Rose Has a New Walker

We buy it online. She got her old one, standard issue gray aluminum, at the hospital after she fell at Susie's house last summer. It's a man's walker, and she holds her elbows out like bent wings when she grasps the handles. It's too wide for her. I toss out the question one day, if you had a new walker what color would you choose. Blue, she says, just like that. I order blue. When it comes, we connect the hand brakes, attach the basket and the seat, pull the plastic off the wheels. Can I return it, Rose says. Absolutely not, I tell her. It's from the Internet. She feels better knowing there's no choice. But it's always good to try again. Maybe I won't need it. I ride the exercise bike now. And in Chi Gong class I stand up longer. Before I did the exercises from the chair. Anyway, it's not blue. I think it's black. So for that we'll return it? It's navy. Under the lamp we compromise on navy black. I tell her to try the seat. But always remember To press the hand brakes when you sit down. It's like the brakes on a bike. She doesn't get it. She never rode a bike, she says, she roller skated everywhere, to the botanical conservatory, to the library. She tightened the skates with a key she wore around her neck. When they broke, and that was often, her father would fix them, a tragedy you kids never met him. I ask Rose to push the walker in the hall. She can't help smiling; stately, royal she glides like the King's barge down the Thames. The waters part before her; I hear Handel's music. It's nice, she says. But what should I do with the old one. A shame to waste it. It'll be a spare, I say. Maybe we'll take it in the car when we go out. Remember when Daddy taught me how to ride, I say. Running beside me, his hand on the fender and then letting go. Of course I remember, she says, he taught all of you. And then I was free to pedal around the block, up to the drug store, turn right, turn right again, over and over, centrifugally pulled by the gravity of home.