by Dale Mayer
As it was, he made it to the top of the deck and watched from his wheelchair, but he certainly didn’t go down below. Still, he remained there for the whole time that afternoon, missing out on two appointments because he had a morbid fascination with what went on below. He was supposed to be more engaged in it all, but instead he was separated from it because of his own actions and his own fears. He wanted to get down there, but so far, he couldn’t force himself.
Before the end of the day, Shane came up beside him.
“Do you want to take a run down to meet the horses?”
Instantly a refusal came to his lips. He shook his head, but when he opened his mouth, he said, “Yes.” He stared at Shane in astonishment. “I didn’t mean that.”
Shane chuckled and grabbed the handles of Elliot’s wheelchair and took him to the elevator. “If you were on crutches or walking, I wouldn’t do this,” he said with a smile. “But you’re exhausted today, so the wheelchair means I get to push you around like I want to.”
“Unless I don’t want to go out there,” Elliot protested. “Which I don’t.”
“But you’ve already said yes. So what we have here is a very conflicted mind-set. I’ll take you outside, but we won’t push it. We’ll see how close you can get to the horses.”
Outside, in the bright sunshine, he could feel himself knotting up the closer he got to the huge animals. Until he saw something he completely hadn’t expected. Dani was with the tiny baby horse. Dani looked at Elliot and smiled, glancing at the little horse she had at the end of a rope. The little horse gently walked closer to Elliot.
“I don’t know if little Molly here counts as a full-size horse or not,” Dani said, “but she’s a bright filly, and she very much likes people. Plus she’s very gentle.”
In fact, Molly stepped up to say hi to Elliot.
He was fascinated. “She’s not much bigger than a huge dog.”
Instinctively he reached out to touch her soft neck and her velvety nose. Molly nuzzled his hand, her lips working away at the sleeve of his shirt. He chuckled. “If all horses were this size, I wouldn’t have a problem. But she’ll grow up to be one big badass mother.”
Molly nickered slightly, as if laughing at his comment.
“Actually,” Dani said. “She’s already over a year old.”
Molly stayed at Elliot’s side while he gently stroked up and down her face. For the first time he could see why people fell in love with these animals. Such intelligence was evident in her huge brown eyes, and she was so gentle. Shane motioned toward the others, saying, “Come on. Maybe we should walk Molly over to where the other horses are.”
Elliot nodded.
Dani led Molly to meet the horses arriving for therapy day. “It’s good for her to see other horses.”
Slowly their group made their way to where the therapy horses stood. Amy was walking along with Copper. It was stupid that Elliot remembered the names of the horses and the people involved in this new therapy. He couldn’t see where Sicily was because he couldn’t pull his attention away from the huge horse. The gelding rose up high above him, as if he knew that Elliot was afraid. Amy stepped forward and shook Elliot’s hand.
“Hi, this is Copper. He does very well with people—including those who don’t like him.”
Elliot winced. “Does he know I don’t like horses?”
“He’ll like you anyway.” She carefully walked Copper a couple steps closer to Elliot. She watched Elliot’s reaction, so she could tell when he stiffened, and she slowed her pace. “Reach out a hand.”
No way Elliot could do that. He was so damned sure the horse would take it off.
Shane offered his hand instead and took a half step forward. Copper sniffed and then gently played with Shane’s fingers. Shane scratched his long nose and under his chin. Copper looked to be almost drooling.
Elliot stared in fascination. “I’ve never seen that side of a horse.”
“These are tame horses,” Amy explained. “You can never completely trust any animal to be like a stuffed toy. They are animals after all, and they do have their bad sides, like people do. But in this case, Copper is very well-trained. He’s met thousands of people, and despite it all, he still likes us.”
Copper stretched his long neck closer to Elliot. Everybody waited to see what Elliot would do. He hated the pressure, but at the same time, he felt like he was letting everybody down if he didn’t at least try. Gently he stretched out a hand until Copper could smell it. Instantly Copper blew his warm breath all over Elliot’s hand. Elliot took another moment, but slowly he scratched Copper underneath the chin, loving the soft, velvety texture of the few hairs underneath his fingers. He slid his hand up and around the long brow. “He’s beautiful.”
“Yes, he is. He’s beautiful inside as well, and that makes a huge difference.”
Feeling emboldened, Elliot leaned forward, and Copper took a step toward him as well until they met in the middle, and gently they got to know each other.
When Copper stepped back to nuzzle Molly, who had walked up closer to him, Elliot dropped his hand with a happy sigh. “Thank you for that,” he said quietly to Amy.
She flashed him a bright look. “No problem. Maybe next week we’ll get you up on him.”
Elliot shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think that’ll happen.”
Amy smiled. “You’d be surprised what you can do. One step at a time.”
Only he knew how impossible that hope was. But he kept it to himself. In the back of his mind, a small voice said, Never say never. Because he’d done and achieved so much more already today that he didn’t think was possible. Maybe riding a horse wasn’t so far off reality either. And then he remembered the accident … his lips pinched tight. It was just as far off as ever.
Chapter 15
The next week passed in a blur of activity for Sicily. Several patients had completed their stay at Hathaway House, and several new ones were coming in. The nights were busier, and when she got off shift every morning, she tended to head straight to bed. She had missed the second horse therapy session, as she’d been sleeping. Disappointed, she got up in time to see everybody dispersing from the horse area. She made her way to the balcony and grabbed a coffee, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Nobody said anything to her, so she presumed she hadn’t been missed. That was the problem with working nights. Sometimes she felt she missed out on so much.
When she went on shift that night and completed her rounds, she stopped at Elliot’s room.
“How are you today?” She studied him carefully. He showed definite signs of progress. They’d had one hot tub session during the week, but that was it. He looked hesitant, as if he wanted to say something. She waited a bit. When he didn’t speak, she asked, “Do you think you’ll sleep tonight?”
“Yes, I think so. Things are calming down somewhat,” he said with a smile.
She brightened. “That’s nice to hear.” She wheeled her cart into the hallway.
He called back and asked, “Want to have your break with me tonight?”
“Maybe, but I’d rather you slept.”
“Oh.”
She turned to catch him staring out the window. She smiled and said, “I’ll come back and check. If you happen to be awake, I’ll stay. How’s that?”
He gave her a smile. “Sure.”
As it went, it was another busy night. She didn’t get a break after all but neither did Elliot call her. So she considered that a decent trade-off.
By the time she had completed her shift at six in the morning, she was tired and restless. She needed to swim away some of her stress in the pool. She walked down the hallway to see if Elliot was awake, thinking maybe they could do coffee, but his door was shut. She headed to her place and changed into a bathing suit and then made her way to the pool.
As she dove in, and the cool water enveloped her whole body, she almost cried with pleasure. These last few days had been rough. She almost missed the long boring nights. She woul
d much prefer something to do, but at a level between having something to do and too much to do—a kind of balance—that she needed to find. She swam hard and then relaxed and floated gently. Finally, she pulled herself from the pool. She grabbed her towel and walked over to one of the chairs in the sun and sat down.
A shadow blocked out some of the rays. She looked up to see Elliot. She smiled, delighted to see him. “There you are,” she teased. “I was wondering if you were avoiding me.”
“Why would I be doing that?”
She shook her head, feeling foolish. “It’s just that I’m so busy on shift right now, and I sleep when you’re awake, that I never get a chance to see you.”
“We need to rearrange it slightly, so that it works better for us. But you’re right, I am sleeping better.” He smiled a boyish look that made her heart melt. “And you’re the one who’s so busy right now. I was hoping for coffee this morning, but when I came to the office, Sandra said you’d already gone, and you looked like you were heading for bed.”
Surprised and pleased, she said, “I went past your room this morning, but your door was shut. I had the same thought. Mine was maybe coffee or breakfast before I crash.”
He motioned at the pool. “Instead, a swim?”
She nodded. “I needed to work out. It was a pretty long night.”
“So how about coffee and breakfast now?”
He reached out a hand, and she placed hers in his, and they sat there for a long moment, enjoying being together.
“I need to get dressed before we eat,” she said.
“As long as you don’t take too long. I’m afraid you’ll crash and not get up again.”
She shook her head. “I won’t be long.” She stood and walked to her place where she stripped out of her wet suit and put on shorts and a T-shirt. She could collapse after breakfast. Their time together was short—she didn’t want to waste any that they had available together. After nine o’clock, possibly even eight o’clock, his schedule for the rest of the day could be full. Dressed, she went out to find him still sitting where she’d left him.
His face brightened at the sight of her. “Good.” He stood, and together they made their way up the stairs.
She marveled at how much better he was doing. “Seems like sleep is the magic formula for you.”
“Sleep and Shane and hot tubs and your late-night massages. I’ve come a long way. Yet, it’s not just those things, it’s the whole package.”
“That’s great.”
Upstairs, they walked to the dining hall as breakfast was served. When they had full trays, they sat back outside in the sunshine. She tilted her face up to the rays and the blue sky and smiled. “It’s a lovely place to work and live.”
“And to recuperate.”
She gave him a happy smile.
When they were eating, he said, “You missed horse therapy yesterday.”
She nodded. “I was so exhausted I went to bed and slept through it.” As she picked up her cup, a thought crossed her mind. She froze and lifted her gaze to him. “How did you know I missed it?”
“I made it down to see the horses,” he confessed.
She brightened, her heart warming. “My God, that’s wonderful,” she cried.
He shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s progress, and progress is good.”
He smiled. “Especially this type of progress.”
After breakfast, she made her way to her room again as Elliot went to start his day. She walked into her room, stripped off her clothes and crawled into her pajamas, lay down on the bed and crashed. The last thought in her mind was how well Elliot was doing. If he continued like that, he’d be better soon, and he’d be discharged.
Then what would she do?
Elliot worked hard for the next several days, and Shane noticed.
“You’ve made an about-turn. You appear to be improving in leaps and bounds here.”
“I’m sleeping better at night, and the sessions leave me with more energy,” Elliot agreed. “I’m more relaxed and stronger.”
“All of that’s good stuff.”
“Of course Sicily helps too.” He gave Shane a smile, knowing he’d understand.
“Oh, yes. Sicily’s a big part of that.” Shane put Elliot through his paces for a while longer. “Okay, we need to do a different set of exercises coming up. The horse therapy would help—at least one time—for you to see the muscle groups affected.” He shifted some equipment out of the way so he could show Elliot exactly what Shane wanted to do.
“Well, the horses could quite possibly be helpful, but there’s not enough hours in the horse session to do any good, is there?”
“It’s not just a physical thing,” Shane explained. “It’s a physical-spiritual bonding type of thing. But what it will also do is isolate some of the muscles you need to work on because they’re kind of hard to access without that. When you ride the horse the first time, your body will initiate movement in those muscles. Those are the ones you’ll want to access afterward, but it’s hard to isolate them so you understand where they are. We can stimulate them in a different way.” He said, “Sit down on the medicine ball, and let’s do core work.”
They worked with him balancing on top of the ball, sitting with his legs on either side. Shane forced Elliot’s body to react and to recover to keep his balance with each movement.
After ten minutes, he could feel the muscle fatigue setting in. “Well, okay, that already hurts.”
“Exactly. It’ll be quite different on a horse, in that you won’t be afraid of falling because you’ll be in the saddle. At the same time, you’ll access the same muscles but differently. Riding is also excellent for your thighs and lower back.”
“I made it down to visit the horses, but I sure haven’t made it to the point of wanting to get on one.”
“If it is something that you want to try for, we have another two sessions booked. Copper is a beautiful animal.”
“He is, indeed.” Those simple movements might have done a lot to open up his awareness of his body, but he still had a long way to go to embrace riding a horse. Yet the thought nagged at him. So did his accident. He’d never talked about it. Maybe he should.
Later that night, his body wasn’t too interested in platitudes when he woke up knotted in agony. Sicily quickly arranged for the hot tub while she worked on his muscles.
By the time Elliot got into the hot water, he felt marginally better, and the heat of the hot tub made a major improvement. He sank into the water, groaning in joy. He didn’t even notice when Sicily finished talking to the orderly and quietly disappeared. By the time Elliot made his way back to bed again, he realized how much his taut muscles benefited from the hot tub. After exercise, particularly if he overdid it, he was sore within hours. It was as if he’d woken up nerves and muscles from a long sleep, and they weren’t happy about it. Shane would say this was progress.
Elliot hoped so. Because he also knew his time here was passing quickly. He had another month at Hathaway House, but that wasn’t very long. He hoped to maximize as much healing as he could in that time. He knew he would be very disappointed in himself if he couldn’t make it on the horse. He had to figure out how to get there.
He wanted to experience it, to know he’d beaten that fear. To say he’d done it. But wanting something didn’t always mean getting it.
Chapter 16
Sicily woke up tired and groggy and feeling blue. She lay in bed for a long moment, wondering exactly what had hit her emotionally. She realized thinking of Elliot leaving before falling asleep had her waking up feeling lonely. In all the years she’d been at Hathaway, she hadn’t connected with a patient like she had with him, and she didn’t want him to leave. Just the thought brought tears to her eyes and made her heart ache.
Relationships beyond here were difficult. And were made all that much more difficult because of her night shifts. She had contemplated whether she wanted to continue with her night shifts s
everal times over the last five years. Indeed, if she wanted to stay in this job, there were so many good things about it that continuing to work this night shift had always been an easy answer.
By doing night shifts, she also avoided a lot of people. There was only a skeleton staff, and the patients were mostly asleep while she hardly had to deal with any service staff. When she did see them, she wasn’t on duty. She lay in bed and realized how much she had avoided a lot of life’s pressures and stress by simplifying her schedule to a night shift. She certainly worked hard, and she had no problem with her work, but it was easier at night because she only dealt with two or three other staff people.
She hadn’t been looking for a relationship with her move here but only to step back out of the craziness that came with working in an ER in Detroit. A craziness that permeated her relationships there. In that sense, coming here had certainly done that. But how would that work for her moving forward? Elliot had shown her the hole in her life. She’d been missing something and hadn’t realized it, and now she didn’t want to do without it.
He was a special guy, and she did not want to lose him. It was silly to say, but one of the reasons she’d gotten to know him was because of his health. Because he couldn’t sleep, they had had more time to get to know each other. A lot of quiet private time. As he healed and started to sleep through the night, there’d been less and less of those interactions. She could sleep while he met the requirements of his daytime schedule and then got to spend some time with him in the afternoons. Night shift certainly didn’t stop her from having a relationship. She had been happy doing her night shift work before Elliot, but she’d been cocooning.
When she’d applied for the job, it had seemed like such a massive change to move to night shift. It had taken her a long time to settle down, but she had done this for so long now she’d forgotten how traumatizing that period of life was. It had been such a relief to know here she wouldn’t be put under the same pressure. The pressure here was on an hour-to-hour basis.