by Lynn, Davida
Clay squeezed my shoulder. “I mean, there’s the chance you make a full recovery and come back to Engine 37. I don’t want to give you false hope, though. I talked to your physician, and he gave it to me pretty straight.”
“Then you owe me the same courtesy.”
“You’re right. I do. He gives you ten-to-one odds on a full recovery. He is confident he can get you out of here on your feet. Might need a cane for over a year, but he can get you walking. He doesn’t think you’ll run, climb, or carry much weight. You’ll be susceptible to some bad shit later in life like osteoporosis and easy return breaks. I’m sure you’ve heard this more times than you want to, but you are lucky, Rico.”
I nodded, but my mind was elsewhere. It was hard to feel lucky when you had a tube shoved inside you and a bedpan that you couldn’t get to in time. It was hard to feel lucky when the thing that made you proudest in the world shattered before your eyes. A cane? I’d walk with a cane at twenty-three years old?
The lump was returning to my throat, and I wasn’t going to be able to keep myself together much longer. “Clay, I think I’m done with visiting hours for today. These meds…” It was a flimsy excuse, but I didn’t care. “These meds got me all kinds of fucked up. I might not even remember this in the morning.”
He got the hint. “Sure, sure. You need your rest. I’ll be back later in the week.”
I acknowledged him, but only just. “Sounds good. Mind closing the door on the way out?”
“Of course, Rico. I’ll see you later, brother.”
I stared into space as white-hot anger rose inside me. “Sure, brother.” The word was poison to me. I heard the door latch closed and I held my breath. My right fist was clenched tight, and I could feel the pain as my left hand tried to do the same.
After a ten-count, I knew Clay would be out of earshot. I let out a scream into my pillow that left me feeling ragged and exhausted, but at least I didn’t need to cry anymore.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been thinking about Ricardo. His story had made the Detroit news, and probably national too. They were calling him a hero, a shining example of the bravery of the fire department—Detroit’s in particular. It was great publicity, even if the media dragged his story into the spotlight when I’m sure his family wanted some peace.
I checked in with the doctor who was monitoring Ricardo’s progress. Dr. Jolie was doing his best to keep Ricardo’s family away from the media. He wasn’t answering any of their questions, not that he could. They cared more about the story than about the patient, himself. Most of the time I just shook my head, but it was hard to ignore.
The nurse had been right to bring Ricardo’s case to me. I read over his files a few nights in a row, just trying to decide where I’d start. He had so much work to do, and every exercise had to complement all the others or the whole thing would tumble like dominos.
After a week, I only had the skeleton of a plan. Usually I didn’t meet my patients until after they were released from the ICU, but with such an extensive road ahead of us, I needed to sit down with Ricardo and at least introduce myself. If I could get a feel for him, I might be able to tailor a plan to his character.
“I said I didn’t want to fucking see anyone!”
I wasn’t even to his room yet and I could hear him screaming. A nurse I didn’t recognize backed out of the doorway, her hands in the air. “Rico, she just wants to meet you and discuss your physical therapy.”
“Fuck off!”
He sounded fired up. My heart leapt into my throat, and I considered rescheduling.
But before I could turn around, the nurse saw me and gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. We’re weaning him off of his pain meds and it’s not going so hot. If you want to come back another time—”
“No, I actually think now is the best time to see him.” I’ll never know why I said that. Maybe I wanted to see Detroit’s hero in the flesh. Maybe I wanted to show him I was as tough as he was. Or maybe I was a martyr. Whatever the reason, the nurse cleared the doorway and ushered me in.
I tried to control my pulse, but it was no use. I took a deep breath and released it. In I went.
“Oh, Jesus.” Ricardo threw his hand up and brought it down again on the bed. “Does nobody listen? Hey, lady, I’m sorry, but I’m not really up for visitors right now.”
He was covered in sweat, and his breaths were labored and quick. I stood in the doorway. I didn’t think he’d get violent and cause himself any harm, but if he did, I wanted to be able to get clear of the nurses in a hurry. I kept a pleasant smile on my face. “I know. You haven’t been much for visitors the last few days, have you?”
From what the nurses had told me, Ricardo’s family hadn’t come around for the last few days and he’d turned away any other visitors that had come. His morale, it seemed, had gone down the toilet in a hurry.
He just stared straight ahead, so I went on. “My name is Lizzie. I’d like to come in and talk to you about the next few months.”
Ricardo turned to me. His face looked sunken. It was clear that he wasn’t eating. Even IV fluids would only do so much to keep him from losing weight. He wasn’t the man I’d seen pictures of on the TV and in the newspapers.
He almost smiled at me then. “I don’t care, Lizzie. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Goodbye.”
Turning around, the nurse gave me a shrug. She may have been defeated, but I wasn’t. I stepped in further and shut the door.
“I said get out!”
“I heard you. Let me say my piece and then I’ll go.” Once again, he didn’t answer me. I went on. “I can get you walking again. I’ve seen your X-rays, and your doctor has been keeping me abreast of what’s been going on with your recovery. I’m sure the doctors and nurses have been pretty cold when it comes to managing expectations, but listen to me. I can get you walking.”
“Perfect. I can drag my crippled ass to the mailbox.”
My heart raced. I hated when someone gave up before they even began. “Did I say drag your crippled ass? No. I said walk.”
He turned to me. I looked right into his eyes. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t going to play him like everyone else. “I’m not bullshitting you, Ricardo.”
For a while, he stared. He was reading me, really looking between the lines. “Rico.”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“Nobody calls me Ricardo. Just Rico.”
“Just Rico. I can do that. Now, do you want to talk? Because if not, you can go on just listening.”
Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a hint of a genuine smile this time. “I’ll listen, and then we’ll see if I want to talk.”
I nodded. “I’ll take what I can get.” Even the highest and thickest walls could be brought down one chip at a time. I was persistent. I had time and energy on my side.
“You’re twenty-three, right?”
“You’ve got my file, you know the answer to that.”
“You’re right. I do. But that’s not why I asked you. Tell me what the mind of a twenty-three-year-old firefighter is like.” I leaned back in the visitor’s chair.
Rico shrugged stiffly. “I don’t really get what you want to know.”
“The first in your family to graduate college, and you choose the fire service. I’m not saying it’s a bad choice. I guess I just want to get to know what motivates you. When we get down to the hard work, I want to know what will get you fired up, what’ll make you give me that extra push when I demand it from you.”
Rico gave me another hard look. I was probably coming off like a real bitch, but someone needed to stop taking his shit. The first few months, I’d be the biggest bitch he’d ever met. I was going to work him and push him to his limits. Once we got his body retrained, then we could discuss my bedside manner.
He tilted his head, popping his neck one way and then the other. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. We used to live in a pretty bad part of town, and we were about two blocks from a station. They
would run at all hours of the night, the sirens screaming as they roared past our house. My parents hated it, but every time I woke up in the middle of the night, my heart would be racing. I’d pull back the curtain and see the flashing red lights coming.”
A smile crept onto his face. Those muscles needed exercise just as much as any other. “I’d cheer them on—quietly, if it was late at night. By the time we went to a fire station for a field trip in third grade, I knew all the trucks and what they were used for. I basically gave the tour.”
I smiled. “It’s every kid’s dream to be a firefighter, but you actually did it.” Rico had one hell of a constitution. I understood that right away. He was strong, and when he set his mind to something, nothing on Earth would get in his way.
“I sure did. College was for my parents. They wanted better for me, and I wanted them to be proud of me. I figured that if I graduated, they’d be cool with me going to the academy. I told them I’d always have a fallback, too.”
“Which was?”
“Communications.”
I almost laughed, but I knew we weren’t there yet. “Not much of a fallback.”
Rico grinned. “Exactly. They probably understood that, but it wasn’t like this was a secret dream. I probably stopped obsessing when I got into my teens, but it was always there. Anytime a story came on the news about a fire, I’d drop whatever I was doing and listen.”
Rico was strong. Even half-casted and covered in a gown, I could see that he worked very hard to be in peak physical condition. In his line of work, it was a must. Detroit firefighters were worked harder than anywhere else in the country, and if any of them began to slip into the middle-aged weight gain, it wasn’t long before cardiac problems forced an early retirement… if they were lucky.
He’d do well with the physical aspect of rehab. I thought he was mentally strong, too, but then his story got darker.
“You can only imagine how I felt when I got the call. Not one of the bigger, busier stations, but my dream realized. My family was proud, but in that way like you know they’re scared. It’s not like I wasn’t scared, but I was just so pumped.”
Rico trailed off and lifted his left arm, the one in a cast from the elbow down. “You know how long before this shit happened? How long I was in the department before it all fell apart?”
I shook my head. I didn’t like the way the sparkle faded from his eyes.
“Three months. I wasn’t even off the six-month probation. That’s all I’ll ever have: the three months that I was a Detroit firefighter. Even if I can work at a desk for the department, I won’t be a firefighter. I’ll be some fucking pencil pusher.”
Rico’s eyes drifted back down to the bed sheet. My heart ached for him. He had climbed every rung on the ladder and achieved his dream. He tasted the sweetness just long enough to make this disappointment all the more bitter. My throat clenched and made it hard to speak.
“You’ve done what most only wish for.” I hoped to God that he couldn’t hear my voice waver. Part of my job was to be strong for the both of us, at least until he gained his own strength back.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
I furrowed my brow. “You did it. You set out to do something, and not an easy thing, either. You work in one of the hardest jobs in the world. You—”
“Worked,” Rico corrected me, and for some reason it felt like a slap to the face. He was right, but it was still hard to hear. I had bought into the story that the media was peddling. I was rooting for him. “I worked one of the hardest jobs in the world.”
“And you will again.” My voice was sure and steady. It was Truth with a capital T. I shouldn’t have said it. I was starting to make promises. I had no idea if his injuries would allow him to return to the force. I was going to add a caveat, but it was too late.
Rico’s face lit up. I wanted to kick myself. It was so important to manage expectations. In one short sentence, I had undone all the work his doctors and nurses had put in to keep him realistic about his recovery. We hadn’t even set foot in my gym, and now Rico thought that he’d get to fight fire again.
“You really mean that?” He sounded like a kid, and I felt like I was lying to him about Santa. There was no easy way to dig out of a hole like this one.
If my expression gave me away, he was too excited to notice. “I don’t want you to focus on that goal, though.” I was digging, and digging hard. “You know how it is. We have to start small.”
I approached the other side of the bed. Rico watched me, and I really had no idea if he was listening. I hoped he was, because I may have really fucked myself otherwise.
Then I did something else I never did. Taking Rico’s hand, I crouched down so we were eye to eye.
“Rico, we can do this together. I want you to know that I am going to work just as hard as you.”
Rico looked down at my hand in his. I did, too. I noticed how small mine looked in comparison. Oh, shit, I thought. He is a patient. Do not fall for him.
I yanked it away, which probably looked bizarre, but I absolutely couldn’t give him the wrong impression. Before he could look me in the eyes, I went on. “I’m sure the academy was hard work. I have no doubt that you are used to physical exercise, but this going to be nothing like that. This is going to be about retraining you. Walking might take months. We’ll move on from there.”
He nodded, and I couldn’t read him. Had he caught me being unprofessional, or was it just in my head? I shook it off, more than ready to leave his hospital room before I did any more damage.
“In the meantime, Rico, I want you to rest and get healed. I’ll see you in a month, and we’ll start talking more about physical therapy then. Enjoy your rest while you can get it, because there is some serious hard work in your future.”
He looked up at me as I stood. There was determination in his eyes. “I’m not scared of hard work.”
I hoped that determination was the only thing in his eyes. If he thought there was a possibility of something happening between us, he was sorely mistaken.
I smirked. “Oh, Rico. You don’t know me very well yet. And that means you don’t know the meaning of hard work.”
I left him chewing on those words as I opened the door and headed back out into the hallway.
I laid in bed and thought about Lizzie. She was a sweetheart and a cocky bitch all rolled into one; not unlike myself. She must have read my mind, because what she’d said had me actually looking forward to rehab. I wanted the casts off as soon as possible so I could get back into it.
I wanted to show everyone that I could come back. My confidence wasn’t unfailing, but when it was there, it was big. When it wasn’t, the darkness was big. I was on a rollercoaster and the brakes weren’t working. I had no middle ground, no center. I was either up at the top of a hill, or deep down at the bottom.
At first I blamed the meds. It wasn’t long before I figured out that it wasn’t the painkillers. It was something inside me. It was every drop of confidence at war with my current reality. It was hard to feel confident when you hadn’t walked in over a week. I knew I could do it, but part of me wondered, could I still do it?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen once they let me walk out of here. Or wheel. Hell, I’d crawl down the hallway, if that was what it took.
One of the nurses came in, but I didn’t pay her any mind. It was mac and cheese for dinner again, and I wanted to think about anything but that yellow, slippery excuse for a meal.
Instead, I thought about Lizzie. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“Do you know anything about that woman? The physical therapist?” I asked. The nurse was a little nervous to speak to me, but I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t having a good day, and I had been taking it all out on her.