Read Online One More Theory About Happiness: A Memoir by Paul Guest - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Guest
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in this process. That your rehabilitation had come to its expiration date. That nothing more could be done. What awaited was the rest of your life.
My parents had lifted me into the front passenger seat of the van. I could see the interstate spooling away as my father drove and we talked with my mother, seated in the rear, behind my wheelchair where it sat in the van’s middle. Gradually, some of the gloom lifted from me: I hadn’t sat in a car seat in months, since before my accident, and somehow it was gladdening to see the roads and cars and the underpasses slipping behind us. It was some little vestige of an old life, an activity which possessed no meaningful context, and yet I felt like each mile eased the worry just a bit. So much still loomed: where at home I’d sleep; when I’d return to school. The weight never left my mind and I wanted to know. I asked my mother.
“Where am I going to sleep? Not downstairs?”
“No, Chan has traded rooms with you,” she said, leaning forward. “He’ll be downstairs. He’ll have your old room and the den. I know you hate that, but it’s best.”
“No, I know,” I replied. It was best. The only bathroom I would have any access to was upstairs, along with the kitchen and my parents’ bedroom. It was the only solution, though the bathroom was far too small for my wheelchair to even fit. My parents would have to lift me from my bed, naked, and carry me into the bathroom so that I could bathe, empty my bowels. Our house was fifty years old already, and small. I had understood, long before returning home, that it would be difficult for me to live there. I saw it in my mind and knew what would have to be done. To hear its confirmation was no surprise, yet it felt like one to a small degree.
“Chan isn’t too crazy about it, but he understands,” my father said.
“He agreed,” called out my mother from the backseat of the van. We weren’t far from home by then. I began to better recognize the low hills and the fields strangled by kudzu and the rare barn with SEE ROCK CITY emblazoned upon its roof.
“I don’t want any sort of party,” I said. “You remember that I asked that, don’t you?”
“We do, don’t worry,” said my father, looking into the rearview mirror as he turned off the interstate. “We’ll be home in a few minutes.”
“I just don’t want to deal with that. Not now. Not today.”
Then my father pulled over on to the soft asphalt shoulder of the off-ramp and switched on the van’s flashing emergency lights.
More lights, red and blue, began flashing behind us. A knock at the driver window. At first, only a blue field of officer uniform, then, lowering his face to ours, a state patrolman speaking.
“Is this the Guest family?” he asked, all gravity.
My father said that it was, that surely he hadn’t been speeding.
“I’m here to escort you. Welcome back home, Paul.”
He turned and went back to his cruiser, starting up the siren before pulling out, waving us to follow him. This might have been the last thing I had ever wanted, if I could have conceived of wanting this. I had no idea what it was, why a police escort blared through the streets of my small town. I wanted not to die but revert to some point in time when I was nonexistent.
My father was pleased by it all, driving slowly behind the car. He laughed, patting my shoulder vigorously, making turn after turn. People looked up from their yard work or their reading on their porches. Other cars pulled to the side of the road. Some waved, though they had no idea what was passing them. I hadn’t said anything yet.
“Whose idea was this?” I asked miserably. “Who thought of this?”
Neither of my parents replied. I don’t think the ideawas theirs, but they knew it would happen when we pulled off the interstate. Someone else, a friend of the family, a wildly misguided soul, someone with no gift of sense had devised it. All to welcome me back to my home and family and
My parents had lifted me into the front passenger seat of the van. I could see the interstate spooling away as my father drove and we talked with my mother, seated in the rear, behind my wheelchair where it sat in the van’s middle. Gradually, some of the gloom lifted from me: I hadn’t sat in a car seat in months, since before my accident, and somehow it was gladdening to see the roads and cars and the underpasses slipping behind us. It was some little vestige of an old life, an activity which possessed no meaningful context, and yet I felt like each mile eased the worry just a bit. So much still loomed: where at home I’d sleep; when I’d return to school. The weight never left my mind and I wanted to know. I asked my mother.
“Where am I going to sleep? Not downstairs?”
“No, Chan has traded rooms with you,” she said, leaning forward. “He’ll be downstairs. He’ll have your old room and the den. I know you hate that, but it’s best.”
“No, I know,” I replied. It was best. The only bathroom I would have any access to was upstairs, along with the kitchen and my parents’ bedroom. It was the only solution, though the bathroom was far too small for my wheelchair to even fit. My parents would have to lift me from my bed, naked, and carry me into the bathroom so that I could bathe, empty my bowels. Our house was fifty years old already, and small. I had understood, long before returning home, that it would be difficult for me to live there. I saw it in my mind and knew what would have to be done. To hear its confirmation was no surprise, yet it felt like one to a small degree.
“Chan isn’t too crazy about it, but he understands,” my father said.
“He agreed,” called out my mother from the backseat of the van. We weren’t far from home by then. I began to better recognize the low hills and the fields strangled by kudzu and the rare barn with SEE ROCK CITY emblazoned upon its roof.
“I don’t want any sort of party,” I said. “You remember that I asked that, don’t you?”
“We do, don’t worry,” said my father, looking into the rearview mirror as he turned off the interstate. “We’ll be home in a few minutes.”
“I just don’t want to deal with that. Not now. Not today.”
Then my father pulled over on to the soft asphalt shoulder of the off-ramp and switched on the van’s flashing emergency lights.
More lights, red and blue, began flashing behind us. A knock at the driver window. At first, only a blue field of officer uniform, then, lowering his face to ours, a state patrolman speaking.
“Is this the Guest family?” he asked, all gravity.
My father said that it was, that surely he hadn’t been speeding.
“I’m here to escort you. Welcome back home, Paul.”
He turned and went back to his cruiser, starting up the siren before pulling out, waving us to follow him. This might have been the last thing I had ever wanted, if I could have conceived of wanting this. I had no idea what it was, why a police escort blared through the streets of my small town. I wanted not to die but revert to some point in time when I was nonexistent.
My father was pleased by it all, driving slowly behind the car. He laughed, patting my shoulder vigorously, making turn after turn. People looked up from their yard work or their reading on their porches. Other cars pulled to the side of the road. Some waved, though they had no idea what was passing them. I hadn’t said anything yet.
“Whose idea was this?” I asked miserably. “Who thought of this?”
Neither of my parents replied. I don’t think the ideawas theirs, but they knew it would happen when we pulled off the interstate. Someone else, a friend of the family, a wildly misguided soul, someone with no gift of sense had devised it. All to welcome me back to my home and family and
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