Chapter Text
Kerry wasn’t sure if Annie was intentionally chattering away in an effort to distract her mother and grandmother from the number of peas still left on her plate, but regardless of whether that was the goal or not, Kerry was not going to let her get away with it.
“But then Cookie Monster knocked it over because he thought he saw a cookie. But he didn’t see a cookie. He saw something he thought looked like a cookie,” the young girl explained sincerely. “And it made Elmo sad because he had worked hard to make it and Cookie Monster ruined it.”
Kerry and Mildred both nodded as earnestly as they could given that Annie's excitement in the retelling of her story (and her opinions on said story) made them both lose track of whatever it was Elmo had been making in the first place.
At their nods, Annie straightened up proudly, and, now confident in the answer, asked to be excused.
“Not yet,” Kerry replied, turning her attention back to her own plate. “You haven’t eaten your peas.”
The five-year-old deflated.
“But the peas are yucky .”
“And they’re also good for you. So, you need to take three more bites before you can leave,” Kerry said, before quickly adding, “And no , one pea per bite does not count.”
Annie, who had already picked up her fork and made to stab an individual legume, deflated even more.
“Why are all the things that are good for me the yucky ones?”
Kerry just gave a shrug and took a bite of her own peas. Mildred glanced at her for a brief moment before sliding Annie’s plate over to hers.
“Here, dear,” Mildred said, scooping a little bit of her mashed potatoes onto Annie’s plate. “Mix the peas into the potatoes. It’ll make them less yucky.”
Mildred slid the plate back, earning her a disgruntled expression from her daughter. But, as she was well-accustomed to this look (and many others), Mildred just ignored it.
Annie gave one last pleading look at Kerry, but upon only receiving encouragement to keep going, she slumped in her chair. She glumly picked up her fork and mixed a forkful of peas into the potatoes.
“Peas and potatoes,” she mumbled in between two of her three required bites. “Pea-tatoes.”
Despite having to take the final bite of her pea-tatoes, Annie did smile slightly at her own cleverness. And the smile only grew when Mildred chuckled and told her that her grandfather would have been very proud.
“I took my three bites. So, can I be excused now?”
“Yes. You can be excused now. Thank you for taking your three bites,” Kerry replied. “But you need to help Grandma clean up before you can go play.”
“Oh? And why does Grandma have to clean up?” Mildred asked, her eyebrows rising. “Why can’t Momma clean up?”
“Because Momma cooked.”
Though mother and daughter shared a raised eyebrow and then a chuckle, granddaughter paid them both no mind. Instead, she just began reaching across the table for the dinner plates to stack before sliding them towards Mildred.
Annie had just managed to slide off her chair and slip her arms into the cuffs of the two purple forearm crutches that had been tucked underneath her chair when there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it!
“No. I’ll get it,” Kerry corrected. She pointed Annie towards the kitchen. “You go help Grandma.”
Annie pouted at the door-getting interception, but nevertheless made for the kitchen. Once there, she set her crutches aside before climbing up the step stool near the sink to help rinse off the plates before Mildred loaded them into the dishwasher.
Kerry opened the door to find a young man in a UPS uniform waiting on the small porch. In one hand he carried his ledger while the other hand held a tall package upright.
“Are you…” He checked the ledger. “...Kerry Weaver?”
At Kerry’s replying nod, he handed her the ledger and the pen. She took them both and signed before handing them back.
“Here you go. And don’t worry. It’s long, but it ain’t too heavy.” he said, sliding the package forward. “Usually I’d say it was a Christmas tree, but it’s a bit too early for that.”
Kerry muttered a word of thanks, which went unnoticed by the man as he laughed at his own joke all the way back to his truck.
Rolling her eyes, she pulled the package up and slid it over the threshold into the house.
“Is that them?” Annie shouted excitedly from the kitchen. “Are they here?”
Before Kerry could answer her, Annie had leapt down from where she stood on the stool and dashed into the living room, the dishes, her crutches, and her grandmother forgotten behind her as she dove head first onto the carpet. Any rugburn that had occurred due to this action was nothing compared to her excitement for that which lay inside the box.
“Are you done helping Grandma?” Kerry asked as Annie reached for the box.
“Yes, she is,” Mildred called out in reply.
Kerry sighed.
“Is she actually done helping you or are you just letting her off the hook?” Kerry called back.
“Whichever you prefer, dear.”
Kerry rolled her eyes again and carefully stepped over Annie to get a pair of scissors out of the junk drawer at the edge of the kitchen counter. But just as she pulled them and a tape measure out of the drawer and turned back for the living room, there was the loud RIP of cardboard tearing.
Kerry and Mildred both glanced around the cabinets towards the sound and found Annie with the end piece of the box in her hands looking slightly sheepish.
“I opened it.”
Kerry just chuckled and made to sit on the floor near where Annie sat, partly looking, partly crawling into the box to fish out its treasures. Kerry gently scooted her back and reached into the box herself.
“One for Momma…” Annie said as Kerry pulled the first object - an adult-sized forearm crutch with a silver body and black cuff - out of the box and set it aside before reaching in again. “...And two for me!”
Kerry pulled objects two and three - pediatric forearm crutches with bright green bodies and gray cuffs - out of the box, her eyes widening as she set them down in front of Annie.
Annie, also wide-eyed, slowly picked up one of the crutches and looked it up and down. Kerry and Mildred were both watching her closely, trying to discern if her expression was one of awe or horror.
“Whoa. They’re… so… green. ”
“Is this the color you wanted? Because if it’s not, I can send them back-”
“No! I love them!” Annie said quickly, nearly hitting herself in the face with the cuff as she hugged the crutch tight against her. “I wanted the bright green.”
“Okay, okay,” Kerry said, raising her hands defensively. As she lowered them, her brow furrowed. “But… Are you sure?”
“Kerry.”
Naturally, Kerry raised her hands defensively again. But she didn’t have a chance to reply to Mildred before Annie got up.
“Wait, wait. Don’t put them on yet,” Kerry said as Annie made to slide one of the cuffs onto her arm.
“Why not?”
“I need to make sure they’re the right height first,” she explained before turning to look at Mildred. “Mom, could you toss me her shoes?”
Mildred nodded and picked up the pair of pink My Little Pony sneakers from next to the door. She tossed them one-by-one towards Kerry, who caught them each before instructing Annie to sit down on the couch so she could put them on.
Once she’d donned her shoes, Annie stood up from the couch. Kerry scooted back to give them both room.
“Put them down for a second, please.”
“But, I don’t want to,” Annie whined in reply.
“Annie, it’s just for a second.”
“But Momma-”
“Annalise, what did I just say?”
“But I’ve been waiting for them forever ,” Annie protested.
“You haven’t been waiting for them forever; you’ve been waiting for them for two weeks,” Kerry said, shaking her head. “You can wait a couple more minutes.”
Annie pouted, but nevertheless let Kerry pull the crutch off of her arm. (She did, however, let out the smallest “Nu-uh.”)
“Now, stand up straight for me,” Kerry said as she picked up the measuring tape. “Relax your arms and bend your elbows.”
“Didn’t we do this at the doctor’s office?” Annie said as Kerry began to measure the distance from her wrists to the floor.
“Yes, we did. But I just want to double check,” Kerry said in an explanatory (but defensive) tone. “Alright. Now let me see your arm.”
Annie held out her arm as requested. Kerry then measured three inches from her elbow and then from that point to her wrist. Making mental note of the measurements, Kerry then picked up each crutch in turn and adjusted the length as necessary.
“Alright. Now you can put them on.”
Annie excitedly took the crutches from Kerry and slid her arms into the cuffs (or “loops” as preferred to call them).
“How do they feel?” Kerry asked, tilting her head slightly to observe as Annie tested them out.
Annie took a lap around the coffee table first, testing the four-point gait her physical therapist (and mother) preferred her to use first. These steps were slow and involved each foot and crutch taking their own individual turn to support her weight. But they were soon overtaken by her darting off down the hallway and back in her preferred gait, which consisted of a combination of the “swing-through” gait where the crutches went down at the same time and she swung herself forward and something like a gallop.
“They’re taller,” Annie remarked upon returning to the living room.
“Well, they’re supposed to be. That’s why we had to get new ones,” Kerry replied, nodding. “But are they too tall?”
Annie looked down at them for a moment and then pulled herself up to full height.
“No. I like them.”
“I like them too,” Mildred chimed in. She took a seat on the couch behind where Kerry sat on the floor. “You should pick out something that goes good with green for your first day tomorrow.”
The way Annie’s eyes grew wide in dawning understanding made it clear to the women watching her that the thought of pairing an outfit with her crutches had never occurred to her before.
“I will!” she said, beaming. “Momma, you should pick one too! For your first day as Chief President.”
“Chief Resident, honey,” Kerry said, unable to conceal a small smile as she did so. “Chief Resident. Not President. There’s no ‘p.’”
“But I bet Momma would like it if people called her ‘Chief President,’” Mildred remarked with a wink in Annie’s direction.
At this, Annie and Mildred both shared a chuckle at Kerry’s expense. Kerry just shook her head, which led Annie to run back towards the living room and throw herself onto her mother in a hug (but what felt to Kerry like an attack given the flailing aluminum rods that accompanied it).
Kerry hugged Annie for a long moment before the girl wriggled her way out of her mother’s grip. But Kerry raised her hands to the girl’s face and pulled her head back down for a kiss before fully relinquishing her.
“Momma, can I go play outside?” Annie asked, brushing her auburn hair out of her face after straightening back up.
“For a little while,” Kerry replied. “But then you need to come inside and take a bath before bed.”
Annie didn’t bother to give a verbal reply before turning and heading off down the hallway towards the door off of Kerry’s bedroom that led into their (small) backyard.
The two women watched her go for a moment before Kerry let out a sigh. She pulled her own new crutch towards her and immediately changed the height settings without bothering to measure herself the way she had for Annie. (She hadn’t grown at all in the last eighteen years, so she doubted she’d need to change anything from the old one to the new one.)
She tested the new one for only a brief moment before deeming it satisfactory and starting to clean up the cardboard and plastic from the package.
“It’s like buying the family new shoes before the first day of school,” Mildred commented as Kerry took a seat on the couch next to her.
“Well, we did that too,” Kerry replied with a small shrug.
Mildred smiled, but Kerry just heaved another sigh before curling up with her head on her mother’s lap.
“Let me guess,” Mildred said quietly as she began stroking Kerry’s hair. “You’re bothered by how excited she was.”
“I’m bothered by the color,” Kerry muttered, rubbing her hands over her face. “It was not that bright in the catalogue.”
“What? Were you expecting her to make a sensible color decision, like, say, silver and black?”
At this, Kerry raised her head just enough to look up at her mother and frown. But when Mildred just shrugged, Kerry laid her head back down.
“Well, dear, I’ll remind you that she’s a five-year-old. And five-year-olds do not make sensible decisions. Including you. Trust me. If you had been able to get colorful crutches when you were five, you would have been just as thrilled as she was.”
This did not seem to reassure Kerry the way Mildred had intended, as the older woman could feel her daughter shake her head against her leg.
“She’s going to attract attention.”
“Inevitably. But likely not as much as whatever of her classmates has those shoes that light up.” When Kerry huffed and sat up, Mildred let out a sigh of her own. “Kerry, are you really that upset that the girl likes her neon green crutches? I’d have thought you’d be pleased.”
“I’m not upset that she likes them,” Kerry said quickly. “I’m… I’m just…”
“You’re just what?”
There was a long moment of silence as Kerry considered how she wanted to answer.
“I just keep thinking that she’s only going to like the color until people start teasing her for it.”
There was another long moment of silence before Mildred replied.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Kerry looked at Mildred just in time to see her shake her head and stand up.
“What?”
“ That’s what’s bothering you?”
“Yes. Kids are going to notice and they’re going to make fun of her.”
“They could make fun of her,” Mildred pushed back. “That’s not a guarantee.”
“Mom, I’m speaking from experience,” Kerry said, her fear and frustration (and deep-seated sorrow) rising in her chest.
“I know you are, dear. But that’s your experience. Not hers,” Mildred said as those same emotions rose in her. “And yet you act like it’s already happened to her.”
“Mom, it would be irresponsible of me to let her go out into the world without warning her what people are going to do-”
“Yes, it would be irresponsible not to warn her, dear, but you don’t have to act like it’s an inevitability.”
For a long moment, the two women just stared at each other. Then, Mildred’s brow furrowed as she fixed Kerry with a concerned look.
“Sometimes, my love, I feel like you look at her with the same shame that able-bodied parents who’ve never dealt with disability look at their disabled children.”
For a moment, Kerry just stared. Then, she recoiled as if she’d been slapped in the face.
“Mom.”
“I’m sorry, dear, but I call it as I see it and that’s what I see,” Mildred said, her tone frank but still apologetic. “I just… Sometimes I just get reminded of those people who’d come up to us when you were young and say things like, ‘Oh, it’s such a shame’ or ‘I feel so bad for her’ or ‘What a pity.’ With all that shame we worked so hard never to teach you to think.”
Mildred shook her head.
“You know what I see in Annie? I see you. Before the world got to you. Because your father and I never taught you shame. The world taught you that. We did everything we could to never teach you that, and to be perfectly honest dear, it makes me feel a bit like I failed you in that matter when I watch you teach it to her.”
Another slap, another recoil.
“Mom… Mom, you know I would never say anything like that to her,” Kerry said in what came out as both a statement and a plea. “You know that.”
Mildred looked at her for a long moment and then let out a long, deep breath.
“No, you’d never say it out loud,” Mildred admitted. “But you say it with your eyes.”