“Momma?”
“Yeah? Boo?!! Honey!”
Boo lay in a hospital bed, muddied golden locks mixed with a white bandage and a little heart monitor was holding fast to her finger. Her mother immediately wrapped her daughter in her arms, eyes brimming with tears. “Boo,” she whispered, unable to finish her sentence.
“Momma, where are we?”
“The hospital Boo. You slipped and fell so hard you were knocked asleep. We took you here so you could get better.”
“Oh… well, I’m better now.”
“Not completely, Boo. The doctors are really worried about your back. You hit it in just the right place they’re not sure….”
“Look, Momma.” Boo stretched out her hands. “My fingers, my toes…” Boo tried to reach down for her toes, yet couldn’t. She tried reaching them, but the horrible brace on her back made her stop. She than tried to move her feet up to her, but her feet wouldn’t budge. Again and again she tried, each time she panicked more than the last. “Toes? Toes!!” She cried.
Her mother froze. “Boo?”
“I...I’m trying!!” She shrieked.
Momma threw back the covers to see Boo’s feet, perfectly still. Pressing the help button, a nurse came charging in. “Yes? You pressed?”
“Boo can’t move her feet! What’s going on!?”
The nurse stepped over, grabbing Boo’s left leg, asking “Boo? sweetie, can you feel this?”
“No.”
“How about this?” She moved Boo’s leg back and forth and side to side.”
“No!?” replied Boo, her eyes widening in horror. Momma blanched.
“Umm,” the nurse’s smile gave way to a furrowed brow and narrow mouth. She briskly yanked the room phone off the hook, paging the doctor. She continued to pace between looking out the door and going back to check on Boo, as though to confirm her worst fears.
In minutes the doctor came in and began testing for sensation, reflexes—anything that might signify that Boo still could move her legs. She couldn’t.
Boo had never seen her mother cry this much since Daddy left a few months ago. By now, her mother had climbed into the small bed with Boo and was holding her as close as she could, humming softly, and running her fingers through Boo’s hair, silent tears dripping onto Boo.
“Momma?”
“Yes Boo?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“The doctor said you hit inbetween the little pokies on your back so hard on the cart and hit your head so hard, it stopped your legs and your back from talking.”
“Legs talk?”
“No. Not the way we talk. I just mean now your brain can’t communicate to tell your legs ‘Hey! Boo want’s to skip now!’ or ‘Boo wants to wiggle her toes.’ Understand?”
Boo nodded slowly, deep in thought. “But I will be able to go puddle-jumping tomorrow, right?”
“No, Boo. You won’t be puddle-jumping for a long while now.”
“Oh.”
There was a long pause. The EKG’s continuous beeping was deafening. A large “Boom!” echoed throughout the hospital and a quiet pitter-patter began tapping against the window pane.
“Momma?”
“Yes, Boo?” Sighed her mother.
“Rain can’t walk.”
“No,” she murmured, perking up, “no rain can’t walk.”
“Lightening can’t run, but it goes super-uber-duper fast!!”
“That’s true, Boo.”
“Thunderstorms can’t walk either, Momma.”
“No, they don’t, Honey,” said her mother, smiling through her tears. “So I’m like the storms!” Her eyes brightened, and she instantly turned to look out the window. “Do you have my umbrella?”
Quietly giggling, Momma responded, “You bet I do! But you can’t go outside yet, not with your brace on. Plus I don’t think it’s a smart thing to get up already.”
“But…”
“You can go outside the next storm.”
“When will be the next storm?” Boo asked, blue eyes dilating like miniature moons.
“I don’t know Boo. It may be tomorrow, it may be a year from now.”
The rain continued to splash the window, each ker plop seemingly echoing thousands of times in Boo’s ears. “Boom!!”
“We are going out tomorrow when it rains. Right Momma?”
“Boo,” she sighed, her smile fading as she rolled her eyes, “it probably won’t rain tomorrow, and besides it’s not a good idea…”
“Tomorrow,” decided Boo, with a slight nod.
“But first you need to get the chocolate out of your hair, silly!”
Momma began to tickle Boo who began to belly laugh, her whole face crinkling into one big goofy grin, before squealing in pain and swatting her mother’s hands away. Her eyes welled up, yet she choked down her disappointment.
“Oh Boo! I’m so sorry! I forgot!”
She sniffled a bit, but refused to give in.
The next day, the rain was still ratta-tapping, but Momma said no. “I can’t believe we’re getting this much rain in California of all places,” she remarked, peering out the window to see the blackened, churning clouds above.
“I know why! The rain is waiting for me.”
“Umm, Boo, I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“But Momma!” accused Boo, “I born in a thunderstorm, right?”
“Well, yes…
“So it’s waiting for me.”
“Boo…” her mother’s voice dropped off. It was no use arguing with Boo. Paralysed or not, she was a force to be reckoned with. She wiped a tear form the corner of her eye. Momma resolved that Boo must never miss out on anything even if she was paralysed. Her little girl was still her little girl, and even an injury as serious as that could not wipe off Boo’s smile.
The day after, the rain was still falling, excited as ever. Momma said yes.
Her green polka dotted galoshes rested comfortably on the foot rests on her wheelchair as Boo sat, armed with her fiery-red umbrella. The double-doors slid apart to the outside of the large hospital, and Boo excitedly clicked open her umbrella, biting her lip lest she appear childish in front of the stern-looking nurses.
Momma pushed her daughter out into the cold, damp world. The bushes looked weather-worn, the trees looked haggardly, and the storm drain was completely overwhelmed, as garbage was clogging everything. Yet, even though the world around was lackluster and grey, Boo was in her element, the definition of glee. Momma wheeled Boo down a small path into a half-dead garden, bountiful in weeds. “Rain!” shouted Boo, suddenly collapsing her umbrella to let the freeing drops of water fall on her overjoyed face.
“Boo!” exclaimed Momma, “put it back up!”
But Boo was too distracted to hear. Shrugging her umbrella between her neck and her shoulder, Momma grabbed Boo’s umbrella to pop it open. Then, of course, her own umbrella slipped and fell into the muddy, washed-out garden bed. She sighed, getting drenched in the downpour. She looked down at Boo, oblivious of everything going on behind her yet completely content. Looking back at her brown-spotted umbrella, she sighed again, only smirking, she collapsed her own umbrella and stepped back over to Boo. Looking back over the the street, she saw a massive, clear puddle where a parking spot should have been. “C’mon over here, Boo!” she shouted, suddenly scooping up Boo out of her chair.
Waddling with Boo’s legs dangling between her own, she dashed for the puddle, and carefully, yet dramatically, splashed Boo’s green polka-dotted galoshes in the water. Boo screamed with joy. “Puddles!!”
Suddenly a large hand gripped Momma’s shoulder. Musing it was probably the doctor or one of the countless nurses to scold her, her face turned stone, bracing for the shout and holding Boo in place. Instead, the voice chuckled. “Puddle-jumping?! And without me?!! No way!!”
She wheeled around to stare directly into the warm auburn eyes of her husband. “Daddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Shrieked Boo, almost falling due to her mother’s faltering grasp. The large kind hands swiftly scooped up Boo, wrapping her up in a massive, yet gentle hug. Brown combat boots stepped over to Momma, who by now was sobbing and laughing hysterically. His camouflage uniform felt more snuggly and warm than the fuzziest of blankets, before he bellowed a loud “Ouch Boo!! Watch your grip. You forgot how strong you were.”
“Daddy! I’m strong like the rain. Booosh!!”
“I can tell. You know, I think you mave have gained some sort of superpowers with the whole accident.”
“What would that be?” asked Momma.
“She brought me here to be with you.”
“Daddy I wanna keep splashing.”
“I know, Boo, but you need to be careful because of your back. It must really hurt…”
Momma looked over in fright and began shaking her head.
“Actually, Daddy, I can’ moot my toes. I can’t feel, so I get to be fast like the storm. Boom!”
Her father looked down, puzzled. He leaned over and whispered to Momma, “What does that mean?”
“Boo is paralysed from the waist down. I saw the X-ray. The doctor doesn’t think there’s anything they can do. And all she did was slip on melted ice cream.”
Momma’s face darkened as a shadow seemed to creep across her face. “I let her do it. I was helping the poor boy and she got away. By the time I looked over, she was…. was….”
Daddy had walked over and put Boo down in her chair, popping back up her umbrella. Turning back to Momma, he instantly wrapped her up in his arms again, holding her against him until Boo began to complain her jacket was wetter than the ocean. Momma was shaking and hiccuping; Daddy’s eyes were sealed shut as he ran his calloused fingers through Momma’s frizzled, damp hair. Soon, Boo began sighing as loudly as possible and began rolling her eyes over, and over, and over again to maintain her theatrical display so her parents would take her inside. Finally, “Aaaaarrruggghhh!!!!” Boo’s head flopped over and she stuck her pink tongue. “I’m dead now. See?” she mumbled, every once in awhile peeking out of her shut eyes.
“Okay, okay, Boo!” laughed her dad, his eyes opening to see his little girl’s antics. He let go of Momma and knelt beside Boo. “Little Miss Zombie Boo? Yes, you. I will only take you inside if you promise me one thing. You have to solemnly promise on the soldier’s code of honor that you will always be your daddy’s strong, tough, and loud little girl. Okay?”
“I sol..sol..solenmlilily prowmise,” stumbled Boo, perking up.
Momma wheeled her inside the glass double doors as her Daddy held her hand. The hypothermic blast from the air conditioning hit Boo immediately, and she began to shiver. Soon, she was wrapped in a large blue blanket and nestled into her pillow cocoon. Momma laid down in the adjacent recliner, and Daddy pulled up a clunky metal chair. “Oh, Boo! I almost forgot!”
He swapped his military cap with a small photograph from his large dufflebag. A smirk played on his lips, as he leaned onto Boo’s bedside. Taking off his massive boots, he plopped his gigantic feet on the end of Boo’s bed, and asked Boo, “Wanna hear a story? It’s about a little doggie I saw when I was over in the bad war place.”
He stretched out, and the sound of his large, low voice lulled Boo into a half-awake,
half-asleep state. Her eyelids drooped the more Daddy spoke, until at last, the only noise in the room was the heart monitor and her slow, light breaths. Daddy, his story having been finished, tiptoed over to Momma, where she likewise sat curled, asleep. With a gentle scoop, he lifted Momma up, and sat on the recliner, resting her on his lap. His snores began to echo throughout the room. A nurse peered into the room, hearing the noise, and after seeing the family, slowly left. The overhead light was clicked off. The door’s lock clicked shut.