I originally wrote this piece as a short satire on the treatment of the otherwise-abled in my senior year of high school under the title, "The Chair." I wanted to use this genre to critique the way people without limitations are cruelly unaccommodating to those with limitations, especially in the hard and fast environment of the United States. So often we forget to be patient and kind. We don't have time for compassion. It's not cost-effective to treat everyone with respect. It is exactly this mindset I set out to challenge.

“I mean, I’m really not sure what to do with her anymore. I’m at my wit’s end,” Pearl said fanning herself with a limp hand. The heat gnawed at the windowsill, pressing its sticky fingerprints against the Tamarins’ freshly washed windows. On flat summer days like this, the few people of the town Yarrow suspended their work and clung to dreams of arctic breezes gifted early from Father Christmas.

“Oh, don’t say that,” said Sharon Posay, having stopped in to catch up with her friend, carting freshly iced sun tea.

“I’m deadly serious. I’ve never been more tired in all my life. I’m thinking of giving up the whole idea,” Pearl said, her head lazily rocking against the back of her chair.

“Mom-” Her daughter said softly from across the room.

“Hush dear,” Pearl said with a dismissive wave of the hand. Returning her attention to her friend, she continued, “She’s such a constant inconvenience. She always needs things. And, well, Lowry has always been a needy pain in the bottom but not quite to this extent. And I expect he will outgrow his annoying tendencies.”

“You do certainly make a good point, dear. I certainly wouldn’t want to carry such a burden. That’s why we’ve hired a caretaker, certainly.” Sharon picked up her glass and sipped slowly on her sun tea. “It’s been wonderful. Not having to deal with them all day has eased so many unnecessary worries. Sometimes when we get home, they’ve already been put away, tucked up in their bedrooms, asleep.”

“Is having a caretaker expensive? I should like to look into it.” Pearl sat up a bit straighter, unsticking herself from the chair.

“Oh yes, it is terribly so.” Sharon shrugged, tossing a hand. “But when you think of it, money is time, and we’ve certainly spent a pretty penny for all our free time. And you know, you get what you pay for.”

“Is the phrase not ‘time is money’?”

“Oh, whatever it is, you know I’m not good with things so silly as words.”

“Mom-” The birdlike daughter chirped again, softly begging for her mother’s attention.

“Lowry, will you come and deal with this, please, dear!” Pearl shouted up the stairs.

Lowry Tamarin hurried as quickly as his tiny toddler feet will carry him into the stuffy parlor. He climbed up to his sister’s lap and clung to her neck. She wrapped her arms around him, not wanting him to slip off.

She lowered her ear to hear his whisper, “Jessie want?”

She whispered in his ear, “An apple if you please.”

Lowry hopped down from Jessalee Tamarin’s lap and tottered off to the kitchen. Jessalee wiped the sweat from her forehead and pushed herself in his trail. Her chair caught on the corner of the doorway and she struggled to maneuver the wheels into a clear path.

“Oh, dear, I see what you mean. Bless her heart.” Sharon exclaimed once Jessalee had corrected her course. Jessalee looked back over her shoulder to the two women but continued on her way to the kitchen.

Pearl signed deeply into her hands, “Sharon, please.”

“As your friend, I feel it is my responsibility to help you. And now you need help facing the truth. Those children are utterly unbearable. Horrendous. Atrocious. You need to do something before people start talking.”

“Oh, will they?” Pearl fretted.

“Unquestionably,” Sharon said, setting her tea down with a crack against the glass table.

Through the doorway, the women observed the children. Lowry climbed onto the counter from Jessalee’s lap, reaching up on a shelf that neither could get to alone, to pluck an apple from a basket. So many of the things in the house were out of reach for the children.

“Is there any way to fix it?” Sharon probed.

“Honestly, don’t you think I’ve tried to fix her? It’s so goddamn unsightly, I swear to the Lord, we’ve done just about everything under this blessed sun.” Pearl sobbed her words, but no tears fell from her eyes.

“Alright, Pearl, don’t get your britches all twisted,” Sharon hushed. “Let me think a moment.”

And with this Sharon picked up her glass once more and drained the contents, a look of passionate bowel discomfort creasing her cheeks. Pearl watched her friend wearily, afraid of hoping for a feasible solution to her complex predicament.

Suddenly jumping up from her chair Sharon exclaimed, “Praise bless, I’ve been struck with the most wonderful of ideas.”

“Well for God’s sake, Sharon, what is it?” Pearl cried in Sharon’s dramatic silence.

“You and I will train that abhorrent child to walk on her hands!” Sharon announced, pouring herself some more tea from a sweaty porcelain jug.

Two gasps pulled the burning air. One emanated from the lip of the girl seated in the kitchen. The outburst was quickly followed by the thud of a half-eaten apple. The other came from her mother and was quickly followed by a smile, which spread as wide as the Mississippi River.

“Splendid, Sharon! You are a bonafide intellect!” Pearl said, clapping in delight and jumping up from her chair.

“Oh, darling, I know,” Sharon said, waving her glass through the air, the tea sloshing dangerously close to the edge.

“Jessalee!” Pearl snapped, “Come here this instant! Sharon and I must speak with you.”

Jessalee wheeled herself with much difficulty back into the room. Once again, a wheel caught on the doorframe. Her progress was painstakingly slow for the two most impatient women.

“For the love of Jesus!” Sharon moaned. “Pearl, really, do something.”

Pearl rushed forward and jerked the handles attached to the back of the chair. She wrenched the chair this way and that until it was roughly in the center of the parlor where she tipped the chair forward, unceremoniously dumping her daughter onto the floor at Sharon’s feet. Jessalee screamed and flailed, knocking the glass from Sharon’s hand. The glass clattered to the floor but didn’t break; the sun tea pooled around Jessalee’s hands.

“Oh, really, you stupid girl,” Sharon said, kicking Jessalee in the side.

Pearl bent down and wrapped her fist in a handful of Jessalee’s chocolate colored hair, pulling until mother and daughter were face to face. Jessalee would have been pretty, Pearl thought, if she could walk. Then her face wouldn’t be warped with such a disgusting look of weakness. Her back wouldn’t be so bent, and her ankles wouldn’t be so small.

“Get up,” She spit in Jessalee’s face. Jessalee flinched and collapsed once again when her mother released her grip on her hair.

“Mom, I can’t –” Jessalee tried to plead but was swiftly cut off by her mother.

“Can’t or won’t Jessalee? Why do you put me through this, every day? Have you no pity for your poor mother?”

Jessalee’s lower lip quivered and she looked down, drowning in her shame. She took a deep, wracking breath and tried to push herself up. She lifted her upper body but could not manage to budge her legs. Hopeless, she fell once more. With her face to the floor, she could see Lowry standing in the doorway. His tiny fists clenched at his side and his smooth face was red. Jessalee pushed up once more, dragging her body a foot or so before crumbling.

“Keep going,” Sharon offered in lieu of encouragement.

Jessalee managed to crawl a few meters closer to Lowry before the heat began dripping down her back. Her mother, annoyed at the slow pace, seized one of Jessalee’s legs. The force of her mother’s pull dragged Jessalee back several feet, almost all of those which she had crawled.

With her leg in the air, the mother hissed, “Get up, Jessalee.”

Jessalee tried pushing her arms up. With tears flowing up her forehead and into her hairline she managed to complete the handstand. Her arms shook, and she closed her eyes.

“Now move,” Sharon commanded with her own arms crossed over her chest.

Jessalee put one hand a few inches forward. She opened her eyes. The room waited with baited breath as she inched her other hand forward. Abruptly, Pearl released her daughter’s leg, sending her crashing back to the ground. Jessalee’s breath was knocked from her lungs. Her wrists hurt. Her head ached. Blood flowed back down to her toes from where it had collected in her crown.

“Come on Jessalee, try, will you,” Pearl said.

Slowly Jessalee began to crawl again. She crawled all the way to her chair. She crawled up the sides and hung onto the armrests, pushing and pulling her weight until she was essentially in the seat of the chair.

“No, Jessalee, that’s not what I meant. Use your hands and move. Walk!” Pearl demanded.

As calmly as you please, Jessalee wiped her tears from her face and wheeled back into the kitchen. This time her chair did not catch on the door. This time she did not look back. Her mother hollered profanities after her, cursing the day she was born and every moment after.

There was a soft thud in the kitchen, and suddenly Jessalee came flying back into the room, her wheelchair squealing and screeching against the floor. She barreled straight for her mother. Pearl shrieked and tried to run but Jessalee had too much momentum. The chair clanged to a stop, crashing roughly into Pearl’s shins, knocking her to the ground.

And just as quickly Sharon was screaming. Screaming at Jessalee, calling her crazy. Screaming at Pearl. Jessalee backed up, rolling through the puddles of tea still slicking the floor. She called for Lowry to hop on her lap and the boy quickly scampered up, clinging to his sister’s neck with his pudgy fists.

Jessalee rolled passed the two women crouched on the floor, rolled over Sharon’s foot and the tips of her mother’s fingers, rolled into the entryway. She threw the door open and wheeled onto the porch. She balked at the steps, the very steps that had kept her trapped inside almost her entire life. She closed her eyes and flung her hands over the wheels once, propelling them forward in a single hard jerk. The chair jerked but didn’t topple. She opened her eyes at the sound of Lowry’s gasp.

The scene before Jessalee snatched her breath away. She and Lowry were floating several feet above the steps. Hesitantly she rolled her fingers along the rims of her wheels. The chair glided forward as easily as if it were on freshly polished marble. Lowry giggled in excitement, clapping his hands together twice before quickly re-securing them around Jessalee’s neck.

Jessalee found herself laughing along with Lowry. Daringly she ripped her hands down the wheels, shooting the chair forward and upwards. She reached out her hand to touch the ruby red petals on the rose bushes as they passed beneath them. And then they were beyond the yard, farther than Jessalee had been in quite a while, indeed.

She charged forward, pumping her hands along the dull metal rims, shooting like a star across the sky with Lowry in her lap. The skirt of her baby blue dress ruffled in the wind. The breeze tugged her brown curls from where they were secured in pink ribbons. The sun shone on her black buckle shoes, the reflection of the sun’s rays matching the newfound twinkle in Jessalee’s eye.

Her fingers were hungry to touch everything she could never reach before, the tops of trees, the roofs of her town, the clouds, the sun.