Finding a Voice (13 page)

I
managed to get Chris into the doorway of the cabin before collapsing on the floor beside him. I was feeling faint and shaky, but I knew that I couldn’t give in to the feeling. I had gotten Chris into this mess and now I was the only one who could make sure that things did not get worse.

The first priority was to get him warm and dry. I was glad for the large pile of sticks and logs beside the fireplace. At least my anger at Mom over the last two days had motivated me to spend time doing jobs around the cabin. Besides foraging for the pile of firewood, I had aired out the blanket I kept there and had nailed an old board over a window whose pane of glass had completely fallen out. I had looked around the place in satisfaction yesterday when I was done.

Now I was seeing it through Chris’s eyes – a tiny, decrepit cabin that should be knocked before it became a hazard. Boards missing from the floor, no toilet – even if I had been able to help him onto it – no heat, no stove or fridge. There was a scruffy old armchair and an old wooden table with a rickety chair. In the corner was an ancient single mattress, full of holes where mice had chewed it, on a rusty spring bed
frame. It was a wreck of a place.

It would be better as soon as we had a fire going. I couldn’t stand on my leg anymore, so I used my good leg and my arms to crawl crablike to the fire place and I got a small fire started. I avoided looking at Chris while I slowly fed small sticks to the flames, nursing the fire until it gained strength and I could start adding bigger logs that started to throw out a bit of heat. I didn’t begin to know how I could make this up to Chris. At least he was calm, with his head hung down and his eyes averted from me.

I dragged myself over to him and holding onto his foot-rest, pulled his chair close to the fire. Every movement shot new pain through my leg and made spots swim in front of my eyes. I didn’t care though. I had to get Chris warm. Then I dragged the blanket off the chair and pulled myself upright enough to tuck it around him as best I could, fighting the nausea that washed over me in waves.

‘Are you okay now, Chris?’ I finally asked him. He didn’t look up at all.

‘I’ll get the cards out, okay?’ I tried. ‘I know you’re scared, but we’re going to be all right.’

I gave his shoulder a squeeze, wishing I knew this was true.

We needed the table for the cards and I couldn’t move Chris from the fire which was just beginning to throw a little heat. So I was going to have to make another trip across the floor to pull the table near. Each foray was harder than the
last. My leg was on fire. I needed to let Chris talk though, more for me than for him. Without his voice I felt utterly alone and scared for the both of us.

It wasn’t until I had the table and the rickety chair pulled over that I realised my book bag was still on my back. Everything in it was soaking wet, adding to the weight. I had been dragging not just myself, but several kilos of books, across the floor. All of this without shoes and socks, which were probably floating down the river now. I definitely wasn’t thinking straight.

Finally I was on the chair. The cards were also soaking wet. I had to carefully peel them apart. The ink had run, but I could still read them when they were laid out in front of Chris.

‘Right. Now. Talk to me.’ My voice came out sounding small and shaky, just the way I felt.

Chris would still not even raise his eyes to meet mine.

‘Please, Chris!’ I pleaded, blinking back the tears that were threatening to come. ‘I can’t do this without you.’

He still didn’t move.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t even have a chance to tell you my plan. Or to ask you.’

I paused again to see if he would engage with me. He wouldn’t.

‘I couldn’t let you stay in that house. I have to find you people that care about you and that can help you
really
talk.
It wasn’t supposed to go this way …’ my voice trailed away. Now that I was saying it out loud, the whole idea seemed ridiculous. What way was it ever supposed to go?

‘It’s just that … I’ve never seen you cry. It’s usually me.’ I looked up at him again.

All of the air rushed out of me. This was not right. Chris’s head had snapped back and his whole body was rigid and shaking. His eyes rolled back to reveal white, and frothy red foam was appearing at the corners of his mouth. He was having a seizure!

‘No, Chris, no!’

Mr Jenkins had told me that this could happen. It did happen to Chris every couple weeks or so, but I had been lucky enough not to have seen it. Mr Jenkins had told me to record exactly when the seizure started and to make sure there was nothing around him that he could bang into and hurt himself. But that was all – because the next step was to call someone for help. There was special medication for him if the seizure lasted for more than five minutes. That was why it was so important for someone to start timing the seizure.

But who was I going to call to help here? My phone! I searched through my bag, frantically feeling for it. After what seemed like ages I found it, but it was dead. I tried to turn it on three times, but the water had obviously ruined it.

Chris was still shaking and there was nothing I could do. His wheelchair was rocking and I was afraid that it might
topple over again, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop it even if I tried. It seemed like the seizure was going on forever. Was it more than five minutes? I didn’t even have a watch to know.

Finally he stopped shaking and slumped forward. Despite the excruciating pain, I hobbled to him and lifted his head. I had never known Chris’s body to be so limber. His eyes were closed, but when I put my hand under his nose I could feel his soft, warm breath. I sighed in relief.

But now I had another problem. Chris was exhausted. I knew I had to get him onto the bed, and that was going to be difficult enough. But I needed to keep him warm and that meant somehow getting the heavy bed as near to the fire as I could.

Already it was starting to get dark. It had to be around 4.30. I knew it got pretty dark by five now. So I dragged myself to the cupboard where I kept a small battery-powered lantern. It didn’t give much light, but at least Chris wouldn’t be in total darkness while I worked on getting the bed near the fire. Then I stoked the fire again, before starting on the laborious job of inching the stubborn bed across the floor. It seemed to take forever, dragging first one leg and then another, zigzagging over to Chris.

He was still slumped over when I finally had the bed as near to the fire as I could get it, but now he was shivering. This was not good. I needed to get him onto the bed quickly
and get some of his wettest clothes off him so that I could dry them by the fire. I knew that I had to be extra careful that he didn’t fall on the floor though, because I would never be able to lift him off of it.

I had never had to figure out how Chris was held into his chair, or how one might go about getting him out of it. At school Florence took care of all of that. I struggled with how to free his shoulders from the blue padded bars that held them there, finally figuring out the release mechanisms that let me swing them to the sides. I then had to unsnap the multiple buckles that kept his torso and hips in place despite the never-ending movement of his body.

Suddenly I didn’t have time to think about how I was going to get him onto the bed. He was slipping and I had to move fast. Sheer adrenaline and desperation drove me to lift him and fall backwards onto the bed. I couldn’t help it; I screamed in pain as I briefly took all of Chris’s weight on my legs. Something snapped. And then everything was black.

W
hen I woke up, I couldn’t see anything at first. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew something was very wrong. I was dripping in sweat and my right leg throbbed in pain.

Finally my eyes adjusted and I saw a small glow down below me. The fire. I remembered now. In a panic I sat up, feeling for Chris. He was there beside me so we had obviously made it to the bed. I felt for his face and could feel him breathing. Despite how hot I felt, I knew it must be cold in the cabin and I had to make sure that Chris was warm.

Slowly I raised myself to sitting. I couldn’t remember ever feeling this weak. My whole body ached, but especially my leg. Feeling down my hurt leg, I could tell it had swollen to twice its size. It must be broken.

I was afraid to move the leg at all, but when I inched off the bed onto my good leg I was surprised to find that the excruciating pain I had felt when I moved it before was gone. Instead, my bad leg seemed almost disconnected from me.

When I got the fire going again, I could see that Chris was asleep. I wondered how long it had been that he had
lain there awake, not able to even adjust himself to get more comfortable. Had he worried about me, lying motionless beside him?

What a mess I had made of things. Yesterday it had seemed so important to fix all of Chris’s problems immediately. But all I was doing was risking his very life. I hadn’t even thought about how I was going to take care of his physical needs. I was failing Chris just as much as I had failed my mom.

I wondered how Mom was doing right now. Our rocky week was enough to destabilise her; having me gone missing was going to be devastating. Not just missing, but kidnapping someone completely defenceless.

I hoped that somebody was with her to make sure she took her medication.

And then I remembered the woman at the group home going from kid to kid with the little cups of pills. There had been a ton of them for Chris. I didn’t even know what they were for. How badly did he need those medications?

Here, in the dark, with every decision mine alone, I finally knew what I should have known all along. Dr Sharon was right. I couldn’t do it all on my own. It didn’t matter how miserable Chris was, living in the group home. I didn’t have the solution to that problem. Maybe other people did. At least I could tell them what Chris had told me.

And I couldn’t help Mom on my own either. I didn’t want to.

Chris needed help. I needed help. It would have been a whole lot easier to ask for help the day before in the relative comfort of the school. Now I was going to have to literally crawl on my hands and knees to ask for it.

I waited until it was light to go. It was the longest night I had ever spent. The anxiety of the last week was gone with my decision to go for help, but I was terrified for Chris. I wasn’t sure how quickly he needed that help.

All night I had kept getting off the floor to check him, each time afraid that he might not be breathing. It was cold, though I only knew that from feeling Chris’s hands, which were as cold as ice packs.
I
felt like I could heat the room I was so hot. In between checking Chris and putting more wood on the fire, I drifted in and out of sleep, hoping for daylight every time I woke.

Finally I opened my eyes to a dull light making its way in the window that wasn’t boarded up. I looked over at Chris and saw that his eyes were open, looking at me.

‘I’ve never been so glad to see your eyes, Chris,’ I whispered.

I gripped the seat of the wooden chair and pulled myself up enough to get my good leg under me to stand on it, using the backrest to stabilise myself. From there I could just reach the bed, shuffling on my good leg until I could sit on the edge of the mattress. It was the technique I had been using all night long.

In the weak light I could see that Chris’s lips were blue. I reached for his hand. There was no response when I took it and it was pale and blue tinged too. This wasn’t good. I had to go now. All I could do was hope that I could find help quickly and that Chris would hold on until then.

His eyes were closing again, so I didn’t even know if he was aware that I was beside him.

‘I’m sorry, Chris,’ I apologised again. ‘I’m going for help now. We’re going to get help. I’ve screwed up, but trust me that I would never let you down on purpose. I’ll bring someone I promise.’

He gave the briefest nod. I would have missed it if I wasn’t so close to him. It was the most communication he had given me since the two words he had spelled to me the day before.

The rain started just as I was outside the door. It was a typical heavy, winter rain. In seconds I was soaked to the skin – again.

I had thought about the best way to get myself to the road while I stoked the fire for the last time before leaving Chris. I was not going to be able to hobble that far. My leg wouldn’t take any weight, even if I could stand the pain. I was going to have to drag myself.

First I had stabilised my leg. I think I’d seen that on some movie or something. You had to keep a broken leg from moving. I had pulled two planks from the cupboard shelf. For once it was a good thing that every piece of wood was
rotting. The boards willingly left the rusty nails holding them in place, trailing crumbling splinters behind them. Using the knife from my supply cupboard, I had then cut the straps off my backpack. With these I crudely tied the big splints onto my leg.

So now I was inching crabwalk backwards, moving one hand at a time, and then pushing off with my good leg. It was slow, but it was working.

I felt a bit like a husky dog pulling a big wooden sled, but at least the boards kept my leg kind of protected as I dragged it around bends and over branches along the narrow riverbank. What I had not thought to protect were the palms of my hands which quickly became red and raw from scraping on the rocks and sticks.

Each backward ‘step’ was a mission. Left hand back, right hand back. Bring my left foot to my bottom. Push off, raising my body enough to move myself a few centimetres at a time. Wipe the streaming water out of my eyes so I could see again. Every ten pushes I gave myself a rest. My head felt foggy and my whole body weak. It was the thought of Chris, alone in the cottage that focused me though. I had to get help as soon as possible.

I came to the first place along the bank that was too narrow for my splinted leg, so I had to drag myself back into the water. I was soaked to the skin already, but the icy water quickly numbed my hands so that I couldn’t feel the surface
behind me. They slipped on the slimy rocks, plunging my shoulders into the freezing water. I struggled to catch my breath and to push myself backward back up to the bank.

I didn’t know if I could do this. It was still so far and my arms were getting weaker. I just wanted to put my head down and stay right here. If it were not for Chris, I probably would have.

Ten more pushes. Rest. Ten more pushes. Rest. Slowly, I kept going. Around each bend in the water. Then onto the bank to inch along a bit further.

I cried in relief when I saw the opening in the forest that was the start of the path leading up to the road. I was going to make it. I knew I would.

I think it probably took me another hour to make it to the road. The rain had finally stopped and I emerged backward from the heavy canopy of trees to sunshine.

A running shoe flashed over me, landing beside my head.

‘Hey!’ a voice above me exclaimed in surprise.

‘Help,’ I managed. ‘My friend needs help.’