A Marriage To Fight For

by Raina Lynn

He’s hiding, Garrett realized. What had happened? Had he somehow figured out things weren’t going smoothly between his parents? Swell. “What position?”

  Rick froze, spoon halfway to his mouth. Deliberately, he concentrated on his meal.

  “What position?” he repeated.

  Rick glared into his bowl, his breathing too even, too controlled. “Offense.”

  Garrett clamped his jaws shut to keep from making the obvious comment about being offensive, then took a couple of controlling breaths of his own. “You’ve been playing how many years now? Seven?”

  Rick stabbed his spoon into the cornflakes and stuffed another bite into his mouth. “Yeah.” He gave Garrett a haunted glance, then went to the kitchen. From where Garrett sat, he watched Rick dump the half-eaten breakfast down the garbage disposal, then put the bowl and spoon in the dishwasher.

  “Well, even if I can’t figure you out,” Garrett muttered to himself, “you’re at least neater than you used to be.”

  Rick spun around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Garrett hadn’t intended to be heard. He sighed heavily. “What’s wrong? Soccer used to be one of your favorite subjects.”

  “Nothing. I’m...I’m kind of burned out.”

  A bomb went off inside him. “Don’t lie to me.” Don’t make things worse, you idiot. Calm. Control. You’re the parent. Act like it. “What time is your practice tomorrow?”

  Rick’s body tensed, and his face flushed with longing, both obvious signs of a battle between keeping up his defense mechanisms and the need to spill his guts. Garrett held his breath.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to be there.”

  Rick’s mouth gaped open. “Why?”

  “We have a lot of missed time to make up for.”

  For a timeless moment, Rick’s face opened and Garrett saw the trusting, secure kid he’d left four years ago. But the boy’s scars were stronger, and the wall came down again.

  “Two o’clock,” he muttered, leaving the room.

  When the front door squeaked open then banged shut, Garrett smiled. The school where the team practiced was only four blocks away. He’d get there if he had to drag himself hand over hand down the sidewalk.

  Slightly after midmorning, a delivery crew arrived with the rehab equipment that had been purchased and originally taken to Blake’s house. The driver stood in the doorway, clipboard in hand and a beer gut hanging over his belt. He looked as if he hadn’t bathed in days.

  But at least he can walk, an inner voice taunted.

  “We were told to set up this stuff in the garage. Is there someone here with a key?” The man didn’t even look directly at Garrett, more like over him as if he were a piece of furniture.

  Disbelief held Garrett’s fury in a state of frozen control. With his jaws clenched, he retrieved the spare set of keys from a drawer in the china hutch then maneuvered his wheelchair through the dining room, through the backyard and out the gate to the front. It made him feel like a rat running a maze, but no one was going to unlock that garage door but him.

  As the crew unloaded boxes and crates of exercise equipment, they also unloaded equipment that Garrett recognized as refugees from Blake’s gym. The men ignored his presence as they worked. Not ignored, he decided, more like going overboard not to stare.

  Once they had the machines set up to their satisfaction, the beer-bellied wonder turned to him. “Is there someone here who can sign for this?”

  Garrett’s temper flared. He ached to leap from the chair, grab the jerk by the throat and pound him into a bloody pulp. “Is there a problem with me signing the work order?”

  Beer Belly’s face suffused with color, and his eyes darted from side to side, looking anywhere but at Garrett. “Well, no,” he said lamely. “I just sort of thought that...well, you know.”

  Impaling him with an arctic glare, one that had served him well as a cop, Garrett then held out his hand for the clipboard. Squirming with humiliation, the man handed it over as if he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

  Garrett picked up the pen. It felt alien in his left hand. He’d dismissed Maggie’s pleas that he learn to write left-handed. At the time, working on regaining the use of his right hand seemed like a more efficient use of his time. The price one pays for overconfidence.

  Pride wouldn’t allow him to let on that anything was wrong, but the final result of his efforts was an illegible scrawl.

  “Have a nice day,” Beer Belly said, his smile strained.

  Garrett gave a curt nod, but didn’t reply.

  For more than an hour, he sat in the garage, inspecting the equipment that would be a part of his life for years to come—if not forever. An all-consuming sense of isolation engulfed him. Facing the machinery in the hospital had been so much different than having it in his own garage. This was too close, too personal, like an umbilical cord that tied him to the conglomeration of lead weights, steel pipes and assorted molded plastic parts.

  “When I chose to live, I never dreamed it would be like this.”

  He sat in the silence for a while, then systematically worked through the exercise regimen until pain and fatigue drained away all of his strength. The workout didn’t cause the blinding agony it used to, but bad enough for him to be sweat-soaked by the time he went back into the house.

  Preparing a meal proved to be another experience he would have preferred to avoid. The lunch meat and bread weren’t a problem. However, opening the mustard jar one-handed turned into a demeaning, impossible task. He finally tried bracing it between the wheelchair arm and his leg. The jar shot out from its precarious spot and hit the floor. The muted crack of fracturing glass sounded a full second before his temper exploded.

  “Why the hell can’t Maggie buy mustard in squeeze bottles like everyone else!” The fact that it was a brand-new jar of the deli variety that he enjoyed—and she hated—barely registered.

  He scrounged through the drawers until he found the kitchen towels—apparently, she’d rearranged the kitchen since the divorce—then bent carefully to pick up the sharp-edged mess. Bending over wasn’t a problem. Coming up got tricky.

  “Consider it exercise,” he muttered.

  When he was through, a dull yellow stain stood out in glaring relief on the floor like a banner proclaiming his ineptitude. His appetite disappeared, and he left the kitchen, his half-made sandwich untouched on the counter.

  For months his focus had been to get out of the hospital. Now that he was out, it felt almost anticlimactic. Nothing had fundamentally changed. He was still a forty-two-year-old cripple occupying space with nothing meaningful to contribute.

  Career counseling had been part of the RPI’s services, but none of the options held any appeal. Some idiot had even suggested that he go back to college and become a pencil pusher!

  From the backyard, Hairy barked at an undoubtedly imaginary threat to his domain, and Garrett remembered the Frisbee. He didn’t have an audience now. No pressure except what he placed on himself. Fighting a staggering sense of insecurity, he returned to the backyard, where Hairy greeted him with an enthusiasm reserved for long-lost royalty.

  Garrett ruffled his fur and scratched that special spot behind Hairy’s left ear that sent the old dog into groaning whines of ecstasy. “I never gave the expression ‘dogs are man’s best friend’ much thought till now.” He smiled fondly at the ball of long, gray fur. “How patient are you feeling today?”

  Hairy cocked his head and wagged his bushy tail.

  Garrett gave himself one last internal push to gather his courage. This shouldn’t be so hard. But it was. “Frisbee, Hairy. Frisbee.”

  Joy flared in the animal’s brown eyes, and he bounded across the yard, trotting back with the chew-d-up, blue treasure.

  Garrett focused on transposing a right-handed skill to his left, then curled his wrist and let the disk fly. Launch and plummet best described the way it soared virtually straight up, then slammed into the lawn. Hairy gave Garr
ett a you’ve-gotta-be-kidding look, and Garrett felt his face heat. Embarrassment over what a dog might or might not think had to be a new low.

  Hairy dutifully pounced on the disk, then trotted over and laid it in his master’s lap. Garrett was glad dogs couldn’t talk. He didn’t really want to hear it. Over and over he struggled to get the child’s toy to soar in a straight line. Again and again, it flew with the erratic pattern one would expect from a two-year-old, not a grown man.

  One last time, he gave his wrist a hard snap. The Frisbee sailed in a perfect trajectory—right over the back fence. Garrett closed his eyes and swore.

  An illegible scrawl was all Maggie could produce, thanks to her shaking hands, but she managed to place her signature on the line the police officer indicated.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. For the first time in her life, she wished Garrett was still a cop. She needed him here, needed his steadying voice, not a herd of uniformed strangers.

  “We’re going to search the ground floor and courtyard first. Then we’ll work up.” He pointed a thumb at the ceiling. “Is there a chance that he’s hiding?”

  Maggie didn’t know if the urge to pull out her hair or scream was the more irresistible. “For the last time, yes, it’s possible,” she gritted out, determined to smile at the idiot, even if it killed her. “He’s a head injury patient. Anything’s possible—combativeness, paranoia, radical personality change without warning. I won’t know what we’re dealing with today until we find him.” Her boss was power-lunching with the other bigwigs and RPI’s investors. She didn’t have a clue where. Which meant the responsibility for a patient wandering off—and finding him—rested squarely on her shoulders.

  She glanced up just as the patient’s wife and father stormed through the front door, looking ready to devour the first piece of management meat they ran across. She swallowed hard, excused herself and went to greet them.

  Promptly at two o’clock, a burly man in his late twenties arrived at the house, a folding massage table under one arm and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Hi, I’m Mike, your physical therapist.” He invited himself in, leaving Garrett sitting by the door with his jaws clenched.

  Mike snapped open the table with crisp efficiency.

  “No one told me you were coming,” Garrett said acidly.

  Mike looked up, clearly surprised. “Oh, yeah? That’s weird.” He shrugged. “Well, Doctors Hughes and Kelly want the same program going that was set up at RPI. So I’ll be here five afternoons a week.” He flipped through a stack of papers in a folder that he pulled from the duffel bag. “Hughes,” he said contemplatively. “Any relation?”

  “My brother. Maggie is my ex-wife.”

  “The assistant director?” Mike raised a brow. “No wonder my supervisor said you were to get the VIP treatment.”

  Garrett ground his teeth. “Define VIP treatment.”

  “You mean nobody told you?”

  Garrett held his breath until his temper subsided. “If they had, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  Mind like a steel trap.

  “Well, in addition to me coming out every afternoon, you’ve got outpatient water therapy three days a week.” He flipped through the papers again. “You’re probably scheduled with the same therapist.” His eyes widened fractionally when he found the name. “She does get around, doesn’t she?”

  Garrett despised being so out of his element. “Get on with your job, and let me worry about my family.”

  “No sweat.” Mike closed the folder with a snap. “What shall we torture first, your legs or that hand?”

  Chapter 9

  At six-thirty, Maggie finally made it home, a bag of groceries under each arm, her purse strap between her teeth and car keys dangling precariously from her little finger. The moment she cleared the door, the simple tranquillity of just being home washed over her. Garrett was here. He’d make her feel like she conquered the world, not just found a patient hiding in the ductwork between the second and third floor. Soon she could change into comfy sweats and unwind.

  The soft squeak of Garrett’s wheelchair sounded behind her as he came into the room, but her smile of pleasure froze at the expression on his face. Tension lines tightened his strong features, and his olive skin was slightly flushed.

  “How was your day?” she said, continuing on into the kitchen and setting the groceries on the counter. Please, tell me it was wonderfuL Please?

  “Just terrific.”

  The sarcasm made her wince. “Did it go all right with Mike this afternoon?” She was going to be pleasant even if it meant rupturing something. Just because she’d come home with expectations didn’t mean he’d indulge them.

  “About like you set up.”

  Now what’s that supposed to mean? You really should ask, you know, the inner voice chastised. But I’d rather be a coward, thank you very much. “I talked to Dr. Kelly, your orthopedic surgeon, when he made rounds. Apparently, he’s done some brainstorming with a colleague about you, and he thinks he’s found a way to tighten up those tendons. That’ll increase mobility in your hand a lot, if it works. Once he sees you tomorrow, he’ll know if it’s a go.”

  “Tomorrow?” Garrett growled.

  Maggie turned to face him. He looked like Mount St. Helens just before it blew. “Yeah. When I had a minute I called his office. I got you in at one-fifteen.”

  “Don’t you think that might interfere with my therapy schedule? Or did you take care of that, too?”

  Maggie was too confused and too emotionally drained to try to figure out why he was so angry. “As a matter of fact, yes, I did. Mike will switch you with his last patient of the day and be here about four. Is there a problem with that?”

  Garrett’s eyes spit sapphire-blue flames, his silent rage heating the room. Without a word, he turned the chair around and went to the garage.

  After a moment’s struggle to find her mental balance, Maggie followed. By the time she got there, he was already seated at one of the exercise machines. His intense concentration added to her confusion, creating another burden she didn’t need today.

  She pulled up a folding lawn chair and sat down to watch. She needed him to lean on, but he’d locked her out. In the old days, he’d have picked up instantly that she’d had a rough day and needed some TLC.

  He switched machines to work on his legs. Pain flared in his eyes as he fought for even minimal response, but as usual that was the only outward sign of the price he paid for forcing his legs to relearn how to move. Several times Maggie was tempted to suggest ways to optimize benefits from energy spent, but she kept her professional opinion to herself. Therapy didn’t seem to be as much the point as did working through his temper. So they sat side by side in isolated silence.

  By the time sweat ran in rivulets down Garrett’s face and body, he had completed the full exercise regimen and then some. Yet whatever bothered him hadn’t abated any. He had merely worn himself out.

  His movements as he maneuvered back into his wheelchair lacked his usual level of coordination, emphasizing his fatigue.

  “Would you like some help?” Odd how such a simple question was so hard to get out of her mouth after the long silence.

  He shot her a damning glare. “No thanks. You’ve done more than enough today.”

  The remark couldn’t have been more incendiary if he’d doused her with gasoline and lit a match. Her temper erupted. “What’s wrong with you? I’ve had the day from hell. Then I get stuck with Mr. Attitude.”

  A twisted, sneering smile distorted his features. “There’s not a thing wrong that you can’t take care of, believe me. Until recently, I had no idea how competent you really are.”

  “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

  He gave a dismissive wave of one hand and returned to the house. “Nothing.”

  She followed him into the kitchen as he got a drink of water from the refrigerator door dispenser, actively ignor
ing her presence. Then her eye caught the half-rinsed, mustard-stained kitchen towel in the sink.

  In the course of her life it was nothing, but in her frazzled state, it pushed her over the edge. “My best towel!” The strident screech wasn’t like her, but at that moment, she didn’t care if she sounded like the Wicked Witch herself.

  With thumb and forefinger, she pulled the sodden mess from the sink. Watered-down mustard oozed and dripped. The stains on the brand-new terry were unmistakable, as were the stains to the porcelain sink. Then she noticed the floor. “This mess rivals some of Rick’s more notable accomplishments. If that’s what you were trying for, you succeeded.”

  “Well, pardon me. I had no idea cripples couldn’t fix lunch all by themselves.” His biting sarcasm dumped fuel on her already blazing temper.

  Maggie spun around. Garrett obviously itched for a fight, and heaven help her, but a good screaming match was exactly what she needed. “What’s your problem?”

  “You’ve organized my life down to the last detail. Except you overlooked one little thing. I can’t open a glass jar with one working hand.”

  “Organized your life? Since when!”

  “Since the equipment arrived. Since Mike the Wonder Boy showed up. Since I discovered my appointments with RPI and Kelly. You’re doing a great job.”

  “You’re mad because I took care of things that needed doing?”

  “Helping is fine, Maggie Jean. Treating me like a small child isn’t.”

  “Look, Garrett. Blake and I work with these people all the time. I could get things done faster than—”

  “I’m not saying you couldn’t. What I object to is not being consulted. You could have warned me about the program you’d set up. It was a little demeaning to find out about it as it happened.”

  “You’re mad because I didn’t ask your approval first!”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  Despite a foolish desire to cling to being the wounded party, Maggie could see his point. As well-intentioned as she’d been, she’d overlooked the basic tenet of rehabilitative medicine. People coping with a recent onset of paralysis—whether due to illness or accident—had tremendous chunks of their personal dignity stripped away. It was essential to reinforce the fact that they weren’t helpless, that their lives were still their own—if somewhat altered. She’d blown it, and not for the first time, either.