I want to smile, but I hold back. If I smile, I’ll get happier. If I get too happy, I’ll lose control.

The woods thicken and the trail narrows. Monty falls behind, and I lead us onward, through the lush air the plants have exhaled. Here, tree trunks are a deep rich color I don’t have a name for, not quite brown, not quite gray, almost purple. Pine needles glisten black. I smell the mold working on the old growth, returning it to the earth. A dove coos.

Am I taking more time than the others did? Am I going deeper into the woods? I don’t care. I want to go as far as the trail and the horse can take me, to breathe this air and make it part of me. I want to know what these woods are like. A low branch reaches out to scrape my arm and pine needles tickle my skin.

Monty’s voice calls from behind, “We’d better head back.”

*   *   *

In the cabin, Peggy Jo looks up from the letter she’s writing. “Jean, you looked great on that horse.”

I grin.

“I loved being up there. I felt so independent.” Peggy Jo says.

“Me too.” I’m surprised she feels the same way. I turn to Sara. “I’m sorry you didn’t go rid-ing. It was great.”

She folds the letter she’s written. “Yeah, for you. You can really ride. But I can’t sit up on a saddle. Even if they could manage to get me up there without twisting me into complete quadhood, I just don’t see any need to bounce around on a hot smelly beast. Maybe it turns Dolly on, but different strokes for different folks, you know. For me, maybe independence comes from refusing to be put on the horse.”

“You don’t ride. You don’t swim. If you don’t like the ac-ti-vi-ties, why have you come to camp for eight years?”

“Mercy! If I had to like the activities, I’d have nowhere to go. All over the crippled world, the activities are weird. I come because my family needs a vacation from me. And I need to be with my people. The Crip Nation.”

I snort.

She puts the letter in an envelope and writes the return address: Mary Rodgers, c/o Camp Courage. Mary the eyebrow tapper. She addresses it to Miss Eva Jones at Butner.

“How did you know who to write?” I ask.

Sara whispers, “Took a peek at her file.”

“I have to write a thank-you letter to the man who paid my way to camp,” Yvonne moans. “I don’t know what to say!”

“Me neither!” Peggy Jo says.

“Aw, come on, people!” Sara says, “What’s the big deal? ‘Dear whoever—’”

“Senator McNeill,” Yvonne says.

“Oh, but of course, the Great Benefactor himself. ‘I am’—how old?”

“Sixteen.”

“Okay, ‘I am a sixteen-year-old with one leg amputated from—’”

“Lumberton.”