The Cedarville Review 2020

52 | THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW Nonfiction 21:4 GRIFFIN MESSER He wraps my brother’s arms around his broad shoulders and takes his own around the heavy boy’s back. He tenses. With a harsh exhale, he quickly hoists the growing teenager from the snare that is an aging, blue couch that is becom- ing difficult to escape from. The boy’s stiffened legs bounce back to their comfortable angle like a spring that’s been bent sideways. The man staggers as his lift reaches its peak. His feet shift and his back arches. If not for his be- loved counterweight, he could not stay stand- ing. He pivots his body, with the boy in his arms naturally following. He methodically aligns the boy’s body with the chair that now sits before them. He lowers the boy’s body into the chair, but his stiff legs catch the footrest and tip the chair backwards, causing more work for the man and pain for the son. One grunts in frus- tration; one cries in pain. As the father finally lowers his son into his wheelchair, the tension between the two is clear. One still winces from lingering pain in his deformed legs; the other works to bury his rapid frustration out of love for his son. Far from his fragile self-control and over- whelmed with the rage of minor loss, my broth- er had hit my mother as she corrected him. He