One Mountain Away Read Online Free Page B

months. I have to let go. I’m not going to hold her back from anything if I don’t have to.”
    Three months without a major seizure was a new record, and Ethan, like his daughter, was cautiously hopeful. Several times a day Maddie experienced swirls of light or odd sensations in her stomach. These were manifestations of simple partial seizures, but she didn’t lose consciousness, and usually only those who knew her well could tell anything out of the ordinary had just occurred.
    While children born prematurely suffered from epilepsy more often than full-term children, there were no easy answers as to why Maddie was one of them. Her seizures had begun at age three. From that point on she had experienced frequent complex partial seizures, classified as such because she lost awareness of the world around her, and sometimes experienced spasms, which caused her body to jerk uncontrollably.
    Maddie’s neurologist was a cautious older man, long experienced in managing epilepsy. Right from the beginning he had taken time with Taylor, questioning her carefully and listening to her answers. Although he was a highly trained specialist, in personality he was more the legendary family doctor who was never too busy to take a phone call. Three months ago he had placed Maddie on a different drug regimen to manage her seizures, which had become more frequent and severe, carefully adjusting and weaning her off prior medications. Taylor was confident her daughter was in the best of hands, and confident that the new treatment would finally give her daughter a better life.
    So far, she seemed to be right.
    “She had a good time today,” Ethan said. “And the exercise was good for her.”
    “Next week, if all’s well, I’m going to let her ride her bike to the park.” Taylor must have seen the question in his eyes, because she added, “She needs to believe she can conquer the world, and the only way to make sure of that is to let her try.”
    He knew better than to protest. Maddie wore a helmet when she rode her bike, required by the state of North Carolina for children, anyway. If she had a seizure and fell, she would be like a million other kids who tumbled off bikes to the sidewalk. She would climb back on as soon as she could and pedal away.
    “I appreciate you staying with her tonight,” she went on. “She has a lot of homework, so she’ll be better off here. They give them so much these days. She has to write a poem about spring, read a chapter in her social studies textbook and look up something she finds interesting on the internet to get more information. Plus they’re already doing geometry, if you can believe it, and she has worksheets.”
    “I remember how much you loved geometry.”
    “That’s funny, I don’t.” She smiled conspiratorially, because Taylor’s disdain of math was legendary. Ethan had always been the go-to parent when it came to the subject. Charlotte had never…
    He cut that off as quickly as the thought occurred to him. Not thinking about Taylor’s mother was one of the things he did best.
    Taylor flipped the burgers, before she crooked her neck to see if she could spot her daughter, or at least her shadow in the kitchen behind them. “I wonder what’s taking Maddie so long.”
    “She probably had to hit the little ladies’ room first,” Ethan said. “I’ll go check on her. I can grab the lemonade.”
    “Great, I’ll set the table.”
    Ethan let himself in through the screen door and called to Maddie, but there was no answer. No salad adorned the counter, nor lemonade, so he figured his guess had been right. He took out both, the salad a glistening medley of leafy greens and finely chopped vegetables, the lemonade with lemon slices floating on top inside a cut-glass pitcher. Taylor liked to make dinner a special occasion when he shared it with them. She thought, incorrectly, that her father didn’t eat well enough when he was alone, and he didn’t put much energy into convincing her