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If you are not properly active, pressure sores will develop. Reduced mobility and poorer blood circulation can give rise to troublesome skin ulcers. You'll have to get into the habit of inspecting your skin daily.

"Bathe daily and dry throughly, especially between your toes and in the groin area. The therapist will give you a self-care handbook with instructions to follow. Be sure you understand it all before you are discharged," he said.

"I'm being discharged?"

"From this section of the hospital, yes." he said. "There isn't much more we can do for you here. We're going to transfer you to the physical therapy

department. They'll start you on a program that you will continue for the rest of your life," he added dryly. It sounded like a jail sentence falling from the lips of some severe judge.

He made notes on my chart and then handed it back to the nurse. She glanced at me, smiled, and waited.

"Do you have any questions?" he asked.

Questions? That's all I had. I thought. For example, what would have happened if Ken Arnold had taken us to a different city to live after I was born? What would have happened to me if Beneatha had not gotten involved with gang members and been killed and Mama had not gotten so sick? What would have happened if I had never learned the truth about myself? What would have happened if I had overslept and missed that last ride on Rain?

I looked at the doctor. He seemed anxious to have a question thrown at him, as anxious as some whiz kid who wanted to prove his intelligence.

"When do I wake up?" I asked.

"Excuse me?" The doctor looked puzzled.

His nurse raised her thin, dark brawn eyebrows and relaxed her small mouth.

"Forget it,'" I said. "You can't get answers from people in your nightmares."

"Oh," he said making a small circle with those pale lips. He had only just realized my suffering went deeper than the places he could prod and poke, even with his x-ray machines. "Doctor Snyder will be in to see you in a little while. She's our psychologist," he said. 'Good luck,- he added and turned.

His nurse patted my hand. I gazed at her with a look that made her pivot faster than a marionette and follow the doctor quickly out of my room. I stared at the bland, egg white wall. Since the accident, I wasn't sleeping well. I would doze off and wake up constantly. I did that now and when I woke this time. I heard a female voice, say, "Eli."

Slowly. I turned my head, expecting the nurse to be adjusting something and was surprised to see that the woman speaking to me was seated... in a wheelchair,

"I'm Doctor Snyder." she said.

She held out her hand for me to shake. I just looked at it and her. She pulled it back.

"I see from the look of surprise on your face that Doctor Casey neglected to tell you anything about me. I don't know why I should be astonished about that. Actually." she continued, changing her expression as if she was talking to her own therapist in a session. "I should be happy about that. He doesn't see me as anything more or less than who I am... a psychologist, not a paraplegic psychologist, and that's what we all want, isn't it?

"You will want people to see you for you too. Someday," she added.

"No one could see the real me, even before the accident. Why should I expect they will now?" I replied.

She lifted her right eyebrow like an

exclamation point and smiled.

Actually, she had a very pretty face framed in strawberry red hair, cut and styled so it swept up around her small chin. Despite her condition, her blue-green eyes were dazzling, full of life and excitement. Tiny freckles peppered the crests of her cheeks and then dripped down very slightly toward her jaw bone, but she had a rich creamy complexion. Her lips were so ruby, she didn't need any lipstick. Looking at her face, anyone would think this is one of the healthiest, happiest people he or she had ever seen.

She wore a robin's egg blue sweater with a white blouse and a dark blue skirt. Heart-shaped diamond studs twinkled in her lobes. A gold locket rested comfortably between her small breasts.

"I know it's of little consolation to you right now, but a few inches higher and that injury you sustained would have left you far worse off than you are." She smiled again and gazed past me, toward her own memories and thoughts. "My father once told me we should measure ourselves against our own actions and fate and not against someone else's. Instead of thinking there are so many people better off than you are, he said, think how much better off you are now than you could have been if...

"That If hagns above everyone's head. Ainsley," he said. She lowered her chin and dropped her voice in an imitation of her father.

"Ainsley?"

"Yes. My father insisted that my mother and he find an uncommon name. Looks like your mother and father did the same. Rain?"

"It was supposed to mean good things," I said.