After Dave left Jaci got back on her crutches and started going back and forth across the room.   She kept putting less weight on the crutches and more on her right leg.  Just after 7:30 she made one step without putting any weight on the crutches.  She looked around to be sure nobody noticed.  Sandra was looking and Jaci knew she was aware of what she had just done.  She put her finger to her lips as if to say, “keep quiet.”  Sandra nodded and smiled.  She continued to walk with the crutches.  They were still there to steady her if anything went wrong but she was taking steps on her own legs.  She made several more steps, each one felt better and steadier.  She was afraid to stop.  She might not be able to do it again.  About ten minutes of eight she was tired enough that she knew she could not continue.  She crutched back to her bed and got in.  Within ten minutes she was fast asleep.  She woke about ten thirty.  She had to go to the bathroom.  Since the first day she had steadfastly refused to go on the bedpan.  She got her crutches.  On the way back she heard Judi crying and stopped at her bed. 

“What’s up Judi?”

“I can’t stand this.  I just want to die.  I had sexy legs, perfect legs, better than mom’s, like her sister Trudy, now I have a leg and a quarter.  I’m nothing more than a cripple.  Guys used to look at my legs, now they’ll just turn in disgust.”

“But they’ll give you a leg that looks real, maybe more perfect than the one you had.  And let’s face it the one you have left is nice.  Mine are too skinny, I mean, my leg is too skinny.”  She got a far look in her eye, “I guess they can make my new leg match, I wonder if it will look skinny too?  I guess it wouldn’t look right unless they did.”

“Don’t jerk me around, even if that leg looks good I’ll never really be able to walk on it.  I’ll never learn, it’s hard enough to walk between the bars, it feels like have pressure on the front of my leg, real hard when I put any weight on that thing.”