Free You're Not You by Michelle Wildgen

minutes I just sat there, sipping steadily, my eyes closed. I was drained. The coffee helped a bit, the caffeine making my muscles seem less tight, my head a bit clearer. Gradually I realized my shoulders were relaxing and my neck straightening out. I lifted my head. I must have been holding my head practically drawn to my chest, like a turtle.
    I was thoroughly chastened. Perhaps it was something like motherhood, where you can’t imagine how hard it can possibly be to carry that little baby, who sleeps all the time anyway, and whose needs are so simple, until the day comes when it’s just you alone with the infant. Watching Evan, who had not only been doing this for some time but had known her so well before, hadn’t given me the sense of how awkward it was to step into Kate’s life and try to do it all for her, to almost impersonate her without even knowing her. It amazed me now to think how gracious she and Evan had been yesterday, though it must have taken all their willpower not to roll their eyes each time I poppeda mint in my mouth as if I were watching a movie, or glibly assured them I could do anything they needed. I really had thought I could, too. But getting her out of bed seemed to have taken all morning, and while giving her lunch I blushed at the startling softness of her skin, the sickening tug of her flesh when I opened the valve. I’d slopped nutrition shake onto her skirt, and as I dabbed at the spot, our eyes had met. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to fake a smile right then. I’d had a glimpse of the rest of my employ here, and it was one long plain of humiliation, punctuated by moments in which we froze and watched my latest mishap barrel down upon us.
    But although I’d had no clue what I was really promising them, I wanted to make good on it. It would be a great salve to my pride to become skilled at this job, and fast, so that they’d think my confidence had actually been justified. I would go home and practice my eye makeup skills on Jill. Maybe I could even practice lifting her. Having Jill on board—I’d phoned her from the library to see if she would be my rag doll, makeup, and hair model, afraid she’d want to keep the virtuous caregiver mantle to herself—made the whole prospect feel more manageable. I would treat this like a final exam I actually cared about. I would cram for this job.
    I was halfway through my coffee and feeling so much better I went back to the counter and got a cinnamon scone to nibble while I read. As I opened the book, flipping around to see where I felt like starting, I felt purposeful, even powerful. At least now I knew what was required of me. I’d had one bad day, but from here on out, it’d be better. I took a bite of pastry, set my feet on the empty chair opposite me, and began to read.
    A lot of the writing was geared toward people who actually had the disease, so I skipped around a bit. I read portions of a few case histories, which tried to give you the sense of the person but did it awkwardly:
The petite brunette was known for her love of jogging and romantic comedies
. I was trying to match up Kate with the case studies, get a sense of where she was on the continuum. She’d had it for two years and had been in a wheelchair for most of that, but she had no trouble breathing that I could see. It seemed to me that she was fine at home as long as she had help. Someone could probably live that way for years—didn’t you alwayshear stories of people who had lived forty vigorous years in their wheelchairs? I knew no such people myself, but I believed in the general stereotype. As a caregiver, I thought, I would be a maintenance worker of sorts, lending a hand well after the first shock of diagnosis, long before the palliative care at the end.
    An hour later, I had finished the iced coffee and was shivering. I moved to a table near the window to enjoy the sun, losing my page in the process. I leafed through the chapter headings and was thinking