Out of My Heart

Trinity, Melody’s personal counselor during her week at Green Glades, offers Melody a positive role model and friendship. Trinity wears a leg brace as the result of a car accident years before, but she assures Melody that her injury, although permanent, will never define her. In her bubbly personality, her easygoing way with the campers, and her sense of individual style, she shows Melody the joy of discovering who she is. She encourages Melody to use the week to tap into who she is and how she sees the world. In offering Melody the chance to swim, go boating, zipline, and ride a horse, Trinity dares Melody to define herself not by what she cannot do but what she can do.

In her years of being a counselor for a camp specializing in children with unique needs, Trinity has developed both the patience and the compassion the job requires. She helps Melody during her emotional adjustment to being at the camp and for the first time away from her family. She stays by Melody as Melody rises to the challenge of each activity. She liberates Melody’s creativity in art class when she encourages Melody to use paint to express her emotions. When Melody is in danger—when Melody disappears from camp with her friends or later when Melody’s horse bolts—Trinity reveals her concern for Melody. Trinity’s compassion and empathy stems comes from helping to support her own sister who also has cerebral palsy. Trinity becomes a transformational presence in Melody’s life, helping Melody to establish her own sense of identity.

From the moment Melody catches a glimpse of the boy with the shock of snow-white hair, she is transfixed in ways that she is not sure how to handle. When she first sees Noah, she thinks, “He had thick, tousled curls and almond-shaped eyes that reflected the firelight. He. Was. Cute” (116). Everything about Noah compels Melody—his eyes, his confident use of a walker, and his grubby T-shirts.

Over the next several days, Melody spends more time with Noah, and the two share experiences and confidences. Noah is polite, respectful, and quiet to the point of being shy. He tells Melody about his disability, how he was born prematurely, and for a critical moment, his heart did not pump enough blood into his legs. Now he moves with a walker but uses a wheelchair as well.

With Melody, Noah is tender-hearted and encouraging. During the balloon competition, he yells the loudest when Melody scores the 50-point goal. Melody notices he has the body of an athlete, his generous response to the fireflies all around the camp, his love of lots of different styles of music, and his eye for color all reveal his sensitivity and his creativity. When he asks Melody to dance the last night of camp, Noah gives Melody the feeling of independence and maturity that she needs to feel at last that she has changed. Comparing it to the euphoria when she ziplined, she feels now that she is flying on her own: “I spread my arms as wide as I could” (315). In this, Noah is one catalyst for Melody’s coming-of-age character arc.