“Alice.” （We’ve been arguing about the best name for a walker, which is already a misnomer because I’m using it to stand, not move.） But I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and this time, I barely have to think to make it happen. Maggie wraps a belt around me, waits till she is sure I’m not dizzy, and helps me scoot to the edge of the bed. When I stand for thirty seconds, my legs don’t quiver beneath me.
I look up at her, a smile spreading over my face. “Bring it on,” I challenge.
“What did you tell me you wanted to do when you got here?”
“Leave,” I say.
“And what did I tell you you needed to be able to do first?”
Vee, I realize, has not left the room but has instead shoved the weird little box that Maggie dragged in so that it is kitty-corner to Alice the Walker.
She flips the top up, and I realize it’s a commode. “Ta-da,” Maggie says.
Day four of rehab:
1. I transfer to a wheelchair by myself.
2. I wheel it into the bathroom and brush my teeth.
3. I get so tired, halfway through, that I put my head on the counter and fall asleep.
4. That is how a nurse finds me to tell me that, finally, I’ve tested negative for Covid.
Now that I’m no longer Covid-positive, Maggie tells me that for physical therapy I will go to the gym. She wheels me into the large space, where multiple patients are working with multiple physical therapists. It is almost shocking to see so many people in one place, after so much time in isolation. I wonder how many of these people had Covid.
She gets me settled on a mat and begins moving my arms and legs, assessing joint tightness and strength in my deltoids and biceps. The whole time, she is grilling me about my apartment. Do you live with someone who’s there full-time? Is there an elevator? How many steps from the elevator to your apartment? Are there carpets or throw rugs? Stairs?
By the time she leads me to the parallel bars, I am grateful to concentrate on something other than rapid-fire questions. My mind still is foggy; I will start a sentence only to forget where it was going.
Maggie stands in front of me, belly to belly, with a wheelchair behind me. “Lift your left leg,” she says.
I feel sweat bead on my forehead. “If I go down,” I tell her, “you’re going with me.”
“Try me,” Maggie challenges.
I am dizzy and terrified of losing my balance, but I lift my leg an inch off the floor.
“Now your right one,” Maggie says.
I grit my teeth and try and my knee buckles. I collapse into the wheelchair, scooting back a few inches.
“That’s okay,” Maggie tells me. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
I look up at her. “Again,” I demand.
She narrows her eyes and then nods. “Okay,” she says, and she hauls me back up to my feet. “Let’s start with a knee bend.”
I do it, the world’s ugliest plié.
“Now shift your weight to your left foot,” she says, and I do. “Now. Lift your right leg.”
My knee wobbles, and I have to clutch the bars in a death grip, but I do it.
“Good,” Maggie says. “Now … ?march.”
Left leg. Right. Left. Right.
I force myself to move in place. I am bathed in sweat now, and grimacing, and depending on the support of the parallel bars like they are an extension of my own skeleton. I’m so busy concentrating, in fact, that I do not realize I have advanced a foot.
Maggie whistles. “Look who’s walking.”
Vee tells me that if I can wash my own hair, she has a surprise for me. I cannot imagine anything better than the shower itself. Sitting on the little plastic stool, with water pounding against my skin, I begin to feel human again.
I feel like an Olympian when I bend down to get the shampoo bottle, squeeze some into my palm, and scrub my scalp. I don’t fall off the chair. I hold my face up to the weak stream of water and think that this is better than any spa in a four-star hotel could ever be.
As I watch the suds spool down the drain, I think of all the things that I am washing away. This weakness. This fucking virus. The ten lost days I can’t remember.
I felt like a failure in the hospital, dependent on tubes and medications and IVs and nurses to do every little thing I’ve done independently since I was a child. But here, I’m getting stronger. Here, I’m a survivor. Survivors adapt.
I am seized by a mental image of Gabriel gesturing toward a marine iguana. I find myself folding forward into the spray, closing my eyes against it.