In the middle of both summers I returned to the Doral
House for my grandfather's birthday. I never felt very
far away or apart from either him or my grandmother,
but after the accident and all that aftermath and now
with my new plans unfolding, Aunt Zipporah was
right: this did feel different.
For one thing, there was nothing here that in any way attached me to or suggested my mother. Maybe my grandmother didn't understand, or maybe it was because she did understand that she was always so frightened about my wanting to be in the attic so much, but I wanted to be in there because it was there that I felt close to my mother. There I could imagine her, paint her, act as she might have acted and, in
doing all that, keep myself close to her.
Sometimes, when I returned from school and
went up to the attic, I imagined her waiting for me.
She would, as any mother would, be full of questions
about my schoolwork, my friends, my interests and
activities. I pretended she was there, because even if it
was only in my imagination, there was someone there
to listen to my complaints.
Without the attic, there was no way to pretend
here. I was really on my own finally, and that was
good. I realized that without that independence, I
would always be disabled in more than just the
physical way.
I loved both my uncle and my aunt and really
did enjoy being with them, but when I dressed for bed
and turned off the lights, even the stars I saw through
the window looked sad and alone, blinking away
tears, crying for me. There was a different kind of silence here, too. This house didn't creak as much as the Doral House, and I was downstairs, not upstairs. Any sounds my aunt and uncle made were carried off in a different direction, except, of course, for their
footsteps.
Once last summer, I woke in the middle of the
night and heard their footsteps. I had forgotten where
I was and I sat up, my heart pounding, because I
thought I was back in the Doral House hearing my