterward to learn to walk normally.

When I was four—I remember this very clearly—I showed my foot to my friend Felicity. She laughed and said it was a gross-ugly stupid foot. After that I didn’t let anyone look at it except for my mother and the doctors. I didn’t want people to laugh. DeeDee says that’s how you feel about what’s happening to you. She said, “He wants you to remember him the way he was when he was normal, not bouncing around in his house and looking like a bad special effect from a 1950s sci-fi movie.”

Then I got it, but that doesn’t mean I like it, or that you deserve it.

Scott, what you did the day of the race made it possible for us to stay in Castle Rock, not just because we have a business here but because now we can be a part of the town’s greater life. DeeDee thinks she is going to be invited to join the Jaycees. She laughs and says it’s silly, but I know that inside she doesn’t think it’s silly at all. It’s a trophy, the same as the ones she got in the races she won. Oh, not everyone will accept us, I’m not so silly (or naive) as to believe that, some will never come around, but most will. Many already have. Without you that never would have happened, and without you, part of my beloved would always have remained closed off to the world. She won’t tell you this, but I will: you knocked the chip off her shoulder. It was a big chip, and now she can walk straight again. She’s always been a prickly pear, and I don’t expect that to change, but she’s open now. She sees more, hears more, can be more. You made that possible. You picked her up when she fell.

She says there’s a bond between you, a shared feeling, and that’s why she has to be the one to help you at the end. Am I jealous? A little, but I think I understand. It was when you said you felt elevated. She is that way when she runs. It’s why she runs.

Please be brave, Scott, and please know I am thinking of you. God bless.

All my love,

Missy

PS: When we go to the bookstore, we’ll always pet Bill.

Scott thought about calling her and thanking her for saying such kind things, then decided that was a bad idea. It might get them both going. He printed out her note instead, and put it in one of the pockets of the harness.

He would take it with him when he went.

*

The following Sunday morning, Scott went along the hall to the downstairs bathroom in a series of steps that weren’t steps at all. Each one was a long float that took him up to the ceiling, where he would push his tented fingers to bring himself back down. The furnace kicked on, and the soft whoosh of air from the vent actually blew him sideways a little. He twisted and grabbed a clamp to pull himself past the draft.

In the bathroom, he hovered over the scale and finally settled. At first he thought it wasn’t going to report any weight at all. Then, at last, it coughed up a number: 2.1. It was about what he had expected.

That evening he called Deirdre’s cell. He kept it simple. “I need you. Can you come?”

“Yes.” It was all she said, and all he needed.

*

The door of the house was shut but unlocked. Deirdre slipped in, not opening the door all the way because of the draft. She turned on the hall lights to dispel the shadows, then went into the living room. Scott was in the wheelchair. He had managed to get partway into the harness, which had been buckled to the back of the chair, but his body floated upward from the chair’s seat and one arm hung in the air. His face was bright with sweat, the front of his shirt dark with it.