Don't Ask Me Home Again

Ava's POV

I was sitting on my bedroom floor when I reached for my wheelchair, and my hand closed on nothing but air.

It should have been right beside the bed, where Daddy always parked it. Lavender frame. Custom wheels. A row of butterfly stickers I'd stuck along the armrest when I was five.

Instead, I heard it squeaking in the hallway.

Chloe was spinning circles in my chair, giggling so hard she could barely steer. She'd taken my fuzzy blanket off the floor and tied it around her shoulders like a cape. Her sneakers were planted on the little footrest Daddy had lowered just for me.

"Chloe," I called. "Bring it back. Please."

She rolled to my doorway, looked right at me, and stuck out her tongue.

"Daddy, that's my chair," I said, louder this time.

Footsteps came down the hall. Daddy appeared behind her in his work shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and for one second I felt relieved. He would fix it. He always used to say, *Chairs aren't toys, kiddo. Ava's chair is Ava's legs.*

Chloe threw her arms in the air. "I'm the princess now!"

Daddy laughed. He actually laughed. Then he grabbed the handles and gave her a push that sent her rolling.

"Let your sister have some fun," he said. "We've got guests coming tonight. It's a good time to practice sharing."

"But I need it."

"You'll survive a couple hours, Ava."

He pushed Chloe away, and the squeak of my wheels faded down the hall.

I remembered being three, sitting in my first wheelchair while Daddy knelt on the carpet in front of me. He'd held my face in both hands and said, *You're never going to have to crawl on the floor. Not ever. That's a promise.*

I didn't know promises could just stop counting.

---

I grabbed the edge of the mattress and tried to pull myself higher, like maybe I could reach the doorway if I stretched far enough. My arms shook. My legs stayed where they were, heavy and useless.

The hallway was empty now. On the floorboards, two thin lines ran from my bed to the door, the tracks my wheels had worn into the wood.

This room used to be the maids' lounge, back when the house had maids. The door was so narrow Daddy had to tilt my chair to get it through. The knob was too high for me to reach from the floor. In the corner, an old metal grab bar was bolted to the wall, but it was in the wrong spot, way over by the window, where nobody needed it.

My real bedroom was next to the dining room. It had railings by the bed and a bathroom with a roll-in shower, and a low sink so I could brush my teeth by myself. Daddy had built all of it for me.

Then Vanessa moved in.

She said Chloe was scared of sleeping alone and needed the big room close to everyone. So the movers carried my things to the far end of the house, and nobody asked me.

At first, Daddy still wheeled me to every meal. Then he started saying he was busy. Now he wouldn't even let me have the chair.

High heels tapped along the hallway. Vanessa stopped in my doorway, smoothing down a cream-colored dress. She smelled like perfume and hairspray.

"Your father says you're making a fuss," she said.

"I'm not. I just want my chair." I swallowed. "And can I please have my old bedroom back?"

Her mouth went thin. "Chloe needs the space more than you do."

"But it has the bathroom. And the rails."

"Chloe is *eight*, Ava. She has friends over. She has things." Vanessa glanced around my little room like it smelled bad. "You barely use half of what's in there anyway."

Daddy came up behind her, buttoning his cuffs. He didn't come in.

"What's going on now?"

"She wants Chloe's room," Vanessa said.

"It was my room," I whispered.

Daddy sighed, long and tired, like I was a bill he forgot to pay. "You should be grateful we gave you a room at all. Plenty of kids don't have one."

"I just want to be near the kitchen."

"Then you'll have to learn to get there on your own."

He put his hand on Vanessa's back, and they walked away together. Neither of them closed the door, but neither of them came back.

---

By dinnertime, the whole house smelled like roast chicken and buttery mashed potatoes. My stomach growled so loudly it hurt.

I gripped the bed frame and tried to stand. Sometimes, if I locked my knees just right, I could hold myself up for a few seconds. My legs folded the instant I put weight on them, and I landed hard on the floor.

From the other end of the house came the clink of forks on plates. Then Chloe's laugh, high and happy.

"Daddy!" I yelled. "Can you bring my chair back? Please?"

Nothing. Then a chair scraped.

"Ava, we're eating," Daddy called. "Figure it out."

"Daddy, my legs won't work! You know they won't!"

"Stop making excuses."

My throat burned. "Please bring my chair."

There was a long pause. When his voice came again, it was flat and cold, a voice I'd never heard him use with me before.

"If you're hungry enough, you'll find a way."

Somebody laughed. I think it was Vanessa.

I sat there staring at the doorway. He knew. He was the one who drove me to every doctor. He was the one who learned the big words, who signed the papers, who held my hand during the scary tests. He knew I didn't walk like Chloe. He knew I never would.

My stomach growled again.

I pulled the blanket off the bed and spread it on the floorboards in front of me. Then I lay on my belly, dug my elbows in, and dragged myself forward.

The floor was cold through my shirt. The blanket bunched under me and slid sideways, so I had to stop and fix it every few feet. My palms stung, then burned. My knees scraped against the wood each time I hauled myself along.

The hallway had never seemed so long. At the very end, the dining room glowed yellow and warm, like a picture in a storybook I wasn't allowed inside.

I kept going.

---

By the time I reached the dining room doorway, the voices had gone quiet and the food was gone.

The serving dishes sat empty in the middle of the table, smeared with gravy. Daddy was leaned back in his chair with Chloe curled up on his lap, eating ice cream out of a glass bowl. She had chocolate on her chin.

Vanessa saw me first. Her face wrinkled.

"Oh, for God's sake. Look at the mess you've made."

I looked back. The cream-colored rug behind me had a long, faint pink streak across it where my knees had dragged. My palms were bright red and raw.

Chloe leaned over Daddy's arm to stare. "Daddy, she's crawling like a baby."

She giggled. Daddy didn't tell her to stop.

Vanessa stood, picked up a small plate from the counter, and set it on a chair at the far end of the table. Steamed vegetables. Cold, from the way the butter had gone stiff and white.

"There," she said. "Help yourself."

The chair was way across the room. My eyes stung, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard, because the last time I cried at the table, Daddy didn't speak to me for two days.

I dragged myself across the rug. When I got to the chair, I wrapped both hands around one wooden leg and pulled, inch by inch, until I could get my elbow up onto the seat. My arms were shaking so badly that the plate rattled. I managed to grab exactly one carrot before I slid back down.

It was cold and soggy. I held it anyway.

Daddy didn't look at me. He took a napkin and dabbed the chocolate off Chloe's chin, gentle and careful, the way he used to wipe my face when I was little.

"Daddy," I said.

"Ava, stop being dramatic."

I looked up at him from the floor, carrot in my fist, my knees throbbing.

"Daddy, can I have my chair back tomorrow?"

He didn't answer.

He just kept wiping Chloe's face.

Behind him, through the glass doors to the backyard, something lavender moved in the dark. Vanessa was rolling my wheelchair across the patio and out onto the grass, past the edge of the porch lights. She left it there, in the middle of the garden.

Butterfly stickers. Little footrest. All alone.

Then the first drops hit the glass, and the sky began to rain.