Read The Running Dream for Free Online Page B

it’ll be secure enough, and even though the rest of the step stool is metal, I don’t think Mom will mind me exposing it to rusting hazards.
    After it’s in place, I get everything ready. Then I stand outside the shower and put my hands here, there, all over the place.
    I can’t figure out how to get over this hurdle, and it makes me mad. The opening’s not wide enough for me to sit on the curb and swing in.… I can’t step over or hop over.…
    How can this be so hard?
    I find myself thinking, Why couldn’t I have lost an arm instead?
    If I’d lost an arm, this wouldn’t be a problem—I could step right over this curb!
    If I’d lost an arm, I could run circles in the shower.
    I could run up and down stairs.
    I could
run
.
    It’s useless to think this, though, so finally I grab the overhead door brace with my hands facing each other, one beside the other.
    I swing my stump over the side of the tub and stand straddling the curb, trying to figure out the next step of this obstacle course.
    After a few false starts, I finally use my arms to help me hop up onto the curb. The door guide is sharp against my foot, but I manage to pivot on it, then hop down into the tub.
    I sit on the step stool, feeling a mixture of triumph and frustration, but when the water rains down on me, I’m washed all over with relief.
    It feels so nice to just sit here.
    I could sit like this all day.
    Eventually I pick up the soap, and as I’m sudsing the washcloth, it crosses my mind that it would be hard to soap up with just one hand.
    I try it, and it is.
    It’s very … awkward.
    I start paying attention to all my movements. How one arm complements the other. And I start thinking about everything I do with two hands. Driving. Golfing. Keyboarding. Even writing really takes two hands. The pen’s held in one; the paper’s anchored with the other.
    My mind wanders all over everyday things.
    Opening a water bottle.
    Getting dressed.
    Making a sandwich.
    Washing dishes.
    I imagine life with only one hand and realize that it would be hard. In a different way, but still hard.
    I squeeze shampoo into my left hand, then put down the bottle with my right.
    I rub my hands together, spreading out the soap.
    And as I massage both sides of my head, I’m thankful for my hands.
    Thankful to have both of them.

 
    M OM FREAKS OUT when she comes home.
    I don’t know this, because I’m rinsing my hair thinking about arms and legs and if I had a
choice
about which limb I had to give up what I would choose.
    “Jessica!” she gasps when she finds me. I turn off the water as she rushes over to the tub. She’s got a phone with her and says “She’s in the shower” into it, then clicks off. “Did Fiona help you?” she asks.
    I do a mock look-around. “Do you see Fiona anywhere?”
    “You should not have come up here by yourself!” She’s looking very stern. “What if you had—”
    “I’m fine,” I tell her, and stretch way out to snag the towel. “And clean.” I give her a smile, and I feel absurdly proud of myself.
    After I tousle my hair with the towel, I dry the rest of me and stand, wrapping the towel snuggly around me. Then I grab the top brace of the doorframe and shoo my mother back.
    The door guide hurts again as I hop onto the tub wall, but I’m showing off now so I act like it’s no big deal.
    “Wow,” she says when I’m standing on the other side.
    She’s blinking at me.
    It’s like she’s just discovered her daughter is Wonder Woman, and for a moment I feel like I am.
    “How did you get upstairs?” she asks.
    I tell her about my little adventure and assure her that it was safe and that I was never in danger of tumbling to my death. And I’m convincing her that my little sit-and-scoot method will be even easier going downstairs than it was coming up when I realize that my dresser’s in the family room and I have no clean clothes with me.
    Scooting downstairs in nothing but a towel seems like a very bad