Inside Out

57

Concord, North Carolina

Sunday

Winter sat at the table, watching his son fight to contain his growing excitement. Winter had stayed busy around the house all weekend. There were plenty of minor repairs to take care of. While he worked, Rush stayed close and they talked and laughed. It helped to keep his mind off Greg and the other thoughts that stalked him. He and Lydia decided to celebrate Rush's birthday on Sunday afternoon. Winter didn't know what Monday would bring his way.

The handicap had taken its social toll on Rush. Most of the friends he had made before the accident hadn't remained close for long. After the novelty wore off, most sighted children found it difficult to maintain a relationship with someone so radically different. Friendship with Rush meant the loss of things that were important to children that age: video games, basketball, baseball, movies, bicycles. Since the accident, Rush had become more and more comfortable with children like him. Angus McGill, a neighbor Rush's age, was the only one of Rush's old pals who still visited, but he was out of town with his parents.

“Well,” Winter said. “What should we do now?”

“We could sit on the porch,” Lydia said.

“Aren't you guys forgetting something?” Rush asked, fighting back a smile.

“I don't think so,” Winter said, trying to sound sincerely confused. “Mama, what's that?” Winter got up, lifted a package from the sideboard and placed it on the table in front of his son. “A present?”

Rush placed his hands on the package.

“I don't know,” Lydia said.

Rush felt the edges of the box. “What is it?” he asked.

“Open it and see.”

Rush removed the ribbon, peeled off the paper, and pried open the box. He reached in.

“It's something plastic.”

“Could be,” Winter said.

Rush lifted the object by the edges and placed it down on the table, flat-side down.

“Sculpture art?” Rush had been to museums where there had been sculpture and other tactile work he could appreciate with his fingers. In art classes, he had made three-dimensional objects in clay, wood, cloth, and paper.

“Sort of art. That guy Moses Mink who brought his statues to your school made it for me. You tell me what it is,” Winter said.

As Rush's fingers moved over the surface of the piece, the contours started to make sense. What he was feeling suddenly appeared as an image in his mind, and his heart leaped with sheer joy. “It's.. you!” He started laughing and ran his fingers over the cast impression of his father's face. “It's a picture of you!”

“It's a mask, so you won't forget me. How cool is that?”

“That's way, way far-out cool! That's the number-one best present ever.” He laughed again. “I can't believe it.”

Rush made a big deal over the other gifts: a stack of audiobooks from the Trammels, two sweaters and two pairs of jeans from Lydia, and a check from Eleanor's father, who had moved to Nova Scotia with his third wife. When Rush left the table, he was carrying the mask.