Left Neglected

Sarah finds rehabilitation therapy to be much more difficult than she had anticipated. Used to being a “winner,” Sarah is intensely frustrated by her slow progress. She considers it the hardest she has ever worked for something that she cannot achieve. It seems ridiculous that she must put all her effort and concentration into something as simple as putting on her pants. Every step of getting dressed is excruciatingly difficult, which depresses Sarah. If she cannot even dress herself, how will she return to work?

Heidi suggests wearing only pullovers, but that feels like failure to Sarah, who thinks of all the designer shirts in her closet. She associates those shirts with her job, with her “normal” life. When Heidi suggests elastic-waist pants, Sarah becomes even more despondent. It does not help that her mother is wearing elastic-waist pants and a pullover sweater. Heidi tells Sarah that she might need to focus on living with her condition and accept her situation, which is something that Sarah has yet to accept fully.

After the exhausting series of steps it takes to dress, Sarah halts at the last step, putting on her watch. With its intricate clasp, the watch confounds Sarah every day. In a flash of inspiration, Sarah offers to trade her Cartier watch for Heidi’s cheap plastic watch. Heidi balks, as Sarah’s watch is so expensive, but for Sarah, it is a first step towards accepting her situation.

Sarah tries to increase her concentration levels by meditating, but her mind wanders too much. This makes her think of Charlie’s ADD evaluation. Sarah is upset that she could not attend the evaluation and she is afraid that the results will confirm that Charlie has the condition. Sarah feels like she is floundering with her own neurological condition and hopes for a clearer, more defined path of treatment for Charlie.

Since her progress has stalled, Sarah’s insurance company has mandated her release from the rehabilitation center. Sarah fears that this means that she is at the limit of her recovery, which is not near complete.

A major element of these chapters is Sarah’s confrontation with Helen. Their past, and Sarah’s hurt and anger over abandonment by her mother after Nate’s death, has simmered under the surface for five weeks, as it has for 30 years. Sarah finds herself unable to keep silent any longer when Helen tells her that she must accept her life situation. “She of all people can’t possibly think she’s going to lecture me about accepting the situation. When did she ever accept her situation? When did she ever accept me?” (135).

Sarah recounts how, after her brother drowned, her parents both emotionally retreated from her. Her father remained distant, but did act as a parent till he died when Sarah was 20. Her mother never “came back” as Sarah needed her to, and Sarah has never forgiven her.

When Helen announces that she is staying, Sarah rejects this idea, saying that if she needs help, she will get it from someone else, as she has been doing her whole life. Helen insists, saying that Bob asked her to stay to care for Sarah. Sarah feels betrayed by this “decision,” made behind her back, in the same way she resents that the insurance company and doctors determined her release from the center. She has had no say in her own life choices and she despises this loss of autonomy.

Sarah’s anger causes her to lash out and confront her mother. “You never helped me with my homework or boyfriends or going to college or planning my wedding. You never helped me with anything” (155). She expects her mother to make excuses, but instead Helen simply replies that she is there to help now. Sarah, however, is not ready to forgive her mother enough to accept this.