The Running Dream

Jessica’s mother arrives toward the end of Jessica’s final physical therapy test. As soon as she passes the exam, Jessica will be allowed to go home. Her mother is overjoyed that her daughter is being released from the hospital. Jessica notes that her father is smiling for the first time since the accident happened. Reality intrudes quickly, though, when her parents wheel her out to their car and Jessica is unsure how to get in the vehicle.

Her father picks her up out of the wheelchair and lifts her into the car. Although he tries to smile at her when he meets her eyes, Jessica can see that he’s sad and concerned. Nothing will ever be easy for Jessica again.

As the van pulls onto her street, Jessica becomes emotional, remembering key memories of her life growing up in her home. A rush of images, from playing hide-and-seek to running through the sprinklers to sneaking out of her bedroom window with Fiona, crowd her mind. Those memories are abruptly ended when Jessica notices the wheelchair ramp that’s been added to the front of the property. She calls the ramp and accompanying guardrail “nasty scars across a cheery entrance” (48).

Hurt by the existence of the ramp, Jessica tells her father that she is capable of using the stairs. However, when she goes to get out of the car, she stops uncertainly, afraid. Her father encourages her to grab the car frame and handle and just swing down to the ground, which she does on her first try. Determined, Jessica uses her crutches and slowly works her way up the stairs of the front porch to the door. She smells her mother’s pasta cooking and is greeted with a joyous bark by a happy Sherlock.

Jessica acknowledges that there are no ruby slippers, and there is no going back. But she is still happy to be home.