Around nine, I told the duty nurse I’d be working on my own for a few hours in rehab. Then, I slipped on my pants and Hawaiian shirt, and for the third time in two days, I made a break from the hospital. Nakayla nearly ran over my good foot as she tried to save me from stepping down from the curb. I slid onto the seat and swung my prosthetic leg in without a problem. “You’re getting better,” Nakayla said. “In another twenty years, I might be able to walk on the damn thing.” Nakayla drove forward without comment and I realized my whining was petty self-indulgence to a woman who had just buried her sister. The psych docs in Walter Reed had warned me that my emotions would swing through extremes—that was normal. But the more insidious development would be letting those emotions harden into bitterness. Not only would that eat away at my spirit but it would also distance others from me. “Now if they could put a retractable wheel on the bottom,” I said, “like in those shoes the kids wear.
