I lay there on the hot driveway with brisket sliding across the pavement and grease soaking into the front of my blouse, and I could not move my legs.
I do not mean they hurt too much to move. I mean I could not feel them. I could not feel my knees where they scraped, my feet inside my sandals, the heat of the concrete below my hips. Nothing existed below my waist except absence. I tried to wiggle my toes and got nothing. I tried again, harder, as though concentration alone could bridge whatever had just snapped inside me.
Nothing.
Terror is not a big enough word for what enters the body when half of it disappears in the middle of an ordinary afternoon.
I heard footsteps. I heard somebody gasp. I heard the music from the backyard continue because no one had thought to turn it off.
Leo came around the side of the grill at a walk. Not a run. A walk. He stopped two feet from where I was sprawled on the concrete, looked down at me, and the first thing out of his mouth was not, “Judith, are you okay?”
It was, “Seriously?”
Then: “Get up. Don’t do this right now.”
I looked at him, face pressed against the hot driveway, and said, “I can’t feel my legs.”
His expression did not change into concern. It changed into irritation. Like I had spilled red wine on a white shirt. Like I had chosen an inconvenient moment to become difficult. His eyes darted past me toward the backyard where people were starting to gather at the gate.
