I thought he was trying to encourage me.
Then he called the nurse closer.
“Watch.
Ella, do it again.”
I did.
My big toe twitched.
Maybe half an inch.
Maybe less.
But it moved because I told it to.
I started crying.
Not graceful movie tears.
Hot tears ran sideways into my hair while my chest hitched and the monitor sped up.
The nurse laughed softly.
“There it is.”
The doctor moved to my hand.
“Now squeeze one finger.”
At first, nothing.
Then I felt the strangest sensation, like a signal traveling through a wire that had been cut and badly reconnected.
My index finger curled.
Not much.
Enough.
The doctor’s shoulders dropped for the first time.
“That’s what I wanted to see.”
My parents were allowed in later.
They didn’t enter the way they had the first time.
No jokes.
No tired expressions.
No folded arms.
Mom stopped just inside the doorway.
Dad remained behind her.
Neither one seemed to know whether they had the right to come closer.
The nurse raised the head of my bed a little.
By then I could move two fingers on my right hand and wiggle both feet, but my arms and legs still felt impossibly heavy.
My throat was sore, but I could finally make sound.
Mom reached the bed.
“Ella?”
My voice came out rough and tiny.
“I wasn’t joking.”
She closed her eyes.
Dad looked down at the floor.
For several seconds, nobody said anything.
Then Mom pulled the visitor chair close and sat.
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“I know you weren’t.”
I turned my head away.
She started crying again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I thought…
I don’t even know what I thought.
You were scared before surgery, and we kept telling you everything would be fine, and when you looked frightened afterward, I decided it was more of the same.
I should have called someone the second I saw you.”
Dad sat on the other side.
“Me too.”
I looked at him.
His face seemed older than it had that morning.
