The Ryan Heise Collection

Today’s good cry

1. A man waits anxiously on the train platform. His off-white oxford shirt is wrinkled around the belt line from a rigorous day of sitting at a desk. He checks his watch, peers back at the elevator doors, then down at the platform again. He rocks on his heels. He fiddles with this leather messenger bag. He is nervous. I am standing next to him. He is making me nervous.

2. A young girl in a powered wheelchair daintily weaves through a forest of legs and waists and stomachs, careful not to bump any thighs or squash any toes. She doesn’t need to say excuse me; gliding through the crowd seems natural to her, like she’s done it her whole life. Sadly, this is probably true. She’s 12. Maybe in her early teens. It’s hard to tell. Cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy or some other disease that no deserves to have hides her age. But her poise as she jukes through a throng of lazy commuters portrays a surprisingly organic sense of maturity.

3. The familiar whirring of her electric motor — of her — comes within earshot of the man. He turns away from the elevator and the two lock eyes and smile. Of course she would come from the other end just to give me a heart attack. He doesn’t move. She comes to him, and when she rolls up to his feet, he reaches down and wraps his arms around her shoulders. Onlookers wince, worried he might snap something, but this pressure is a learned pressure: gentle enough to be safe, but firm enough to display an outpouring of love. He knows it well. He is her father, after all.

4. They say nothing. Just smile. He kneels at the side of her chair and digs into a bag strapped to the side. He pulls out a thin black folio, opens it, pecks away at its internals briefly, then folds it over itself and places it on the tray in front of his daughter. With great determination, she forces her right hand from the joystick of her chair to the screen in front of her. With three careful presses, her voice springs to life.

“Hi Dad.”