Chapter 18

Lisa’s weight shifting around on the mattress stirred me out of slumber, but the smell of bacon and coffee wafting down from the kitchen above brought both of us to full consciousness.

Although Lisa and I had shared the bed the previous night, in deference to the fact that we were guests in her mother and father’s home, I had worn t-shirt and shorts to bed, while Lisa wore a nightshirt and a pair of workout shorts. This hadn’t prevented hands from wandering a little bit after the lights went out ... but not very much, especially once she informed me that Jerry and Diane’s bedroom was directly above us.

I swapped out the shorts for a pair of jeans as I put my leg on, Lisa threw on a pair of sweatpants, and we climbed the stairs to the kitchen. The unmistakable sounds of the warm-up to the Macy’s Parade blared from the television in the living room, and we were greeted by a spread on the dining-room table sufficient to feed a small army.

“Morning!” chirped Diane as we padded into the kitchen. “John, do you drink coffee?”

“By the gallon,” I responded dryly. She poured a mug and handed it to me, pointing out the cream and sugar on the table so I could properly doctor it.

“Okay,” she said with a deep breath as she clapped her hands to her sides, “scrambled eggs and bacon coming up. Some fresh fruit on the table if you like, also some pastries from the bakery down the street ... juice ... and let me know if you need something else. We’re not formal on Thanksgiving morning, so feel free to take your food into the living room and watch the parade.”

After grabbing, and quickly eating, a plate of food, I hastened downstairs to take a shower and get dressed before the parade started. On my return, I discovered that watching the parade at this home was just like watching the parade everywhere else I’ve watched it over the years: sitting on the couch and consuming mass quantities of coffee and whatever else can be grazed from off of the dining-room table ... while wandering into the kitchen during the commercials to help attend to food prep.

I felt right at home.

Shortly after 12:30, the onslaught began.

It started with R.J.’s family. R.J. himself, of course, had volunteered to take the Thanksgiving-day shift so another firefighter could spend the day with his family, but Lisa eagerly introduced me to his wife, Cassie. Somewhat to my surprise, she was a fair bit younger than him, with raven-black hair, soft but dark eyes to match, and possibly a little too much makeup.

Bringing up the rear behind her were two veritable cannonballs charging in yelling, “Aunt Leelee! Aunt Leelee!” It was almost comical to watch them both – a boy and a girl; the boy clearly a little older – screech to a halt in front of the aforementioned Aunt Leelee and stare when they noticed the stranger standing next to her.

After a moment of awkward silence, Lisa knelt down next to the boy. “Eric, this is John. John, this is my nephew, Eric, and his sister, Ashlyn. Can you guys say hello to John?”

In the way of little kids, they both softly mumbled, “Hi.”

But also in the way of little kids, who often lack the filter of their elders, it didn’t take long for the question to come up. Little Ashlyn was the one who posed it. “Aunt Leelee,” she nearly whispered. “Is John a man?”

I knelt down alongside Lisa in front of Ashlyn. Smiling, I said, “Hi!” again.

She pressed in closer to Lisa, keeping a slightly wary eye on me.

“I don’t look big like a man like your daddy or your grandpa, do I?”

She stuck her thumb in her mouth and shook her head.

“I am a man. I’m just a lot smaller than they are.”

“Why?” interjected Eric.

I have a kid-friendly explanation ready for this conversation with young children. “When I was a baby, I was very sick. Even my bones got sick. So my bones didn’t grow very much.”

“Are you ever going to grow anymore?” he asked.

“No. But you want to hear something cool?”

Eric nodded.

“You’ve seen the Star Wars movies, right?”

He grinned. “Yeah.”

“Okay, you remember in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ when Luke Skywalker’s hand got cut off and they gave him a mechanical one?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, my leg was one of the bones that got really sick. So they gave me a leg like that.” I shifted position and pulled up my pant leg, showing him the black carbon-fiber shell of my prosthesis.