Family Matters (18 page)

A
ndy cleared out all the equipment from the gym at Children's one morning, leaving only the tumbling pads and parallel bars, which she placed in the center of the room. Jennie drove Cody to the hospital and Michael met them there. Michael and Jennie watched anxiously as Andy and an assistant lifted their son from the wheelchair, one of his little arms wrapped around each of their shoulders, and maneuvered him toward the equipment.

“Here you go, kiddo,” Andy told him as she helped him circle his fingers around each bar. “This is it. Time to stand up and show all of us what you're made of!”

“I'm a kid,” Cody told Andy. “You know what I'm made of. Skin and stuff.”

“More than that,” Andy shot back at him. “I've seen you work.” She nodded at the assistant and the man took on the full brunt of Cody's weight. Andy stepped out between the bars in front of him. “Now. It's time. Let's see you straighten those legs and put some muscles to use. There you go. Ease it down. Think about what you're doing.”

Cody's eyes locked with Andy's. Jennie held her breath. Michael's mouth moved in prayer. Cody's legs buckled beneath him and he began to sink. Andy caught him and helped pull him back up.

“No,” Andy said. “Not like that. Think strong. Think legs of steel. Decide you're a robot, like C3P0 on
Star Wars,
and you've got to lock your knees and raise yourself as tall as you can.”

“C3P0's a
droid,
” Cody argued, obviously trying to keep everyone's mind off the task at hand.

“Whatever he was,” Andy shot back. “He stood strong and tall and helped Luke Skywalker.”

Andy nodded at the assistant again.

He relinquished his grip on Cody a second time.

“Now, Cody,” Andy urged.
“Now.”

Beside the door, Michael gripped Jennie's hand in his own.

“Please, Cody,” Jennie murmured. “Please try.”

“Come on, son,” Michael chimed in. “I
know
you can do it.”

Cody's knees turned inward…outward…one outward and one inward again…and the little boy's posture started to crumple. Again the assistant rescued him.

“That was better,” Andy encouraged him. “You balanced a little bit longer.” She knew she had to encourage him. Cody had one more chance. If he couldn't do this, she wouldn't do much more with him today. They were all expecting an awful lot of him. It was best if they didn't tire him out. “I want to see you try it one more time.”

“I don't want to try again,” he said, whining.

“I remember when you used to try everything. You do this and you'll be back on the right track, kiddo. You just wait and see. You'll be
so glad
if you try.”

This time, Andy's words seemed to spark something within Cody. He shook his head and squared his shoulders and sighed as he tried again.

“That's it…” Andy egged him on. “Come on…come on…”

Michael clenched Jennie's hand so fiercely she scarcely had feeling in it anymore. She gritted her teeth and held her breath as she silently prayed for Cody.

“You can do it, Cody,” Andy whispered to him. “I'm proud of you! I see you trying! I know you can!”

For one instant…maybe less than an instant…it seemed that Cody was bearing the brunt of his own weight. His legs wobbled…once…twice…and he lost his balance. He began to topple. The assistant moved to grab him but he missed.

“Ooof,” Cody grunted when he hit the ground. And, as Michael and Jennie ran to him and Andy lifted him up, Cody began to cry in earnest.

“I hate this!” he bawled as tears of frustration streamed down his cheeks. “I hate my legs. I hate my head. I hate having to
fight
to make things work right.

I hate this.” He started pounding the mats with his hands. “I—hate—this!”

“Cody, son,” Michael said, reaching out to him. “Your mother and I—we hate it, too. But you've got to keep fighting to stand, to get well.”

But Cody would hear none of it. “I don't care what you and Mom think. I don't care what you and Mom do!” he shouted. “You two are the dumbest parents alive. You don't even understand.”

Michael felt his anger rising. He did his best to keep it in check. “You watch yourself, young man. I don't want to hear that tone of voice from you again.”

“You aren't being fair!” Cody shouted at him. “You and Mom aren't being fair!”

Jennie knelt beside them both. “Cody. We want to understand you and help you with everything you're going through. But you've got to try to help us.”

A new flood of tears began. “That's just it, Mom! That's always it! All you tell me anymore is try. Try, try, try—I'm sick of trying.”

“That's because we know what's best for you,” they said together, precisely in unison. It would have been funny if Cody hadn't been so upset.

“You tell me to fight all the time and to
try
and wish for one thing and you tell me not to fight and to wish for another,” he cried at them. “All the time I can see that it's you and Dad who aren't trying….”

At his words, Jennie's face went ashen. And here, Cody buckled his knees up beneath him—a very promising movement as Andy saw it—buried his face against his legs, and continued to wail. “It's you who won't try. It's you. And it's Dad. So if you two won't try to be together again, I'm not going to try, either.”

Andy sat beside him, holding him as he hollered with frustration. But there was nothing she could do. At last Cody was voicing his frustration.

“Oh, Cody,” Jennie whispered, devastated. “Is that it, then? But it's such a different kind of trying.”

“It doesn't matter, Mom,” Cody told her. “It doesn't matter that it's different. Because it's what I want more than anything else in the whole world.”

On the afternoon of the fund-raiser, Andy stood backstage at the gigantic pavilion where the show would be held, directing five little girls from Mark's team and putting the finishing touches on a routine Jennie had suggested. They were doing a funny skit in which they all wore bright yellow leotards and danced with soccer balls.

The show was only hours away. The
Times-Sentinel
had yet to announce who the master of ceremonies would be. The newspaper had billed him all week as a “local celebrity” and a “must-see attraction.” Even Jennie was keeping it a secret.

“We decided that would be part of the fun,” she explained when Andy questioned her for what seemed like the ninety-ninth time. “Everybody will come to see who the mystery celebrity is. I guarantee they won't be disappointed.” She shook her head and gave Andy a little grin. “
You
won't be disappointed, either.”

Now, as Andy worked on the dance with the kids, she pushed a bright red headband up over her bangs, readjusted her own black leotard and motioned for them all to follow her. “Vanessa. When you kick, turn just like this, okay?” She couldn't tell them to point their toes. They hadn't yet mastered that skill. “Now. Let's try it again. One—two—”

Just as the music began, one little girl lost control of her soccer ball. It rolled across the stage before anyone could grab it, and it disappeared into the wings.

“Oops!” Andy stopped the routine and ran to get it. “Hang on, you guys,” she said, laughing as she fumbled around in the dark. “We can't go on without our props.”

Suddenly, a big hand reached out of the darkness and handed the ball to her. “Is this what you're looking for?”

“Yes.” The ball rolled into her arms and she clasped it to her chest. Her eyes tried to focus in the darkness.

“Didn't know there would be soccer balls in the show tonight,” he commented offhandedly. “Must have something to do with the master of ceremonies.”

Andy's eyes adjusted. She caught her breath.

“Buddy?”

She couldn't believe he was standing there, this close, chuckling and talking to her.

“Buddy.” She said his name again just to convince herself he was real. “
What
are you doing here?”

“This is where they told me to come. I'm in the right place, aren't I? For the swim team fund-raiser?”

“You're coming to the show? Then you're supposed to be in the audience.” Her heart was pounding and she couldn't think. “And you're early. It doesn't start for another hour.”

He chuckled again, a warm, melodious laugh that brought back a thousand memories. “No. I'm not early. I'm
in
the show.”

“You're
in
the show?”

“Yeah. Is that okay? Are you going to kick me out? No pun intended.” As he eyed the soccer ball again.

She still couldn't believe it. At that moment Jennie walked up to them. “Oh, good, Buddy. Here you are. I've been waiting for you. Do you have any more questions about the script?”

“One or two things.” They talked briefly. Jennie answered his questions and told him when to introduce everyone and in what order. “We're opening the show with the soccer ball routine,” Jennie said, glancing at Andy for the first time, as if Buddy's presence meant nothing to either of them.

When she caught the glint in Andy's eyes, she grinned back, hoping Andy wasn't making plans to strangle her. But from the way Buddy kept glancing away from the script and gazing at Andy, Jennie was willing to bet things were going according to plan. “At the end of the routine, Buddy will run out on stage and we'll introduce him. That's how everybody will find out that Buddy Draper is our ‘mystery master of ceremonies.'”

“Even me?” Andy asked her pointedly. “Is that how I'm supposed to find out, too?”

“No. Of course not you,” Jennie said, laughing. “Because you've found it out now.”

But Andy didn't even hear that last remark. She was looking at Buddy and he was looking at her as if they were the only two people left in the world.

“You let Jennie talk you into this,” Andy said, half accusing him, half teasing him, after her friend had walked away.

“More or less. But I thought it was a good idea, too.”

“You—”

“Yeah,” Buddy said. “Me. You remember. The one who's a coward. The one you never wanted to see again. Well, tough luck, sweetheart,” he drawled in his best Bogart imitation.

“Show time! Thirty minutes!” somebody shouted. And, all around them, lights began to come on and the girls in little yellow leotards started to jump up and down. “Come on! We've got to finish our dance or we won't remember how to do it at all!”

“I've got to go.” She clutched the ball tighter and gave him a sad little smile. “I'm sorry for so many things, Buddy. I was wrong to think I knew what God's calling on your life was. I should have been willing to stand beside you on the journey.” Then, “Good luck.”

But he touched her arm before she could turn away. “This has nothing to do with luck, you know. It took a lot of fighting. And, looking at you, I don't believe I'm finished. Fighting, I mean. For what I want.”

Out in the audience, at five minutes before seven, select members of the Dallas Symphony struck up a rousing rendition of a calypso song and the lights began to fade. “I've gotta go, Dad!” Cody told Michael. “They told me I had to go backstage when the music started.”

“You'd better get back there then. I'll be watching you.”

“I'm in the second song. I'll be the third one on the right.” It would be his only appearance in the show. He just hadn't been ready to try some of the harder numbers. “Be sure you find me. In the first song, be sure to find Megan and Vanessa. Mom will point them out to you. They're on my swim team, too.”

“I'll show him,” Jennie promised. “Now get back there. Andy's going to kill me already. I don't want you to hold up the show.”

Michael and Jennie watched as he wheeled his wheelchair up the front aisle away from them. He turned and waved once just before he started up the ramp to go backstage. “Don't forget to watch me, Dad!”

“I won't!” Michael called back. “I promise.”

After Cody left, Jennie squeezed Michael's hand. “He's so proud and excited.”

“I know,” Michael said softly. “It's terrific to see him happy and enthusiastic again the way he's been this week.” He squeezed her hand back. “It's amazing how it helps to get something off your chest.”

“I know that.” They sat together in the front row, not quite so afraid to be beside one another any longer. “He's done so well at the rehearsals because he knew we'd be here together.”

Really, Jennie should have been backstage with Art and Andy and Buddy running the show. But everything had been practiced and polished what seemed like a hundred times over. Art was pleased with the newspaper's involvement and he was taking full advantage of it. He'd requested specifically that he be the one to introduce the mayor. It was easy for him to cue Buddy, too. So, despite all the work she'd done, there was really nothing more Jennie could do than sit beside Michael, two proud parents side by side in the front row, as the lights faded to total darkness, and Art Sanderson stepped out on stage.