On Her Feet

By Ashley Cheney LuWanda M. Cheney

When she was 14, Ashley jumped off a roof, thinking it would be fun, and suffered a permanent spinal cord injury. Her doctors tell her she will never walk again; her mother tells her to get out of bed and on her feet. On Her Feet is the true story of her mother's contagious positive attitude and Ashley's courageous battl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bronze Goose Books
• Release date: May 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9780978800086

Book preview

My name is Ashley. This is a story about being tough when bad stuff happens. I was fourteen when a really bad thing happened to me. It wa s the worst!

I can’t tell the story by myself because I was drugged up and asleep most of the time, so my mom is helping me tell it. She was there the whole time. Besides, she knows a lot more words than I do, especially the big ones.

And she’s the only one who knows why she betrayed Charlie. She says she didn’t do it on purpose. She says she didn’t mean for things to happen the way they did. Yeah, right. Like that matters.

What happened was:

I’m Ashley’s mother. I’m here to help Ashley tell her story— the true story of how she learned things the hard way, and how she showed strength and courage in the face of nearly impos sible odds.

April 9, 2013

It was a little after six when the whistling teapot called me into the kitchen. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table looking out at the pond and the trees beyond. Now dark silhouettes, their naked branches reaching towards the sky, they looked like delicate black construction paper cutouts pasted against the rosy glow of the setting sun.

Ashley and her friend, Shay, traipsed around the pond with Charlie, our black and white Terrier. Ashley was fourteen— a bundle of energy, a redhead with faint freckles sprinkled across her nose. In her new pea coat, skinny jeans, and bright colored sneakers, she was very much in style— style that had prompted one of her teachers to call her Miss Fashionista.

Ashley was singing, and then she giggled. Once the giggles started, they tumbled out unrestrained, one right after the other and floated across the pond, tickling my ears, and making me smile.

I watched the girls until they headed back to the house. The sun, low in the sky, was behind them, and had given Shay’s brown skin a burnished glow, and Ashley’s hair a fiery tinge.

The girls burst into the kitchen. What’s for dinner? they wanted to know.

How about spaghetti and meatballs?

Yeah, they said in unison.

Say ‘yes,’ I said. " ‘Yeah’ sounds like a mongrel dog trying

to talk."

Ashley looked at Shay as if to say, See what I put up with. Yes, mother, she said with exaggerated politeness.

I sighed. I was too old to raise a child, most certainly too old to raise a teenager, especially alone. Having already raised six children and making more than a few mistakes along the way, I ought to have been sitting in my rocking chair, knitting. But I have always taken on more than I should. I like it that way. So, six years earlier, when I learned that there was a desperate need for foster parents, I accepted the challenge. Now seventy-three, my back ached, my feet hurt, and my memory beat me at every turn. But I still had good old-fashioned common sense. So, there I was, doing the best I could.

Clean up your room before dinner, I said.

Ain’t got time for that, Ashley said.

Ain’t isn’t a word.

It’s a song, Shay explained. "Ashley always uses

correct grammar."

Uh huh, I said, and let it go at that.

The girls ran upstairs to Ashley’s room. Ain’t got time for that, Ashley said again and burst into giggles. These days Ashley giggled a lot. It hadn’t always been that way.

There was loud music coming from Ashley’s room. I could picture the girls upstairs, lounging on the floor in the flashing light of Ashley’s multicolored disco ball, as it bounced off the ceiling and spun around the room.

Spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove, filling the air with the pungent scent of garlic and fresh basil. I mixed hamburger, breadcrumbs, minced onion, an egg, oregano, salt and pepper, shaped it into meatballs, arranged them on a pan, and slid them under the broiler.

It was a perfectly ordinary day. I was totally unprepared for what happened next.

Suddenly, Shay burst through the sunroom door into the kitchen. Odd, I thought. I saw the girls go upstairs. I heard them in Ashley’s room, singing. When did Shay go outside?

Shay fidgeted with her hair. Her eyes flitted from side to side as if she was afraid to look me directly in the eye. Her mouth was moving like she was trying to talk. Finally, she stammered, Ashley fell down in the flower bed and she can’t move.

I rushed into the sunroom and looked out the window. Ashley was lying on her back amongst plants just beginning to turn green after a long winter’s sleep. She looked comfortable, as if she had decided to lie down and rest awhile. Her long hair was spread out on the ground, flowing off to the side, like it had been arranged for a photo shoot. She wasn’t crying. There was no blood, no sign of injury. Her right foot moved two inches to the right.

My brain back-pedaled. I was thinking, I saw the girls go upstairs. How did they get outside without me seeing them?

She can’t move, Shay said again.

I sighed and shook my head. Not again. Since Ashley had come to live with me at age eight, she had thrown herself on the ground a dozen times and claimed not to be able to move. She did it to get attention, and I felt bad for her and all she had gone through, but I wanted her to find a new way to get attention— good behavior, good grades, that kind of thing. She can move, I said. I saw her foot move.

I knocked on the window. Ashley, I hollered. Get up. This is ridiculous. You are not two years old. I was not in the mood for teenage drama.

Shay turned and went back outside.

I took the meatballs out of the oven and added them to the spaghetti sauce. I minced garlic and sautéed it in butter, then sliced French bread, spread it with the garlic butter, sprinkled it with grated parmesan cheese and slid it into the oven. Dinner’s almost ready, I yelled through the window.

Shay came in but Ashley did not. Shay paced nervously. She started to say something but apparently thought better of it. Finally, she stopped pacing. Ashley really can’t move, she said, You should call the doctor.

I saw her foot move. She’s not hurt. She does this all the time to get attention. It’s getting dark. She’ll come in soon. She’s afraid of the dark.

Ashley. . . we. . . if you knew. . . she stammered, If you knew what we did you wouldn’t let me come here anymore.

And in that instant, I knew why I had not seen the girls go outside. My heart tumbled and fell so fast that I stumbled, lost my balance, and had to grab hold the door frame to keep from falling.

Ashley had jumped off the roof.

My friend Shay had come over to hang out. Since it was a nice day, we had gone outside and walked around the pond looking at the fish. We have a zillion. Some are called goldfish but they’re not all gold. They’re all colors— orange, black, silver or orange and white and black. Some are called koi— those ones have whiskers. Mom says they can live fifty years. We have fat bull frogs that sing really loud, and we have crayfish that look like tin y lobsters.

We were taking pictures and playing with my dog, Charlie, when the sun started to drop down. It was getting cold, and we were hungry, so we headed back to the house and went around behind the sunroom into my mom’s flower bed.

Most of the flowers were dead. Winter killed them. Mom says they’ll come back alive when it gets warmer. Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen. Anyway, I wanted to show Shay my mom’s frog that’s carved out of rock.

We stood for a while, looking up at the roof. I pointed up at my bedroom window, which looks out onto the sunroom roof. Somehow, we got to talking about how fun it would be to jump off the roof. The lower edge was about twelve feet from the ground— a lot lower than the main roof. It didn’t seem too high.

We went upstairs to my room. I turned on the disco ball and watched the colors bounce around the room. We were listening to music. But after while we got bored, so we turned up the music, opened the window, and crawled out onto the sunroom roof, quiet as could be so my mom wouldn’t hear us. I knew that if she knew what we were doing, I would get put on restriction for a long time.

We sat there for a few minutes, listening to the music, with our legs hanging over the edge of the roof. We talked about jumping off the roof, but I was scared, and then we talked about jumping together but I was still too scared to do it. Finally, I said, If you jump, I will.

Shay wasn’t scared, so she jumped. She hit the ground, rolled over, then jumped up, limping a little, like she was hurt. Are you okay? I yelled. Are you okay?

Shay stopped limping. And then she started laughing. Just kidding, she said. I’m okay. I’m fine. That was awesome. Now you jump.

I was thinking, Jumping from so high will feel like flying. It will be cool to fly. And it’s not that high. Shay didn’t get hurt when she jumped, so I will be fine. I’m going to jump.

I jumped.

BAM! I hit the ground. I landed hard on my butt on a flat rock in the path, and then fell backwards. I felt a sharp pain in my back. It hurt. A lot. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe right.

Shay, I said, Go tell my mom I can’t move.

And Shay ran into the house to get my mom.

I was lying on the cold hard ground, and even in my new peacoat my whole body was icy cold. I wished Mom would hurry up and come and help me. I knew she would know what to do. She knows everything.

Then Shay came back and said, Your mom doesn’t believe that you can’t move. Try to get up.

I can’t, I said. It hurts when I try to move. And my butt is asleep. I can’t feel my butt. I can’t feel my legs, either.

I couldn’t understand why Mom didn’t come to help me. She was always there. I was wondering, What’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she helping me? Is she crazy? Why doesn’t she believe that I can’t move? I said, Shay, did you tell my mom what we did? Shay shook her head. Go tell her we jumped off the roof.

Shay went back inside, then Mom came out. I was so glad she was there. I thought she would help me get up, or maybe even pick me up and carry me inside but she didn’t even try to help me get up. She just asked, Did you jump off the roof?

I was thinking, Mom is going to ground me for probably a year. But she always says I’ll get in more trouble if I lie, so I said, Yeah.

Can you wiggle your toes?

No.

You’re okay, she said. You’ll be all right. Then she said, Don’t try to move. I’ll be right back. Don’t move. And then she walked away.

I tried to yell, Come back and help me but the words came out in a quiet little voice I didn’t recognize.

Mom went inside and came back with the satin blanket she keeps at the foot of her bed. She folded the blanket in half so it would be nice and warm and covered me up. I wasn’t cold anymore. But I wasn’t warm either. I couldn’t feel anything.

Mom just left me there lying on the ground in the flower bed. I couldn’t move.

I looked up. I could see the roof. From the ground it looked a lot higher. I was thinking, I wish I had never gone out on the roof. It was stupid. I don’t know how long I was there lying there. It seemed like a long time. I was thinking, Why isn’t my mom helping me?

I rushed outside. Ashley was still lying on the ground where I had first seen her through the window. Did you jump off the roof ? I asked.

Yeah, she said. This time I did not correct her grammar.

"Can you move your toes?

I can’t move anything, she said. She wasn’t crying. Her chest was rising and falling normally. There was no sign of injury. There was no sign of cuts or broken bones, but I had to assume a possible back injury. Now the first responder to a possibly critical injury, I knew this could be bad. I sprang into action. Keep calm, I told myself, remember your first aid classes. I’ll be right back, I said.

I raced into the house, called 911, and yanked a blanket off the foot of my bed Damn! Damn! Damn it! I screamed. What were they thinking? In my wildest imagination I can’t imagine how anybody would come up with the idea to jump off a damn roof.

I ran back outside and covered Ashley with the blanket. She seemed so small, lying there motionless. Helpless Her face had paled. Her forehead was wrinkled, her faced pinched. You’re okay, I said. It’s going to be all right. Don’t move. A siren, off in the distance, was coming closer and closer. The ambulance is almost here, I said. I hear it coming now.

But it wasn’t the ambulance. A squad car came flying down the road and made a hasty turn into the driveway, blue lights whirling, raucous siren howling, Whroo whroo wrhoo.

Disappointed to see a police car and not the ambulance, I wondered, What is taking them so long? At the same time, I wondered, Do we really need an ambulance? I hoped that any minute now Ashley would jump up and say, I’m all right, Mom. I was thinking, I really hope she is back to her old tricks, exaggerating every little boo boo, like she did when she was little. Still, she did jump off the roof and she did fall ten, eleven, maybe twelve feet. But I saw her foot move when I first looked out the window, and now she says she can’t move. How is that possible?

A police officer got out of the car and came towards us.

I didn’t call the police, I explained. We need an ambulance.

They’re coming. I’m here to secure the scene, he said.

I thought, Secure the scene? How odd. That doesn’t make sense to me. No crime has been committed.

What’s going on? the officer demanded to know.

The girls were fooling around and jumped off the roof. I pointed towards Ashley. She says she can’t move.

The officer’s experienced eyes looked at Ashley, then at the roof, at me and back to Ashley. Ashley lay still amongst the dried clumps of herbs and perennials that ought to have cushioned the landing but there were good sized slabs of slate forming a path, and now I noticed for the first time that the concrete birdbath was tipped over. I wondered, Did she hit the birdbath as she fell?

I paced back and forth, peering down the road, reassuring Ashley, You’re all right, I said. You’re going to be fine.

The officer stood nearby, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. We need an ambulance, I told him. Where are they?

The officer took out his cell phone, mumbled something into it, then turned to me. They’re on the way, he said as he walked over to where Ashley lay. Don’t move, he told her.

I shivered, feeling suddenly cold. I hoped Ashley was warm enough. I knelt next to her. Are you cold? I asked.

I don’t know, she said. I can’t feel anything, Mom.

I had to turn away.

The police radio was squawking, and the ambulance siren wailing as it came closer and closer, and then it came down our road, red and white lights flashing, chasing each other back and forth across the top of the ambulance.

The impudent sound of the siren on our usually quiet street disturbed Charlie. He ran recklessly into the road, barking, trying to keep the big, loud thing from coming closer. I ran after him, yelling, Charlie! Charlie! Come. Ignoring me, he planted his feet and refused to move.

He stood in the middle of the road and growled at the oncoming ambulance. I grabbed him by the collar and put him in the house. He jumped up into the bay window in the living room, looked out and protested loudly, barking furiously, and growling at the noisy ambulance and the strangers in our yard.

Now Shay was in the driveway, screaming into her cell phone, her voice loud and shrill, adding to the commotion. She was crying hysterically into the phone, running words together, trying to explain the chaos but making no sense.

Worried that the turmoil would frighten Ashley when she needed to stay calm, I said in my strictest do-as-I-say voice, Shay! Stop it! You need to calm down so you can tell the paramedics what happened. Take a deep breath.

Shay stopped crying and took deep gulps of air.

And tell your mother to come and get you, I said. I’m going to the hospital.

The ambulance screeched to a halt. Two paramedics got out and came around to the back of the ambulance, opened the doors and took out a wheeled stretcher. While one adjusted it, the other came towards us. I swallowed hard and forced myself to remain calm. She’s over here, I yelled, wondering why he wasn’t running. It seemed as if he was moving way too slow, like a snail making its way through thick molasses.

As I stood watching the surreal scene before me, I felt dizzy and light-headed, like I might faint. I could not make myself believe that there was a tragedy unfolding in my flower bed. Ashley hadn’t cried out, hadn’t even moaned