Every Time I Think of You (24 page)

“It just makes more sense for us, for Everett, to have more functional homes for him to visit,” Mrs. Forrester said. “The estimates we got for stair ramps and converting bathrooms was just astronomical.”

Holly kept her eye-rolling disdain to a minimum, and took a few informal photos of us, calmly, so she could get the warm lighting of the room without using a flash.

“You’ve heard about Everett’s little present, I take it.” Everett’s father had sidled up beside us. “His friend Kevin told me his father was looking to sell a used van with handicap adjustments. They gave us quite a deal; practically gave it to us.”

Everett laughed it off, but actually, I felt rather trumped. His gift to me, while impractical, was charmingly sentimental; a small stuffed toy giraffe.

Everett’s burst of shocked laughter caused his mother to suggest that we retreat to the den. Holly followed us. Between the piano, a card table, and board games and books stacked on a shelf, we entertained ourselves.

Plopping herself down on a sofa, Holly, said, “What she really doesn’t want is her son scuffing her precious wooden floors and carpeting with his dirty wheels.”

Everett spun himself around in a half-wheelie, deliberately twisting the carpet into a wrinkled hump. Holly gasped.

He settled back on his wheels, grinning like a cat. “She wanted me to pose for our annual stiff holiday portrait sitting on the sofa, without my chair,” he grumbled, shaking his head in disbelief.

Disturbed by his palpable if not understandable parental disdain, I abruptly changed the subject and asked to take a few pictures with Holly’s camera of the two of them together. We gossiped and shared highlights from our few months of conspiratorial misadventures.

“Hey, take me upstairs to my old room,” Everett said, bored or anxious. “I have some stuff for you. I’ll show you the van later when we load it up.”

I consented, wondering if we could get away with our recently discovered off-chair travel mode in the house.

One of our few private days together over the holidays included an afternoon drive to Twin Lakes Park. After telling him of my childhood memories of the park, at Everett’s request, I had even brought my ranger hat.

After finding a nestled private glen, we had parked his chair along the path. The trail was short enough for me to let him ride on my back for a brief walk. We’d cuddled together in the cold for a while, sipped cocoa from a Thermos Helen insisted on giving us.

“Inside joke,” Everett said. We’d since made up a slew of silly terms for his catheter and disposable underpants. “Don’t worry,” he said, waving me toward him. “It’s a ‘granny pants’ day.”

“Okay, then.” Aiming my rear end toward Everett’s lap, I crouched down as he wrapped his arms around my neck. A few scoots of shifting his chest higher up my back accomplished, we stood up. I grabbed behind myself to hoist his legs.

Mrs. Forrester spotted us in the hallway and shouted, “Be careful!”

Everett muttered into my ear, “Like I’ll get crippled again?”

Holly hauled Everett’s wheelchair up the stairs as I followed, Everett muttering, “hup, hup, hup” into my ear with each step, encouraging me to jog harder.

Once eased into his chair at the top of the stairs, Holly left for her bedroom, and Everett rolled away to dig around in his bedroom closet. “It’s mostly just my dirty old sneakers. Oh, wait.”

“Old jock straps?”

“Better.” Beaming with pride, he extracted a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots toy set. Piling up old sports equipment and toys, I marveled at his odd gesture. He didn’t need to pack for days.

A thrilled gasp down the hall grabbed Everett’s attention. He wheeled off to Holly’s room as she sifted through her own childhood possessions. I found myself dutifully packing boxes with their trusty housekeeper, who’d followed us upstairs. As always, Helen was determined to supervise.

A burst of adult laughter from downstairs, the loudest of which was my father’s, assured me that things were going fine below. I helped Helen put some of Everett’s things in boxes for his move to college; clothes he liked and could change into and out of more easily, a few framed pictures, and his mother’s Cole Porter records.

Helen asked how he was doing. I told her of his exercise regimen, the university campus, and his scruffy beard, which he’d shaved before returning home for the holidays.

I explained how I had met with my college advisor. My partial scholarship would remain, even though I’d already decided on a shift in my major. I’d added a physical therapy class, and even an architecture class.

After the family lunch, I bid my parents farewell as they drove off in their car. I then shuttled Everett out the door in his chair, which we left on the porch after I’d helped him into the red plastic sled.

Tugging him across the street with the sled’s plastic cord, Everett sang a haphazard and somewhat bawdy medley of holiday songs as I led him down the path, across the partially frozen stream and up the snow-covered ivy bank, over to the hillside, and under that strip of evergreen trees, where we celebrated our anniversary in our own way.

Stopping the sled under that awning of branches, each of us stuffed into parkas, gloves and boots, Everett laughed when he saw it.

“Bring me closer.” I gave the sled another tug.

Nestled just under the much taller trees, but close enough to the clearing to get enough sunlight, the little tree he’d given back to me sprouted up through the layer of snow. That morning, my ‘secret mission’ accomplished, its tiny branches held a few small red and gold ornaments.

He reached for me with a playful swat, missed. I scooted closer, the sled dividing us. An accidental glove full of snow brushed our faces as we hugged. I pulled him back to see his face, glistening with melting snow.

We kissed. He nudged forward, then shoved, intentionally bringing us rolling over onto the ground, until he lay atop me.

Gasping and laughing, shaking off clumps of snow, I began to babble on about all the terrific plans I had for us; the distance from our dorm to the pool, a flat trail he could roll on as I ran, even the wheelchair basketball league he could join.

But then I stopped. All I could hear was my own voice, until it didn’t make any sense. Sighing, my breath steamed up toward him. I saw that with his look, this boy, who for so long had me dazzled beyond sense, was now awestruck by me.

With his gloved hands on the ground at either side of me, he arched up, looked around, not with caution, but to survey our domain, then back down to me, pressing light kisses on my face, kisses that became more intense as our lips met.

Between the rustle of our parkas and a few giggles and grunts, the blanketed silence of the snowy woods surrounded us. The branches above swayed slowly, intertwined.