Sid, the gold-haired woman and I approached a shore at the edge of Theodore Roosevelt Lake, a road winding up a nearby hill. The sun had completely set and we were the only people around for miles. Sid was the first to set foot on the ground, then I waded to the shore with my clothes held high above my head. As I dressed on the rocks, I realized that the woman hadn't left her innertube. When I asked her what was wrong, she didn't say a word. Sid put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "Help her, Eddie."

Twenty minutes later, we all sat on the shore with a fire just catching its proper spark. We used our boat as kindling, the dry planks first to warm the rest. Sid sat cross-legged for his meditation, I sat hugging my knees to keep the cold away, and the woman sat because it was all she could do. Her legs, still beautiful through therapy, were of no use. I was so sad for her, so sad to see her confined by her disability. I wanted someone like her, someone with such a sun-ray of a smile, to be able to wander beach heads and prop her leg up on bath tubs to shave in the morning. I wanted her to be able to dance.

Such were still the limits of my mind. She could dance. She did dance.

She looked at me across the fire, cocking her head at my sorry eyes, running her fingers through the avenues of her drying hair. She lifted herself up on her hands, walking on them to a smooth patch of ground past the rocks of the shore. There I saw her slide around, spin on her palms, greet the moon with an arched back and a deep breath. Before that moment I didn't understand grace. I'd heard the word in a thousand wrong places and so I never paid attention to it, but when it popped into my head that night I knew it had found its right home. I gazed at the legless dance and Sid said, "Help her, Eddie."

I put my arms under the woman's, lifting her level with my eyes. I swayed her with me, her feet dangling and her arms so animated. They traveled my back, my face, the air above us, shadows, stars. We twisted together like two shades of blue meeting at a middle hue, whatever dark becoming lighter, whatever lightness growing heavier, darker, fuller. We twisted without tension. We twisted toward the fire.

Sid watched us sway at the orange flames and he smiled. He stood and put his hands on our shoulders. He asked me to listen closely, to listen deep. He said, "Help her, Eddie." Over and over, in even intervals. I pressed my forehead to the woman's and tried to breathe in when she breathed out. I searched for the sensation of help, because all true things are as much a feeling as a thought, sometimes more so. Help. To help. To give help. To give.

I felt a pain rise in my left leg, but I didn't complain. I heard an Om travel from my core and blanket over the entire night. When silence came, my left leg was useless. It buckled like a wet noodle at the slightest weight, but I didn't fall. The gold-haired woman held me up on her one good leg. I supported her right, she my left, and Sid removed his hands.