Instead, I brought the meeting back to order. I commented on the lateness of the hour and I reminded everyone that we had to move along. I prevented Linda from asking what she later gave me: how disabled does someone have to be to be credible for Barbara or the Carols? I heard Linda’s story the first time we met. I know she was in a car accident awhile back; she lost her mobility for six months. Does that count with Carol? Does a severe bout with cancer score enough points for Barbara? How hurt, for how long, does the expert have to be?

I watched Linda not go there tonight, and I know it was hard for her. But she wouldn’t have accomplished anything by challenging those bitter old women who sit in adipose puddles and complain no matter what that it isn’t good enough…

“Diagonal curb cuts are bad,” declared Carol J. “Because the drivers can’t tell which way the chair is going.” And I thought, “Give me a break. The driver knows as soon as the person gets the chair in the street. The driver has already slowed at that point.”

But Linda stayed calm. I watched her take it in and put it somewhere useful. I think that’s why she’s beautiful. She’s open, and she still wants to learn.

I can tell she aches to start her first project; I imagine being her, and I want to build. I understand she’s been close four times in the past three years, but this is the one most likely to break ground. The Commission should give her its wholehearted support.

I’ll admit it: I may be more critical of Carol J. because she brought up the elevator incident. I don’t know. I feel like I see into her thoughts (alternating complaints and boasts), and I despise the woman. “Listen up, everyone!” she announced in that civic-uncivil tone of hers, raising her fat left hand in its greasy velcroed brace. “Did you all hear what happened to poor Isabella here, in the elevator at old City Hall? She got stuck. Stuck for 40 minutes and she couldn’t reach those controls! You know what I mean.” And Carol B. nodded, grinning complacently.

Then all their sympathy surrounded me. I had to demur. I had to explain that the event occurred nearly two months ago, and I had to become the apologist for Public Works, assuring everyone that the control panel had already been replaced. I had to worry about Walter.

I haven’t even told Mom that he was in the elevator with me. I want to be farther along – in a way, my parents know my body better than I do myself – but still, I want it to be difficult to even consider terminating this pregnancy.

I don’t know if Walter’s imbalance will be passed on to the baby, but we can watch for that. Certainly my disability can’t be inherited. I have great medical care. I’ll have appropriate obstetrical attention. My baby won’t be butchered at birth.

What if? I occasionally wonder… what if my parents hadn’t gone like missionaries to Indonesia? They were: what? 26? Younger than I am now… babies! If I hadn’t been born there, my spinal cord might not have been wrecked, my mother might not have been so lacerated that they had to sterilize her. I might have had a life with feeling below my neck. I might have had siblings.

No, Bella. Can’t go there. That’s the place of mouth wrinkles and sad karma. Remember instead Walter in the elevator. Weird Walter off his meds and kind of violent, sexy. His handsome complicated face. His strong hands undeterred by wool cloak or plastic tubing. I can’t feel, but Walter in the elevator vibrated in a strange way that I could sense, like notes from an electric bass pounding up through the floor, through my chair, up my severed spine to dance in my head.

I couldn’t control the elevator and I certainly couldn’t control Weird Walter off his meds, but it wasn’t all bad. My face met urgency and strange strong love in those kisses. I watched him hold my hands.

I will have this baby. I will share her with my parents. Perhaps with Walter. Perhaps with Linda. But for now I will lie awake and listen in my body. To my soul swimming with a new spirit. I am restless, and I can’t toss or turn.