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“Hey Elle.” Derek greeted as his daughter clambered onto the sofa, taking the seat beside him. The family had just dispersed after finishing dinner and, evidently, she was eating her dessert.
“I has marshymeelows.” She stated with a smile, opening the bag and placing a pink one in her mouth.
“You have marshmallows?” He asked, peering at the bag over-enthusiastically. “Where’d you get those from?”
“Mama bought me the marshymeelows from the shopping.” She answered simply, stuffing a few more in.
He grinned at the fact she had cute little chubby cheeks, stuffed with pink and white confectionery. “Was it a good shopping trip then?”
She swallowed her mouthful. "I too small to push carty."
"Oh, don't worry about that, you'll be tall enough soon. And the best bit is, Zo and Bailey won't be so bothered then. So you'll get to do it every time." He reassured her. For whatever reason, Zola and Bailey fought and squabbled over who got to push the shopping cart around the store. They would even bolt from the car to the shop because they proclaimed that the first one to touch it got to push it.
She nodded, eating another one. “I saw woman like you. But I don’t thinks I was allowed to be saying that.”
He hesitated his response. He had no idea when they were going to have this conversation, but he wasn't expecting it to be now. Anytime soon, even. “Like me?”
"Like you." She repeated. She sat up a little from the back of the sofa, placing the bag on her lap so she could point at what she meant. It was sat in the usual spot it resided in if he was sat on the sofa.
He looked, even though he knew what was there before asking, “Why do you think you’re not allowed to say that?
“Mama said I too loud.” She explained, her words slurred by the quantity of marshmallows in her mouth.
The house was in desperate need of a restock. So, Meredith decided it would be a great idea to take three kids shopping in a grocery store. It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. She limited them to two chosen items each. It did mean she had to keep saying ‘no’ every five seconds, seeing as her kids were constantly finding nice looking food, but she supposed that was the consequence for taking them.
Zola and Bailey were on a hunt for milk, challenged to find the bottle with the latest date on it so it would last the longest. Meredith didn’t tell them that the ones at the back always had longer dates, it meant she had more time to shop without them.
The group were half-way down the fruit and vegetable aisle when Meredith felt a tug on her hand as her youngest daughter moved, her mother stationary as she attempted to find the best-looking bunch of bananas. Meredith’s eyes dropped to her daughter, about to protest when Ellis exclaimed, “Look, mommy, dat woman is like Dada!”
“Woah, baby, inside voice, inside voice.” Meredith instructed before looking over to where she pointed. Really, she wished she had looked over before scolding her now.
The woman looked rather stunned at the exclamation for a second before smiling as the mother of the duo met her eyes. It was quite an awkward kind of smile but at least she clearly acknowledged that it was a small child shouting across the aisle. Meredith understood small kids’ fascination. But not adults. Adults were just nosy. What happened? How did it happen? When did it happen? Were you born like that? Are you paralyzed? If you’re not paralyzed and you can feel your legs, why do you need a wheelchair? Because God forbid someone was in a wheelchair for a reason other than paralysis. If there was a fire, would you be able to get up and walk away? That was an odd one. Did you have kids before or after? That was a little too intrusive. God, adults were annoying.
“Sorry.” Meredith apologized, even though it was a child. Derek would never be offended by a child's questions.
She shrugged. “Don’t worry, it’s fine.”
“My Dada like you.” Ellis stated, this time to the person rather than across the room. Meredith didn’t stop her that time. She tried to walk towards her and Meredith let go of her hand so she could wander over herself.
“Is he?” The woman asked, smiling at the girl. She seemed so unfazed by what she was saying. It was sweet.
“Mmm mmm.” She said with a nod of the head. “He is the best Dada ever!”
“I’m sure he is.”
“Yeahhhhh.” The girl agreed, head tilting a little as she examined the woman’s chair. She pinged one spoke of the wheel nearest her and it resonated ever so slightly. She examined the colour pallet with intrigue. It changed as she tilted her head, colours shifting in the light. Iridescent was the word she would use if she knew it. Obviously, she didn’t. She may have been bright but she was barely school-age. “Dada has blue, but yours is lots of the colours.”
“Yeah, sometimes you get to choose.” She explained, removing her hand from the wheel on the side the girl was on and placing it on her lap so she could explore it further.
Meredith pre-smiled at that, knowing exactly what her daughter was going to say as she looked over to her.
“Mama, why didn’t Dada get-“ She started.
“Because your dad likes blue and the last chair he got was when you didn't even know what green was.” She explained. That was exactly what she was expecting. Ellis was either predictable, or Meredith was just an extremely attentive mother.
“But green Mama!” She exclaimed, even gesturing to the refrigerated shelves besides them. There was an awful lot of green there, considering the fact it was the vegetable aisle.
“I know, Elle, I know. Maybe you could ask him if he wants to buy a green one next time he needs a new one.” She suggested, scooping the girl up in her arms and exchanging a more awkward kind of smile with the woman.
She huffed, pouting. “What if I use da paint? Can I do paint for green?”
She smirked. Her daughter only had one paint set (it came in one of those all-in-one boxes with every colour of pencil, marker, paint and crayon). Watercolours definitely didn’t work on metal. “You can’t paint his chair, baby.”
“Awww. Now I sad.” She stropped, lips pouting even stronger than before.
Meredith let out a kind of humoured sigh at that, bouncing the girl just a little in her arms.
“Could you?” The woman started, pointing up at one of the higher shelves.
Meredith nodded, eyes examining the labels on the bags of leaves. “Spinach?”
“Yeah.” She agreed, holding a hand out when Meredith reached for it. “Thanks.”
“You know, every time my husband goes shopping, he always complains that the leaves are on the top shelf too.” Meredith remarked as she placed the bag in her hand.
They shared a smirk and she pulled away from the woman and her child, just as the other two came running down the aisle, screaming something about milk with a date of the 26th.
“Oh, right.” He breathed. Neither him nor Meredith had ever had a proper conversation with the girl about it. Zola and Bailey did, seeing as they experienced the change and, obviously, had a lot of questions about why and what and how.
But it was different for Ellis. In her mind, that’s the way he was. She, of course, couldn’t remember when she first noticed it, but she knew he had had it since the day she was born.
At first, it was a standard variation between her parents. Everyone looked different and sounded different and said different things. Mommy was the one she would ask for anything outside that involved lots of moving about and Daddy was the one who loved to play inside. He liked to just sit and make her stuffed animals talk or draw with her. That’s how complex it got for her. Derek normally rejected the idea of playing outside and Meredith always asked her to go and ask if her father wanted to play when she requested something to do with stuffed animals. So she learnt how it worked rather quickly. The only confusing thing was seeing other dads do both of those things. But she didn’t mind really, she still got both sides of play.
She had no clue what a disability was. She had no idea that her dad had one. She had no idea that it was often considered a bad thing that people used to discrimination against him for.
He was just Dada. Dada who was always sat on this peculiar seat thing, that was kind of like a bicycle, but also nothing like a bicycle.
“Why?”
“Why am I like how I am or why did mom tell you to be quieter?” He asked, not wanting to provide an explanation only to find out that was not what she was asking for.
She shrugged passively. “One and two.”
“Well, mom probably just said that because-“ He paused, pondering for just a second as he tried to find a simple way to explain it to the girl. “-well, when you go outside, do you shout ‘brown hair!’ at every person you see with brown hair?”
She shook her head.
“So, it’s the same thing when it comes to this.” He continued, gesturing to his chair quickly.
“Right.” She said with one sharp, quick nod. That made sense and she made a mental note. “And the first of the one?”
He remembered explaining this one to Zola under the kitchen table when she built a den there and to Bailey in his bedroom when they had a shouting match about why he couldn’t go into the forest to collect the ball he had accidently kicked there. They both looked upset at the time. In fact, Bailey cried into his chest and Zola asked him whether that meant he would be sad forever. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation to have with either of them. But it was different now. “Well…a while ago, I was like Mom or Auntie Maggie and Amy or Zo or Bails or you.”
“When is while ago?”
“Just before you were born-” He answered before gulping. “-something happened to me that was quite bad.”
“What’s the something dat happened?”
“Uh- you know that me and mom are doctors. We help people when they are hurt or sick.” He started, feeling that starting with the accident itself wouldn’t make much sense to her.
She simply nodded to that, not able to come up with anything insightful to give as a reply.
“Well, when this thing happened, I had to go to the hospital because I was the hurt one. Not a doctor, a patient.” He continued, hoping the starter to his explanation would help her comprehend it all.
“Oh.” She breathed, eyebrows creasing with concern. “Why?”
“I was in a car crash. So I was driving my car. And this other guy was driving his car. Then he hit into me. And it hurt me. It…it hurt the part of me that I needed for walking. So I haven’t been able to do that since.” He explained slowly. Ellis was roughly the same age that Bailey was when the accident occurred, and it took him a very long time to get around the concept. Then again, she was in a completely different position. Until that moment, she didn't even know that he used to be able to walk.
“Why he hit you?” She asked, eyes welling with worried tears. She was so confused by that statement. Why in the world would anyone want to hurt her dad?
“He wasn’t very well baby. It was an accident. He didn’t mean to. He was sick and when you’re sick, you don’t really think very well, do you? You feel all icky and just want to be in bed, right?”
She nodded.
“He...he shouldn’t have been driving, because he was so ill, but he was. So then…the illness…it made him crash. And I…I was there, near him. So- Elle, my car was what he hit into.”
“And that hurt you? Being...hit?"
He nodded. "It hurt a lot of things, but mostly my legs. They don't really work anymore." He explained. That was another lie he told his kids when it first occurred. They had no idea what the spine was, so he just went with hurt legs to explain it. Of course, they had since asked for further explanations, which did include words like paraplegia.
Her eyebrows creased before she changed her whole posture to look at the mentioned body part. She poked his thigh through the blanket. “Dese…don’t…do much?”
“No. That’s why I need the chair. Because my legs don’t work. My hands do everything now."
“Was it big owies?”
“Yeah baby. It was…it was really bad.” He confessed tentatively. She didn’t want to scare his daughter in any way, but he really couldn’t lie and let her imagine something simple. Although, he supposed she couldn’t imagine something that simple, seeing as he was left with a permanent disability. Whether she viewed that as a massive thing or a tiny thing, he had no idea.
“And you hurts now?” She asked, a little confused.
He shook his head once. “No.”
“But the patents in the hospital are hurt and-“ She pointed to his chair again. “-you same.”
He couldn’t help the sigh. This was like the conversation he had with Bailey. Although Zola looked crushed, she understood pretty quickly by what he meant when he said the doctors didn’t think he was going to get better. She did shout at him and said that the doctors must be failing because they are supposed to be able to fix everyone but at least she could wrap her head around the idea. Bailey refused to even acknowledge the change even when Derek was literally sat there in his wheelchair, demanding he did what he used to for him. He couldn’t. He really, really wanted to. But he couldn’t.
“Normally, when you are hurt or sick, you get better, right? Like…remember when we went to watch Bailey at his football game and he fell over and he broke his wrist?”
She nodded. That was quite scary; she had no idea why everyone was panicking so much.
“Mom took Bailey to hospital and he got that red cast and a sling. Then, after a couple weeks, he went back to the hospital and they took it off for him because it was better.”
“No hurts anymore.” She summarized. She remembered poking Bailey’s arm and asking if it hurt. He had said no and she had smiled.
Derek smiled a little, glad she understood the concept. “Yeah. It didn’t hurt anymore.”
“But you said that you no hurts anymore!”
“The thing I hurt only hurts when I’m standing. Or walking. Or running.”
She placed the bag of marshmallows besides her and slid of the sofa, looking at her father. “Stand?” She questioned, gesturing to her feet.
“Yeah.” He agreed, sitting up a little again so he could look his now-standing daughter up and down.
“But dis is easy Dada.” She returned, alternating her weight between her right and left foot and making a – frankly adorable – little dance without a single thought, confused about how in the world standing would hurt.
“I know.” He sighed. "I know, baby, I used to find it really easy too. Before...before the accident."
“You can’t?”
“I can, but it really hurts.”
“So you do hurt?” She questioned, seriously confused now.
“One second.” He murmured as he shoved off the blanket on his legs and transferred over to the chair. He could feel El watching her a lot more intently than she had ever done before. He flicked the breaks off but didn’t move. “This-“ He gestured generally to his lower body and chair, “-is what I do instead of standing.”
“But that sit.” She pointed out.
“Yeah, you’re right. When you sit, you have to get up to move, right? But, when I sit-” He pushed himself backwards away from the sofa with one long, free push, “-I can move.” He stopped himself before he hit into anything, hands settling.
The girl’s mouth dropped open a little. A revelation!
He pushed himself back to the sofa. "And this is what I do instead of walking. Sit instead of standing. Sit instead of waking. Sit instead of running. Because you don't need to use your legs to sit.”
“Oh!” She exclaimed, an obvious reply, not one that dropped of her mouth subconsciously at the realization.
“This doesn’t hurt-” He concluded, gesturing to his chair again.
“-but the me things do?” She finished for him. "And dat why you has that. So no hurts."
“Mmm mmm.” He agreed, not sure whether to be proud or impressed that she had grasped the concept so easily.
It was another thing that was different from when he told Zola and Bailey. He didn’t want to be explaining it to them at the time. He hated the idea of his kids seeing him that way and the possibility of permanency he was creating in their minds because they wouldn’t stop asking him when he would be better and he really didn’t want to lie. Now it was simple. It was permanent and his eyes didn’t even wash with tears at the explanation, even with that serious, worried little brow of hers.
"But...but no pain...before?"
Derek sighed as he picked his phone up from the coffee table. He scrolled through his gallery, before pausing on a photo. "No. I used to walk fine."
She took the phone off of him the moment he held it out to her. He was right. Standing Dada. He looked like he was in some kind of forest. Meredith clearly took the photo just a millisecond after he noticed she had even pulled her phone on him.
"What time?" She asked, looking up from the phone.
"Uh- I think that was about two days before the accident." He answered. They took the day off, and went half-hiking, half-walking (or, for Meredith, half-collapsing, half-stumbling) around their land.
"You so different. Weird."
He smiled. It almost felt wrong to smile. But god, he did. According to everyone else in the world, he was weird now. He was different now. Than everyone else. Than who he used to be. Than, admittedly, sometimes, who he wanted to be. Despite that, it was okay. But he was normal to his youngest daughter the way he was in that very moment, sat in his chair. And that lit up fairy lights in his soul and made his eyes twinkle.
"It is quite weird, isn't it?"
She nodded, settling back on her seat on the sofa but not paying any attention to her previous focus: the so-called marshymeelows. Derek was sure she knew how to say marshmallows but it was just more fun that way, he supposed.
“Is it good?” She asked, that furrow appearing once again as she found herself staring at his chair again. She had never paid as much attention to it in the whole of her life, if she was earnest. She had no reason to. In her mind, it was simple. Her friend’s dad had blonde hair; her dad’s hair was black. He had green eyes; her dad had blue. He wasn’t in a wheelchair; her dad was. Sure, it was an awful lot more interesting to meet someone else like her dad in that aspect than when she saw someone else with black hair, as she had clearly demonstrated in the supermarket, but it was still just one of those things that made people look different from each other.
“I used to think it was bad.” He started, leaving space for the question he knew she would ask.
“Why?” That was what he was waiting for.
“Well, I liked walking. It was good.” He explained. That was an understatement. He didn’t always get upset about the very fact that he couldn’t walk but he wasn’t sure he could even count the number of times he had cried in just those first six months. Because he could hardly feel or move his legs. Because he fell in physio or even just because he found it exhausting, difficult, painful and frustrating. Because someone looked at him and told him something that made him feel like less than he used to be. Because his kids were too young to understand that some things they did and some things they said and some questions they asked hurt him. A lot. Because he found himself stuck and lost, staring at a thing he used to be able to do, knowing he would never manage it again. Because being bed-bound was painful to endure. Because telling his wife that Callie had stated simply that he wouldn’t walk again made her cry and her tears made some appear in his own eyes.
He didn’t like walking. He loved it. He struggled to cling onto the hope that he would manage that again but that certainly didn’t mean he didn’t look at that wheelchair with disgust and beg whoever was up there to find some way for him to get back on his feet.
He didn’t do that anymore. He didn’t cry anymore and he didn’t beg anymore. He stopped doing that a very long time ago. When he realized there was nothing to cry or beg over.
“Yeah. Walking good. But now the sitting good?” She asked, eyes still glued to his chair.
He grinned. “I learnt that I don’t have to walk to be happy. There are plenty of other things that make me smile.”
“Oh.” She breathed. “Wat make you happy?”
“There are lots of things that make me happy. Your mama. She makes me very happy. And Zo and Bailey, they make me super happy too. Auntie Amy, she makes me happy. My doctor friends from the hospital. And going to work and helping hurt and sick people, that makes me happy and…uh-“ He trailed off, eyes falling a bit too purposefully to her.
“And?” She pressed, wondering what was next.
“Well there is this little girl, I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen her before. She normally wears this green jumper because she is absolutely obsessed with the colour.” He started, keeping his lips straight as he watched his daughter giggle at that, perfectly aware that of who he was describing. The green jumper gave it away instantly; he was the one who helped her shuffle her hands through the sleeves about eleven hours prior. “She likes brown too but god, present her with something pink or purple and she is so quick to anger. But also so quick to laugh. Pensive. Smart. Stubborn like her mom. And once, when she talked about cutting down a tree in the garden, this little girl shouted. Very, very loudly.” He listed off, giving a heavy pondering sigh as if he really did have no idea who the person he was describing was.
“Dada, you know dat little girl is me!” Ellis exclaimed, grinning at her father.
“You?” He exclaimed; eyebrows raised high. The best way for his fake-confusion to work was to over-accent everything he said and everything he did. Plus, that way, she laughed even more than she would before. “Really?”
“Yeah!”
“No, no, I’m sure she’s not you.” He shook his head, pushing himself round the sofa a little. “Maybe if I look around a little.”
“No, Dada! She me!” She exclaimed, still giggling.
“Maybe she’s…”He picked up the blanket on the sofa quickly and dramatically, letting his face fall comedically rapidly for her entertainment. “Oh, no one hiding under the blanket then.”
“She me!”
“Maybe she’s in the TV!” He exclaimed, pushing himself to the television and falsely inspecting the CD drive. He kept his face neutral for a second before letting it fall again. “Oh man, she’s not in there.”
“Dada, I like green! And I the one who love trees!"
He pretended to not even hear her, pushing himself to the kitchen. “Maybe she’s in the fridge!” He suggested as he pulled it open. He sighed dramatically in defeat when all he was met with was the usual contents of the fridge.
“No!” She exclaimed, now finding it hard to breath from how much she was giggling.
“I’m gonna be in massive trouble if I lost her. Oh, mama is going to be so upset. She was really talking about how much she loved her and treasured her with the whole of her heart and now she’s poofed away. What am I going to do?” He pondered out loud as he returned to the sofa, a despondent frown in his face. “Or maybe.” He turned to look at her abruptly before letting his mouth drop open far too wide (still all for the effect).
She giggled even harder as her dad finally noticed her. He scooped the girl up in his arms and let her feet settle on his lap.
“Oh! There you are! I was looking for you everywhere!” He exclaimed, beaming as the little girl erupted into heavier laugher before he tugged her a little to envelope her into a warm, loving hug.
“Dada! You know I here the whole time!” She exclaimed, beaming at the hug.
“Really? The whole time?” He exclaimed as he relaxed his hands a little.
“Yes, really!”
“Oh man, I must have been really silly not to see you.”
She giggled at that. “I went poof!”
“You did go poof, didn’t you Ellie-Belle?” He exclaimed, pressing a kiss to her head as he chucked softly. “Do you know what else went poof?”
Her eyebrows dropped, confused. “What else went poof?”
“Your marshymeelows.” He whispered.
Her face dropped at those words. She turned around on his lap before slipping off, desperately searching for the bag of sweets under the pillows and in the blanket. “Where my marshymeelows?” She asked desperately as she turned back to him. Her panic-stricken eyes and wide, dropped jaw disappeared in a single second when she found the bag in her father’s hand.
He gladly let her pry the bag out of his hand as she looked at him with utter awe. “How you take with me not seeing? You are wizard!”
“Elle, shhh! Someone might hear you spilling my super-duper secrety secret!
She offered him her last two marshmallows. "Teach me magic. And I give marshymeelows."
"What kind of magic?"
"Fix hurted people." She answered simply. She had clearly thought about it before.
He smiled. Then hesitated. "Do...do you wanna fix me, baby?" He asked quietly, his thumb rubbing his knee subconsciously.
Her eyebrows creased and her hand clenched around the marshmallows. Clearly, the offer was no longer on the table. "Why? Is there something wrong wif you? What I need to fix?" She asked, genuinely confused.
Honestly, he resisted a tear at the questions. She was sat, looking right at him and his chair, confused about what was wrong with him. Who gave his daughter the right to be so freaking perfect? "Nevermind, Elle. There's nothing wrong with me."