The Next Generation Chapter 4
| The Next Generation | |
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| Chapter 4 of 19 | |
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| Time frame | May, 1983 |
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Summary
Don managed to get the story of Judy's saving Chet's life on the front page of the Geneva Daily Post-Gazette, complete with a picture of Judy and the corn planter and Candybar. As expected, when Ken and his mother had taken Judy home the night of the accident, Irene almost had a heart attack; Irene was pleased at how Judy had been heroic, but was dismayed that she had been riding Candybar. Norman's reaction made what Irene had said irrelevant; he took Judith in his arms and said, "I knew I had a special girl. It all worked out for the best."
A few days later, when Ken and Judy go by her house after school, on the way to Geneva to see Chet and then go on to the Y for her physical therapy, Irene gets overprotective of her, as usual. When she orders Judy "Well, stay off that horse,", Judy stiffens and, showing some independence, fights back against her mother's protectiveness.
They visit Chet in the Geneva hospital, and after he tells Judy how grateful he is for what she had done, he tells Ken that Judy is really OK, unlike Ken's Uncle Ed (who had lost an arm and a leg in Korea and had been bitter ever since, dying in a veteran's hospital).
At the Y, Ken watches Judy do her exercises on the weight machines, noting that while her lower legs were severely withered, she was working her upper body as hard as the lower body, and that she had a great deal of upper body strength. She told him "If you had to use your arms for as much as I have to," she told him, "You'd want them strong." When they got done with the weights, they went in the pool, where Ken, who had never swam in school, quickly fell behind Judy, who had been swimming for a long time as part of her rehab program.
When Ken, exhausted, gets out of the pool, Judy shows him the extent of her injuries, and what she can do and what she can't do. He asks, "Is there any chance you can ever really walk again?" She says that she keeps trying, but that she doubts it. He replies, "I've been watching you tonight. All I can say is that if determination is what it takes, then you've got all you need."
