Peggy Jo, the white walkie-talkie, is talking to Denise, the black epileptic. “Do you like this necklace? I’ll trade for your book.”

They are still making deals. I’m happy with the new Camp Courage T-shirt I won and lie back on the bed. Yvonne, the one-leg amputee, plops down in Sara’s wheelchair, and they start a conversation. I’m mildly curious to know what they’re saying. There are many things I’d like to know. What causes Denise’s seizures? What’s wrong with the white walkie-talkie? But I’m too tired to ask. I curl up and fall asleep even before lights-out.

Day Three

Day Three

The unexpected appearance of an ordinary object may bring to consciousness what was previously so familiar as to be unperceived.

As dawn comes, I am half awake and half asleep. Through the screened wall at my feet, I half see the sun rising.

On a distant ridge, pines stand in black silhouette against a pink and purple sky. It rained during the night. Thick clouds still hover over the horizon. As the sun moves up, silver beams penetrate the clouds to spotlight select trunks and boughs nearby, isolating them in dramatic contrast with the deep shade that hangs velvet-curtain-soft in the background. Pine needles touch the screens, and on them raindrop sequins sparkle. Every illuminated thing becomes magical and precious.

I am jolted into the kind of awareness that usually comes in dreams, an awareness of everything at once, everything so powerfully real that it seems impossible. I’m as awake as I’ve ever been in my life. I feel the light go through my eyeballs into my bloodstream. It warms the marrow of my bones.

My eyes move. Under the overhanging roof, the cabin’s interior is illuminated by a muted, filtered glow. In that moment, I imagine that the light comes from inside me; it seems to be my own glow that blankets the sleeping forms around me. In seven uniform cots, those seven sleeping forms lie, each with its unique shape and size and position. If I want, I can, in an instant, call them all to life. I can, but I won’t. Better to watch them sleep. As I watch them lying oblivious to my watching, they lose their distinctness. They become part of me. It is almost more than I can bear. I close my eyes.

The feeling has come without warning. It always does. And whenever it comes, it brings back the memory of the first time. The time I saw the termites. I lie still and let the memory overtake me.

It was early in my walking period. Cindy and I were playing in our backyard. “Girls, it looks like rain!” Mom called from the kitchen. Cindy raced inside. I turned around, my walker and braces clattering.