A Cry in the Park - A Bob's Burgers fanfic - by BobsBurgersStories1

A Cry in the Park - Part 24

Louise soon understood why Dr Anderson only wanted her to do half-days at school; four hours of school, plus an hour of physical therapy, and she was absolutely exhausted. Bob and Linda had become accustomed to taking her to her room when she arrived home because she would inevitably fall asleep.

Things had gone back to normal, and only very little had changed; Louise would now spend a while in the bathroom every morning, cleaning her stumps. She had learned her lesson, although she still hated looking at them so much.

She now had her night light on every night, whereas before she didn't really need it all the time.

Sometimes, she would forget that she had had amputations, and fall in the middle of the night when she got up for the bathroom, and she still slept every afternoon after physical therapy. She'd gotten used to crawling to the bathroom.

It was easy to forget that she had no toes, and sometimes she would go to wriggle or stretch them, only for nothing to happen. However, Louise swore that she could sometimes feel them; occasionally, she would get an itch, and she would bend down, only to scratch thin air. It was weird.

She needed her seat ring whenever she sat down. Mealtimes and school were easy, as she just stayed in her wheelchair, but she needed to remember to put it on the sofa, before she transferred.

Bob and Linda couldn't believe how unaffected by it all Louise appeared to be. She seemed unconcerned with the customers talking to her, and being back at school in her wheelchair. But they knew that it was bothering her more than she let on.

   "Come on, kids, time to get up!" Linda called as she prepared breakfast, and Bob sat at the table reading the newspaper.

   "Did you.. hear anything last night?" Bob asked delicately, as Linda cracked eggs.

   "Hear what? I didn't hear nothing."

   "I think Louise has been having bad dreams." Bob had gotten up the night before to use the bathroom, and on his way back, he had checked on the kids. Tina was thrashing, Gene was farting, but Louise was whimpering. He'd gone over to her, but she had stopped soon after, so he went back to bed.

   "Okay, shall we talk to her?"

   "I don't think it'll do much good," said Bob honestly. Louise had been moody and tetchy ever since she had arrived home from hospital. It was just like when she had her accident (although 'accident' was a nice way of putting it), and Louise had been bad-tempered after that hospital stay, too. But, she was only four, and was dealing with a lot, so the parents had decided to let it go.

   "Well, what about therapy?"

   "You know she won't talk about it."

   "Yeah, you're right," Linda shrugged, and went to wake her children up.

Tina was already up, writing her erotic friend fiction, but Gene was fast asleep. "Up you get, my little Genie," she cooed, opening the curtains, and pulling his blanket down.

   "Mother, I'll have you know that I was in the middle of a very interesting dream about a house made of cheese! Now I'm hungry for cheese," Gene stretched and made his way into the kitchen.

Louise was just getting up when Linda checked on her, and she saw that her daughter was wearing socks, one of them stretched over her ankle cast. Linda wasn't sure whether Louise was supposed to be wearing them, but as the doctor hadn't said anything about it, she kept quiet. That was another thing that had changed; Louise never went barefoot any more, not even to bed.