The setting is a functional living space, bare-bones but lovingly furnished with pots of gardenias. There's a large bed in the center. We hear voices — some laughter, a woman complaining, a man soothing, explaining — and a couple emerges through a trap door. It's a bit of a struggle because the man is carrying the woman; we assume they're happy newlyweds and this is their across-the-threshold moment. But when the woman, at last perched safely on the bed, says she has to "wee" and the man efficiently whisks out a bedpan, we realize her legs are paralyzed. Furthermore, they're not in a regular house, but a treehouse constructed by the husband and his friends in what he intended as a loving and romantic gesture. For a woman whose movements are so profoundly constrained that it's hard to get around on solid ground, who's been longing for more comfortable and everyday signs of love like a proper wedding reception and a cake, and who is deeply nervous about her first sexual encounter, it is anything but. To add to her concerns, there's a... More >>>