60 pages • 2 hours read
Lisa GenovaLeft Neglected
Lisa GenovaFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
After two weeks in the hospital, Sarah moves to the Baldwin Rehabilitation Center. Bob pays extra for Sarah to have a private room with a window on the right side, which faces a prison.
Sarah is determined to recover quickly so that she can return to her “normal” life, though very little is known about what helps people recover from Left Neglect. Sarah hounds the physical therapist, Martha, about when she can go back to work, asking if it will be about two weeks.
Helen visits regularly, which annoys and confuses Sarah. She thinks her mother cannot be there out of genuine worry about her. Martha asks Helen to help with Sarah’s therapy by moving a washcloth along her left arm, to train her brain to remember her left side.
Sarah is shocked to learn that her mother drives herself to the rehabilitation center and drives the children to school so that Bob can go straight to work. She cannot remember the last time her mother did anything to help her, since her brother Nate died.
Sarah needs to go to the bathroom and refuses when Helen offers to get Martha, saying that she can do it herself. Unable to manipulate her left side, Sarah falls. She realizes that it may take longer than two weeks to return to work.
Chapter 11 Summary
Sarah feels frustrated by her lack of progress and her mother’s nervous presence. She sends Helen shopping for a hat, to get rid of her.
Heidi, Sarah’s friend from the Before the Bells program at Charlie’s school, begins her occupational therapy sessions. Sarah had never known Heidi is an occupational therapist. Sarah finds herself able to tell Heidi about her fears and sadness over being away from her family and work.
Heidi begins Sarah’s therapy by asking the time. Sarah cannot see or feel her watch, which is on her left wrist. Heidi offers to get Sarah coffee, if she can see her left hand. After stimulation through tapping and other exercises, Sarah sees a hand with a watch and realizes it is hers. Heidi makes a deal with Sarah that when she graduates from rehab, they will have wine together at Heidi’s house.
Sarah says that she wishes she had her cell phone, but Bob keeps giving her excuses about where it is. Heidi finds it on the table to Sarah’s left. Sarah feels energized by the thought of having her phone back and plans to call work, but the battery is dead.
Chapter 12 Summary
Sarah’s assistant Jessica and her boss Richard come to visit. Sarah feels awkward and wishes her mother would return with a hat to cover her shaved head.
Sarah offers to start working again, but Richard tells her not to worry about work. Sarah assures him that she can phone into meetings and asks Jessica to send her calendar and a new laptop. Jessica is clearly horrified by Sarah’s appearance.
Richard takes a phone call and says he must leave, telling Sarah to focus on getting back to 100% before worrying about work.
After her coworkers leave, Sarah thinks about Richard’s words, that he does not expect her back until she has recovered 100%. She wonders what will happen if she does not fully recover.
Chapter 13 Summary
Helen returns with hats, all of which Sarah finds awful. She chooses the neon pink fleece hat, which at least reminds her of skiing. Sarah describes how much she loves skiing at their home in Vermont. She realizes they have not been there in three years, consumed with the craziness of their lives, and resolves that they will return there as soon as she gets better. Sarah is immediately overcome by the fear that she will never get better.
The children come to visit for the first time. Lucy is overjoyed to see Sarah, but Charlie hangs back. He can tell that something is seriously wrong with Sarah, though she tries to reassure him that she is fine.
Lucy has a book for Sarah to read to her, but Sarah discovers that she can only read half the words. Lucy insists Sarah read correctly. Charlie begins banging on the window glass and gets louder and louder, so Helen offers to take them downstairs for donuts.
Bob updates Sarah on the kids and his job, assuring her that all is fine. Sarah feels desperate to get out of the center so she can help. She tells Bob that she wants to go skiing and he agrees.
Sarah expresses her fears that she will never get better. Bob reassures her that if it is possible for her to get better, she will. He encourages her to use her competitive spirit to “win” at recovery.
Chapter 14 Summary
It has been four weeks since Sarah’s accident and she is still at Baldwin. She is in the “gym” of the center, looking at a poster, which has a picture of a fist and the word “Attitude.”
Sarah looks at a large mirror, searching for the left parts of her body. She catches glimpses after much concentration. Martha asks her to put on her makeup and Sarah puts it only on the right side of her face, though in the mirror it looks to her like her makeup is complete. Sarah must train her brain to be aware that it is only paying attention to what is on the right. Then she must retrain it to bring the left back into her consciousness.
Martha wants Sarah to learn to move about by herself, in a wheelchair, but Sarah refuses, unable to admit that she needs a wheelchair. Martha wheels Sarah into the hallway and convinces her to try moving the wheelchair with both hands. Sarah does not use her left hand and repeatedly crashes into the wall.
Sarah visualizes warm energy moving into her left hand and she manages to move the wheelchair forward. Helen claps excitedly. Sarah tries again, tangling her fingers in the wheel, but glad to have made progress.
Chapters 10-14 Analysis
Sarah clings to the idea that if she gives it her all, she can recover quickly. Being a lifelong overachiever, this attitude remains ingrained in her. ”I’m determined to recover 100 percent. One hundred percent has always been my goal in everything, unless extra credit is involved, and then I shoot higher” (87). This attitude, however, causes her to have unrealistic goals.
Sarah finds her mother’s presence to be irritating and confusing. Sarah learned as a child not to rely on her mother, so hearing that Helen has been helping her family surprises Sarah. There are clues as to why Sarah feels this way. She mentions that her brother Nate died, and she dreams about him drowning as a child. When Richard and Jessica come to visit, Sarah wishes that her mother would return with a hat to cover her shaved head. Sarah isn’t accustomed to feeling this way. ”It’s a strange thing, to be wishing for my mother to come back to me. I stopped throwing pennies down that well a long time ago” (106).
Though Sarah cannot accept it, Helen seems eager to help. She helps with the children and she wants to learn how to help Sarah with her therapy. When Martha asks Helen to rub a washcloth along Sarah’s arm, Sarah experiences a dual sense of unreality. Sarah is unable to perceive both the existence of her own left arm and the evidence of her mother’s desire to help her.
Sarah latches onto the goal of going skiing, which will signal her recovery. Sarah associates skiing with freedom from her incessant worry about her responsibilities. When she fails to make the rapid progress she had hoped for, Sarah begins to despair that she will never recover. She wants Bob to reassure her when she expresses her fears, though she is afraid that there is nothing he can do. Bob knows Sarah well, and he convinces her that if anyone can recover from Left Neglect, it is her. He says the exact right thing, that she cannot let all the others who have recovered “beat” her. “The goal isn’t to get better. The goal is to win!” (123).
Sarah develops techniques to improve her condition. She understands now that it is a process, to retrain her brain. “What used to be automatic and entirely behind the scenes—seeing the world as whole and seamless—is now a painstaking and deliberate process of trying to reel a disconnected left into consciousness” (128). Sarah finds that she is better able to catch glimpses of her left hand when she concentrates on finding her engagement ring. “I used to think of my ring as a beautiful symbol of my commitment to Bob. Now it’s a beautiful, two-carat, flashy target” (126). When she manages to employ visualization to move her left hand on the wheelchair, Sarah accomplishes a major victory.
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