Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness

by Kevin Mark Smith

  Chapter 43

  Rehab

  It had been almost six months since the accident. There was only one week to go before the man who had almost killed Robert would be sentenced for aggravated battery in a rural Oklahoma courthouse. Justice would finally be served the Monday before Thanksgiving.

  What a way to celebrate the Thanksgiving break, Robert had reflected ever since the court had granted the defendant’s attorney’s request for his very last continuance, an act that made Robert wonder whether Thomas would take responsibility for his actions after all. Closure? He dared to hope. He also felt conflicted the closer he got to the final hearing. Would he feel better or worse if the man who hurt him went to prison? What about forgiveness and grace? Wouldn’t it be more “Christian” for Michael to get probation and a second chance? Such conflicting feelings dogged him daily, especially since he had met the man and seen a side of him he didn’t expect to see, his humanity.

  At the moment, Robert was lying, utterly spent, on the futon bed in his ultra-small, on-campus efficiency apartment at UTA. The dorm room’s smallish size and practicality put its classification somewhere between a one-room dorm unit and decent single motel room (the $39.95 per night variety, not the nicer, more family-friendly types) with a hole carved out in one wall just big enough to fit a compact refrigerator, a three drawer chest of drawers just fitting under a tiny window that cranked open a couple inches, which helped clear out the smell of his dirty clothes that piled up in between trips to the Laundromat, and a recessed, built-in desk nook opposite the ‘fridge just big enough to hold a laptop computer, one large textbook and a notepad.

  He had just experienced his longest and most grueling day of physical rehabilitation yet. He had started working with his therapist as soon as the most recent surgery removed the pins that had been holding the brittle bones of his elbow together. He was amazed at how weak he’d become since the accident. He could curl an eighty pound dumbbell eight times with one arm at his physical peak, but now he was exhausted after doing a dozen or so repetitions of a measly eight pounds with his injured right arm. His left arm was a little weaker, as well, but he still had all the equipment on that side intact, while the right was a patchwork of transplanted tendons and reconstructed muscle and bone. He avoided gazing at his body in mirrors since his one shriveled arm made the other look almost freakishly big, at least it looked that way to him. Although he was still officially on scholarship with UTA’s baseball team, each day of therapy made it clear to him that his future as a college-level athlete was over.

  “Jesus,” he sighed in a muffled voice looking up at the ceiling, partly in vain but partly with the hope that God would hear his pleas. “When will this end?” Every now and then he wondered if God had abandoned him through his ordeal.

  Just then he heard a gentle rap on his door. It was a familiar sound that he’d grown quite fond of the past few weeks. “Come in,” he said, loud enough to be heard through the metal faux-wood security door. “It’s unlocked.”

  Robert turned his head to the side, but didn’t get up. He knew she’d understand.

  “You okay?” Janie asked in her soft, gentle voice as she walked in and sat down on the corner of the futon on the end Robert’s feet were pointing, which happened to be the only place available to sit except for a wooden desk chair. It was, after all, a really small room. He didn’t answer immediately but just lay there in silence. Janie gently put her hand on his shin and slowly rubbed his jeans-covered leg, up and down, in a very gentle, comforting way. She was in no hurry for a reply.

  He turned his gaze back to the ceiling and clenched his eyes tight, fearful that he’d expose his fragile emotions. “It’s been a tough week,” he finally said.

  “Can I help?”

  What an amazing person, he thought. Robert had that thought many times since the accident. He still couldn’t remember everything they’d been through together, pre-accident. He could only recall bits and pieces of their past relationship thanks to the lingering effects of his head injury that robbed him of most of their cherished memories of togetherness. But the ones he could remember combined with her Florence Nightingale treatment of him—she cared for him as if he were the only person in the world—made him realize how special she was. She gave him rides, helped him with homework when the mental blocks that followed traumatic head injuries robbed him of his normally razor-sharp reasoning abilities, and did for him whatever else his diminished capacity asked of her. He had come to believe she was the woman he might be able to spend the rest of his life with.

  “You do too much already,” was all he could think to say at the moment. His eyes were still shut.

  “Nonsense.” She even laughed after saying it, which served to loosen Robert up enough to chuckle, too.

  He sat up and swung his legs off the edge of the futon, but looked down to the ground out of embarrassment. After all this time together, post-accident, they had yet to kiss. They just held hands when the opportunity arose. They were now sitting side-by-side, Robert looking at the floor, which was littered with an errant dirty sock, T-shirt, and at least one pair of dirty underwear. “I mean it. I don’t know how I would have managed without you. I’m sure I would have crawled home to Stonelee just like Mom wanted if not for your help.”

  Janie hadn’t stopped looking at him since she’d entered the room, though Robert had yet to look into her eyes. Although she felt something between them on a personal and spiritual level, she found his looks captivating—the facial bruising had abated many weeks before—and pain shot through her soul every time she knew he was in pain. At that moment, she was thankful that he was still staring at the floor. She silently cried as she considered all he’d been through in the past several months, and the past week in particular. Each time she called him on the phone that week or saw him in person, his voice and demeanor seemed worn and beaten. He had held up remarkably well till he began therapy, but something was about to give, and Janie wanted to do whatever she could to help him through it.

  She sensed that he was carrying a great burden, perhaps a secret that he couldn’t share. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he replied, still staring mostly at the floor, though his gaze did move up to the wall a moment or two at the few pictures of family and an 8” by 10” photo of Janie off to the side of the family pics that he had hung up on the sparse space. He lingered on the latter, wishing he had the courage to look at the real thing that sat beside him right now. Instead, he dropped his eyes back to the floor, as if embarrassed for allowing thoughts of lovers and marriage enter his mind every time he gazed at her image and let it linger in his thoughts.

  She looked down at the floor, too. She wanted to say, “I know better,” but didn’t. “You can tell me, whatever it is.”

  He finally looked directly at her and noticed a tear running down her right cheek. He reached up to wipe it dry, rubbing the tip of his now moistened finger afterwards, wishing the feel of her tear and the emotions it held within it would remain after it dried. “I’m sorry about the things I said.”

  But the pain caused by his hurtful words wasn’t the only thing on his mind. An inward struggle was churning within his spirit, one he couldn’t fully understand. If he loved her he had to be honest and tell her everything. He had to tell her that the next chapter of his life couldn’t begin until he forgave the man who took everything from them both. Not yet, he thought with a pained expression on his face.

  As the last thought occurred to him, Janie was looking down toward the ground so didn’t see his angst. Otherwise her response might have seemed a bit out of place. She laughed. “You’re still thinking about that?”

  “That” was mostly the comment made in the hospital about not knowing who she was. But there was more. A few times he had told her that he couldn’t keep seeing her if he couldn’t even recall why they started seeing each other in the first place. Each time he had said such a thing, at least half-a-dozen times since the accident, she would bit
e her lip, not telling him similarly hurtful things in response, and she’d just keep on helping him with his problems. She would instead tell him that she was fine with them not loving each other, but she still wanted to be his friend, and friends help each other. The last time she had told him that was after he had talked to his guidance counselor about transferring to another school, one closer to home, a conversation he had yet to tell her about. He was glad he didn’t share that hurtful thing. Instead, he had waited, hoping against hope that deeper feelings for Janie would begin to stir. Finally, two weeks earlier, he had felt a spark of familiarity that made him see a future with Janie. He had torn up the application for transfer that same day.

  “Yeah. I guess I can’t help it. To think that I said such hurtful things to the one I love most in this world.” He paused as she turned her gaze back on him. Both realized that it was the first time he’d said the L-word since before the accident.

  The weight of the words pressed down on his heart.

  They were still sitting side by side, but both were now facing each other. He reached over and took her hand into his. Their eyes flooded with tears of joy. To emphasize what had just come out of his mouth, to affirm that it wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, he said, “I love you.”

  She melted into his arms and they hugged each other for several minutes. They stopped hugging and Janie looked back into his eyes and said what she’d been feeling since she first met him at church camp more than two years before. “I love you, too.”