Scrapbook of final steps

Sarah had, like many little girls, begged her parents to sign her up for dance school. She had, unlike many little girls, stuck with it clear into college. Her commitment to the sport didn’t diminish until her career as a botanist began.

The damage to her right ankle had only begun.

The twenty-eight-year-old sat in her doctor’s office. She held a small, plastic bag of ice against her swollen ankle. It seemed that her foot only grew worse. She stumbled often, couldn’t run at all.

The doctor returned with a handful of X-rays, none of which meant anything to her. He explained that her onstage landings in dance school, back in her youth, had overstressed the tendons in her right ankle, the total damage of which only now had risen in full.

The damage didn’t appear repairable without costly surgery, well outside Sarah’s budget.

Her doctor suggested a wheelchair, or at least crutches. “The less you walk, the longer you’ll have the option to do so,” he explained.

*                      *                      *

Sarah considered, while she drove home, those who break their backs, necks, or blow off their legs. She had little reason to complain. She at least had a few journeys left available to her.

The thought improved her mood, but she couldn’t help consider all the places a person couldn’t go without functional legs. Such destinations would remain forever out of her reach, once her ankle took its final breath.

She slowed to a stop at a red light, wondered if she ought to regret her time at dance school. She hadn’t made a career out of it. Shouldn’t she wish that she had never set foot on stage?

She didn’t regret it, though.

She knew, with that realization, what a paraplegic would tell her.

Use your legs while you have them. Don’t live like you’re already dead.

The light turned green. She stomped the gas.

She arrived home, jumped onto her computer, and started to plan the greatest hike ever conceived. She listed everywhere she would ever want to wander.

New Zealand. Ireland. Egypt. Alaska. Central America. Yellowstone. The Great Wall of China.

Most people with functioning legs never traveled so far. How dangerous good health proved. Only when a person heard the tick of her or his second hand did they ever plan for their present. Healthy people blindly thought only of their future.

Sarah’s front door opened. Her live-in girlfriend, Debbie, had arrived home from work.

Sarah hadn’t considered how she would break the bad news to Debbie. Would Debbie want to live with a cripple?

“Hey, tree hugger.” Debbie hugged Sarah from behind while the latter remained seated. “Discover any new mushrooms, today?”

Sarah dutifully kissed her. “Mushrooms aren’t plants.” Sarah tried to sound nonchalant. “Besides, I had a doctor’s appointment, today.”

Debbie straightened. “Right. How did that go?”

Sarah hesitated. “A few more ice packs, and I’ll be good as new.”

“Good. You had me worried.” Debbie’s eyes wandered towards the computer screen. “Planning a trip?”

“Um . . . yeah.”

“When?”

Sarah shrugged. “Kind of immediately.”

Debbie blinked. “Neither of us have the vacation time.”

“I can get it.”

“But I can’t.”

Sarah said nothing.

“You planned a trip without me?” Debbie pretended to check emails on her cell phone, a transparent method to mask her mood. “When will you get back?”

Sarah changed the subject. “You know Daniel and Martha down the street?”

Debbie shook her head, which didn’t surprise Sarah, since she had invented the couple.

“Well,” Sarah said, “Martha injured her back. She needs crutches to get anywhere. I think Daniel wishes he could abandon the whole situation.”

Debbie frowned. “Inexcusable. If you say, ‘For better or worse,’ you should mean it.”

“They’re not married.”

“Engaged?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh.” Debbie considered this far longer than Sarah would’ve liked. “I guess that’s understandable, then.”

Sarah fought for a straight face. “Would you walk away if I broke my back?”

Debbie laughed. “You’d never hurt yourself.”

*                      *                      *

Sarah managed, the next day, to horrify her doctor with news of her intentions. Sarah wouldn’t reconsider, though.

Her doctor wrote her a prescription for painkillers. “You’ll need these.”

The local pharmacy served as her next stop. She updated her passport while she was there.

Bank. Traveler’s checks.

Home. Pack. Online. Book first flight.

To where, though? Sarah stared at her computer. She had opened three tabs, each attached to the same website that negotiated flight costs. Flights to Japan filled the first tab. Flights to New Zealand filled the second.

She reopened to third tab, observed flights to China.

Her cell phone rang.

“I’m on my lunch break in fifteen minutes.” Debbie echoed from the phone. “Want to meet me?”

Sarah glanced at her wristwatch. “I still have to call work.”

“You haven’t called your boss yet?”

“I called in sick, but I still need to explain . . . everything.”

“When do I get an explanation?” Debbie asked.

Sarah realized she couldn’t tell her boss or coworkers anything. Someone would spill the beans to Debbie. Sarah didn’t feel ready yet for that conversation.

“I don’t like this, Sarah. Something’s wrong, and you won’t tell me what it is.”

“I’ll explain everything later.” Sarah disconnected.

She called her boss, left a vague voicemail, said she didn’t feel well. She could beg him for forgiveness upon her return. She would eventually show up for work in a wheelchair, after all.

She booked a flight to New Zealand. Next, she headed to the closest sporting goods store to purchase camping supplies.

*                      *                      *

The nineteen-hour flight proved insufferable. Only the sharp, increasing pain in Sarah’s ankle distracted her from the teenagers who had, for some reason, decided to loudly sing every terrible pop song ever created.

*                      *                      *

She arrived in New Zealand, checked into a hotel, caught up on sleep.

She kayaked (poorly) across through the Bay of Islands. Dolphins swam right past her, smirked at her silly attempts to steer her tiny ship.

The water around her turned from dark, molten sapphires to green emeralds before it crashed against the rocky shores in salty sprays of diamonds.

She biked all the way to Milford Sound (this cost her a few nights in her tent), where she explored waterfalls and snow-capped mountains.

She met, along the way, a couple on their honeymoon. She congratulated them, but experienced a shameful stab of envy. Would Debbie break up with her, once she lost the ability to walk?

She witnessed, in Rotorua, pools of boiling mud, volcanic craters, and geysers. She felt as if she wandered across some stone giant’s upset stomach.

The sharp pain in her ankle pounded. She washed one of her painkillers down her throat with a swallow from her canteen.

She required countless more pills while she waited in the airport for her flight to Ireland, which proved a remarkable improvement over its predecessor. “Romancing the Stone,” her favorite movie, played as the in-flight movie.

She discovered herself, after the movie, drowsier than expected, a side effect from her painkillers. She slept, awoke in Ireland, and decided she would have to cut down on the pills.

She hiked through Sheep’s Head Way, took a selfie in front of a tower-tall, white lighthouse. She explored seemingly ancient, gray-bricked churches and homes along Wicklow Way.

She opened her checking account a little wider than she expected when she heard about Ireland’s castle tours. Three nights in a separate castle.

She spent her first night in Ballyseede Castle, half claimed by bright green vines and surrounded by beds of purple flowers. She explored the nearby Blarney Woolen Mills, and she pet more than three-dozen wolfhounds.

Her room, shaped as half a circle, included red carpets, a canopy bed, and a breathtaking view of the courtyard outside the castle.

She spent her next night in the medieval-looking, gray Dromoland Castle, its front side soaked with green and dark red plant life.

It cost her close to a handful of pills to complete her journey from Dromoland Castle, past the Irish Cost, the Cliffs of Moher, and finally to Ashford Castle.

A peek at her checking account, via her electronic tablet, confirmed that her vacation rode on fumes, financially speaking.

She transferred her entire savings into her checking account.

She swallowed her last pill upon her arrival at the airport, chugged a white chocolate mocha to combat her medication-and-excessive-exercise fatigue, and reconsidered her plans. She couldn’t afford all the travel she had planned for herself.

She sat at a table within one of the airport’s countless pubs and poured over a map on her electronic tablet, negotiated with herself in regards to where she could and couldn’t travel.

She knew that she would likely never get another chance to visit whichever destinations she crossed off her list. It made he feel astoundingly mortal.

Her cell phone rang. Debbie called for the twentieth times since Sarah left the states. Like all the times before, she didn’t answer. If she did, Debbie would convince her to come home early. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Her boss called. Sarah didn’t answer this one, either. She listened to the voicemail, though. He told her in the most apologetic manner possible that she would lose her job if she didn’t get back to him soon.

Sarah booked a flight for Egypt.

*                      *                      *

She discovered, shortly after she landed, that she would experience a hell of a challenge getting her prescription refilled in the Middle East. What few drug stores she discovered, she didn’t trust.

She hobbled about the desert. The pain in her ankle grew worse. She imagined sand while it drained from her ruined tendons into her shoe. Once the sand ran out, she would, in her mind, collapse, a puppet with cut strings.

She purchased and guzzled water. The heat suffocated her.

She discovered that every merchant at every shop wanted to haggle. Every purchase, no matter how minor, became an unwanted battle.

While the pyramids in Cairo amazed her, as did the countless, ancient wonders in Luxor, she couldn’t help but hate the poverty and mistreatment she witnessed.

She saw women in burkas, herded by the men who owned them. The men used sticks to steer their property. It disgusted Sarah to her core.

The “homes” she witnessed appeared little more than sheets of metal crudely connected, with holes punched through their sides to serve as windows. Hopeless, filthy faces peeked at her from these holes.

She also discovered her citizenship less than popular. Merchants and travel guides often demanded to know the origin of her accent. They treated her with naked contempt when she identified herself as an American.

Only the hotel staff (whom she paid) treated her warmly. The hotel room she rented proved a disgusting disappointment. Roaches scurried across the bare walls. The view through her window displayed a grimy alley in which men sold fruits.

She purchased a power converter (another haggle fought), and recharged both her cell phone and tablet.

Too many voicemails awaited her. Debbie had left nearly half of them. She sounded at once bitter, concerned, and fed up. Sarah’s boss had left as many messages. It sounded as if he had (or nearly had) decided to fire her.

One message, not left by Sarah’s boss or girlfriend, had come from her doctor, who expressed only concern for her. She called him back, assured him that she felt fine.

She guzzled from another water bottle, and then tried to get some sleep.

Her ankle kept her awake atop her sweat-slick sheets.

*                      *                      *

She had only collected a few scattered hours of sleep by the time the sun rose to bake the already sweltering streets.

Sarah checked her bank account. She wouldn’t last much longer.

She added up the available credit on all her plastic, determined that she could charge another two thousand dollars.

She spent the day exploring the gorgeous, azure beaches of Hurghada. She limped the entire time.

Where should she go next? If she sold her camping supplies, she could add to her shriveled bank account.

She returned to her hotel room, called an American travel agent, ran through her options. An Alaskan cruise seemed best. She sold her camping supplies and booked a flight to Washington, where she would board her boat.

*                      *                      *

Once in Washington, she immediately refilled her prescription. Her ankle throbbed such that she could hardly stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

She explored downtown Seattle, visited the Aquarium on Alaskan Way, the EMP museum by the Space Needle in Bell Town, and sampled the world-famous Pike’s Place Clam Chowder.

She took a cab to the port. Her injured ankle couldn’t carry her any longer. She swallowed pills as if she swallowed mints. The pain only subsided in the slightest.

She could no longer stand. She sat, once she reached the port, and waited for the other passengers to board. She afterwards requested help to climb onto the ship.

She had to convince the ship’s crew that they should allow her to board.

“It’s just a little leg pain,” she explained. “It comes and goes. I’ll be fine.”

She found her room and, before the ship even departed, fell into a deep, medicated sleep that lasted nearly twenty hours.

She awoke, tested her ankle. She could hobble a bit, but it felt as if she balanced her weight on thin pretzel sticks.

The pain brought tears to her eyes, and she only just made it to the ship’s rails. She steadied herself against their bars. Her ankle felt seized by fire.

The chilly, salty breeze ran through her hair.

Someone sent her a text message. Debbie wanted to know if she could take their coffee table to her new apartment.

“That’s how she breaks up with me,” Sarah whispered, though she didn’t blame her.

Sarah felt only sad, old, tired. She didn’t feel angry.

A sudden splash commanded her attention, as well as that of the passengers nearest to her. Everyone pointed over the railing, cheered with delight.

She stared down into the crystal-clear water. Several shamu swam, blew water from their blowholes. Their audience clapped and whistled.

Sarah stared down at them . . . grunted with pain while she slipped off her shoes. She tried to paw off her socks with her feet, but quickly gave up on the idea.

She pulled off her shirt. Goosebumps rose from her flesh, where the frozen air kissed her. She unbuttoned her jeans.

Someone realized her intentions. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

Sarah tried to pull down her jeans, realized that this would require too much from her injured ankle, and changed her mind. She re-buttoned her jeans and struggled to climb the rail.

The previously enchanted crowd switched gears, their cries suddenly terror-filled. “Someone stop her!” “The water’s close to freezing.” “She’ll die within seconds.”

She managed to kneel upon the thin, metal rail. She stretched her arms and fell forward with a splash. The cold sting shocked her, burned up her nose, and seemed to make her bones tighten.

She, underwater, reached out to touch one of the whales, which regarded her with a single, black, curious eye. Her fingers feel several inches short of the whale’s side—and her mouth opened.