“I didn’t!” Wendy laughed. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“Well, it’s true. Seems he’d been crying. Lots of the kids were. First day away from home and all that… Anyway, this poor little guy wanted his mother. You were sitting next to him and you were crying, too.”
“I definitely don’t remember that! I loved kindergarten.”
“Yes, you did. But that very first day, you were teary-eyed, the same as the other children. Sally said the little boy looked at you—for comfort, maybe—and you said, `What are you looking at?’ or words to that effect, and he said he was looking at you because you were crying, and you said—”
“Oh, wow.” Wendy giggled and covered her face with her hands. “It’s coming back to me. I said he was a baby and he said if he was a baby, so was I, and—”
“And,” Gina said, putting slices of cake on their plates, “you hauled off and hit him.” She grinned. “Then he really had something to cry about, poor kid. Anyway, Sally Barrett read you the riot act. So did I. And when your father came home and I told him what had happened…”
“He said I’d done a bad thing.” Wendy’s lips twitched. “Then he picked me up, lifted me high in the air and said I was some piece of work.”
“He was right. You were.” Gina smiled. “You still are. Soft as velvet most of the time, but tough as nails when you have to be.” Her smile tilted. “Which brings us to this operation.”
Here we go, Wendy thought. She’d broken the news to her mother her first evening home. Gina had blanched, but she hadn’t said much.
“Mom took it well,” she’d whispered to her father when she kissed him good-night, but Howard had shaken his head and reminded her that that was her mother’s way. When Gina learned something that upset her, she’d keep it to herself, turn it over and over in her mind, then talk about it when she was ready.
From the look in her eyes, she was ready right now.
Wendy caught hold of her hand. “Mom, I know the news that I want to have this surgery came as a surprise—”
“Surprise? Shock is a better word. Why did you tell your father and not me?”
“Because I knew you’d be upset,” Wendy said gently. “And I was right.”
“Of course I’m upset! I thought all those things—the hospital stays, the surgeries—were behind us.”
“Yeah. Well, so did I. But this new technique—”
“Is unproven.”
“It’s not unproven, Mom. Dr. Pommier’s performed this procedure on a lot of people.”
“If he’s the only one doing it, it’s unproven and experimental.”
“Any new technique is experimental. The bottom line is that what he does works.”
Gina stood up, dumped the pancake griddle into the sink and ran the hot water. “It works for certain people, Wendy, and for only certain types of injuries. You and your father admit that.”
“That’s right. And as far as I can tell, I’m a perfect candidate.” Wendy stood up and reached for a dish towel. “Look, I know you’re worried, but—”
“You had the very best surgeons in Norway, and the best doctors at the French rehab clinic.” Gina shut off the water, wiped her hands on her apron and turned around. “If any of them had thought there was more they could do, they’d have done it.”
“Exactly. They did everything they could, but things have changed. This technique didn’t exist back then.”
“And what about the fact that this doctor says he’s not taking on new patients? That you phoned him, sent him a letter, and he won’t even discuss your case?”
Wendy tossed the towel on the back of a chair. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you that!”
“You’re probably right. You kept everything else from me, letting me think you were coming home—really coming home—when all the time—”
“I never said that, Mother. Never!”
“No. You didn’t. But I thought…I thought—” Gina turned away, wrapped her hands around the rim of the sink as if that might help steady the turmoil inside her. “Aside from anything else,” she said quietly, “you’re not facing reality. Do you really believe you can change Dr. Pommier’s mind simply by meeting him?”
“Of course not. But if I can talk to him, show him my records, explain how desperately I want to try this—”
“Why `desperately’? That’s what I don’t understand. They said you’d never walk again but you did. You are. I mean, just look at you. You’re on your feet, getting around on your own—”
“I limp. I can’t ski—”
“For heaven’s sake!” Gina’s face flushed. “You’re my daughter. I can’t believe you’re so…so foolish that you’d think people would judge you by the way you walk, or by what you can or can’t do!”
“How about the way I judge me?” Wendy’s voice trembled. She felt her eyes fill with tears and she swiped her hand across them, hating herself for letting her emotions show again. “Do you know what it’s like to be reminded, every single day of your life, of what happened to you one morning a long time ago?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Gina clasped her daughter’s shoulders. “Is that what it’s all about?”
Wendy shut her eyes. The scene in her head was as real as if it had happened yesterday. She saw herself early that fateful day, dragging out of bed. Tired, exhausted, muscles aching, barely making it to the bathroom before her stomach rose in her throat as it had done every morning since the ski team arrived in Lillehammer…
“Wendy.” Gina cupped Wendy’s face. “Darling, you can’t possibly think you were responsible for the accident. The run was icy. Other skiers had wiped out before you in that very same place. You caught some ice, lost control….”
Gina couldn’t bring herself to describe the rest. Wendy sighed and put her arm around her.
“I’ve gone over it a million times,” she said softly.
“Then you know that it wasn’t your fault.”
Wendy nodded. She did, sometimes, when she was being logical. There were inherent dangers in racing down a snow-covered mountain at eighty or ninety miles an hour. When you stepped into your skis, you accepted that as a fact of life.
But…but maybe if she hadn’t been so determined to win a medal, she’d have faced the truth that day—that she didn’t feel well, hadn’t felt well for a while. Maybe she should have told her coach the truth when he looked at her, frowned and said, “You okay, Monroe? You look kind of green around the edges.”
“I’m fine,” she’d answered. She wasn’t. She’d felt rotten, but so what? If you wanted to win, you had to tough it out. She’d skied with aches and pains before. Everyone on the team did. She’d suspected she was coming down with the flu, like a couple of the men already had. She had all the symptoms. If she’d said, “You’re right, coach, I feel awful,” what then? He’d have sidelined her, and with the start of the Olympics just days away, she’d needed all the practice she could get….
So she’d lied. And she’d skied. And now, for the rest of her life, that quick, selfish decision would haunt her each morning when she limped from the bed to the bathroom. When she saw a snow-covered mountain and knew she couldn’t ski it. She’d remember not just who she’d once been but what she’d once been. What she’d had, and could never have again.
“Wendy?