by PJ Sharon
I relaxed in spite of myself. Brig always seemed to know just what to say, as if he knew the future and had total confidence that even fate would bend to his will. “I think you’re right. He just needs a little encouragement.” Maybe we both needed a little push to move forward. I set my cup down, my thoughts coming into focus. I intended to deliver just the encouragement he needed, even if it meant kicking his butt.
I parked the Rabbit in the parking garage of the Veterans’ hospital and made my way up to Alex’s room only to find it empty. My heart jumped to my throat, the worst case scenario coming to mind. Alex died from an infection, a complication from his injuries, a guilty conscience, a broken heart. I made my way to the nurse’s station, my hands and feet numb. The nurse directed me to the Physical Therapy department and I followed the yellow stripe down the long hallway. My heart raced in anticipation and apprehension, just as it always did when I came face to face with Alex.
At least it had been that way ever since the first time he kissed me when I was fourteen and he was sixteen—the moment we had become more than friends but not quite knowing what else we would be to each other, especially since Levi was at the center of both our worlds.
My mind spun with questions I promised myself I wouldn’t ask him and a year and a half of thoughts I wanted to share with him. All of it disappeared as I pushed through the double doors and saw him standing between the parallel bars holding his weight on one leg, his arms locked at the elbow. His shoulders were hunched and his head was bowed in concentration. He wore the same type of military issue gym shorts I’d seen him in the day before, but now he was clean shaven and looking determined.
With his knee wrapped in an ace bandage, the neat criss-cross pattern conforming to the stump of flesh that was the remainder of his lower leg, it struck me that Alex had made a huge leap in a day’s time. My chest ached at how much courage that choice must have taken. The therapist was at the end of the parallel bars holding a wheelchair, cheering him on.
“C’mon, Corporal. You can do this.” Her voice was sure and firm, not unlike her stocky frame.
I approached slowly and quietly, afraid to startle him or break his concentration. His face was pale, his lips pressed together in a hard line. The muscles of his jaw were clenched as tight as the muscles in his arms, which shook with tension. Just as he looked up and saw me, he collapsed, catching himself before he hit the floor. I ducked under the bars and caught him around the waist. I hoisted him upright as the therapist pushed the wheelchair up behind him. Alex lowered himself into the chair, my assistance no longer required or welcomed.
“Nice save. Thanks.” The physical therapist nodded to me. She came around and knelt down in front of the chair to check the wrapping around the stump.
Alex grimaced as he pushed her hands away. “It’s fine. Leave it alone. I’m fine,” he snapped again, glancing up at me. “What are you doing back here? Did you come back to interrogate me some more?”
I ignored the jab though the ugly tone in his voice cut deeper than I wanted to admit. “No. Actually, I’m here to see that you cooperate and do exactly as this nice lady says.” I smiled from him to the therapist who returned it until she saw the scowl on Alex’s face.
“We’re done for today.” She stood and came back around, dragging the chair out from between the bars. “I’ll leave you two to visit.” She looked down at Alex. “You did great today. Your prosthesis should be ready by Friday, and if all goes well, you should be able to go home the beginning of next week.”
Alex didn’t respond.
The therapist left us there, her sneakers squeaking across the gym floor as she approached another patient, a young African American guy doing straight leg raises on a mat with a ten pound cuff weight strapped to his leg. I noticed a raised red scar from mid-thigh to below his knee. I sympathized, remembering my own knee rehab my first year of high school track when I developed an infrapatellar tendonitis and had a taste of physical therapy. I admired the physical therapists for their no-nonsense approach and the compassion it took to work with people when they were at their worst.
The wide open gym buzzed with activity. Several men worked out various parts of their bodies, some with visible injuries, others performing general strengthening programs in an effort to return to their previous level of function after some incident that had derailed their military service. I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and out of place being healthy and whole. Other than one small curtained area, there appeared to be little privacy in the open space and the tension of silence grew between Alex and me.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” I asked, finally breaking the awkward moment.
Alex adjusted his leg, bending and straightening the wrapped knee, a strange movement that made my stomach lurch. He wheeled away, leaving me standing beside a large ficus plant. Then he stopped and called back over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
“Umm, yeah.” I fell in line beside him and waited until we reached our destination a few minutes later. Neither of us spoke again. He led me out onto a veranda—a lovely view of a perennial garden sporting brightly colored flowers and fragrant roses. I slid onto a wooden bench next to where he had stopped and put the brakes on his wheelchair.
“So it sounds like you might be home by next week. That’s great, Coop.”
He eyed me doubtfully. “Yeah, great.”
“The harder you work and the quicker you get better, the sooner you’ll be home and…then you can figure out where to go from there.” I felt awkward, unable to say what was really on my mind and in my heart. We both knew nothing would ever be the same, but I wanted to believe that he had a future. More important, I knew he needed to believe it. “So what made you decide to do the therapy?” I asked.
“After you left yesterday, I realized I couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for myself anymore.” He looked out over the garden avoiding eye contact with me, his hand running along his thigh as if trying to work out the ache in the muscles. “I know if Lee was here, he’d have told me to ‘suck it up’ on day one.” A small smile edged his lips and my heart swelled at the sight.
“No doubt,” I said. “My brother wasn’t much for putting up with whining of any kind.” I pushed my hair back over my ear and stared at his profile, wishing he would look at me. He had grown even more handsome over the past year or so, a manly squareness to his jaw and strong features that all but erased the boy I’d known. “Hey, do you remember the time I fell out of Mr. Hollenbeck’s maple tree and broke my wrist?”
His smile widened and he glanced at me. “Yeah, how could I forget? You screamed your head off for like an hour. What were you, about eight then?”
“Yeah, I think so. I remember Lee carried me all the way home, telling me the whole time that if I didn’t stop crying he was going to leave me on the side of the road at the nearest bus stop.”
Alex laughed. “Which, of course, only made you scream louder.”
I had to smile. “You guys always teased me about being a total baby.”
“It was mostly Lee who did that.” His face softened and his eyes studied me, the corners crinkling with amusement. “I always thought you were tough. Even through your tears, you were still brave. The bone was sticking right through the skin. I bet Lee or I would have cried too.”
“Now you’re just trying to make me feel better,” I said, rubbing my old wrist injury where I still had a scar. What I remembered most about that moment was that Alex had kissed my forehead and told me everything would be all right, and it made me stop crying. He had always had that effect on me—calming, soothing, reassuring maybe. Now, I wished I could do the same for him.
He was finally looking at me, his green eyes sparkling in the morning sun. His face seemed more relaxed. His brows had lost that stern, furrowed V, and the lines around his mouth disappeared. I felt a warm glow rise to my cheeks as he studied my face. Was I just wishing he would look at me?
“You’ve always been the strong one, Jordie. Out o
f the three of us, you were the one who always knew what was right. You’d follow us only so far and then you’d put your little foot down and say ‘NO’, like you were the boss.”
“Not that either of you ever listened to me,” I chided, nudging his shoulder with my fist.
Reflexively, he grabbed my hand before I could pull it away and he held on, staring at my hand wrapped in his for what felt like a long time. He looked up at me and slid his fingers through mine, closing them firmly in his grasp. He stared out at the garden, a distant look on his face, as if he were trying to hold on to the present moment and losing the battle. The warmth and strength of his hand wrapped around mine felt both good and frighteningly desperate at the same time. I held it there, as still as the roses soaking in the sun beside us.
“I’m listening now,” he said, his voice soft. He looked from our joined hands to my face, his eyes sad and lost. “Tell me, what am I supposed to do, Jordie?”
My heart ached for him. Everything he thought he was had been blown out from under him. His best friend was dead—maybe because of him—maybe not. All of the questions I wanted to ask him fell away at that moment. The only question that mattered now was the one he had asked. He needed me to be strong and he needed me to have an answer.
“You’re going to fight like a Marine—like you’ve been trained to. You’re going to get a new leg, stand up and walk, and get on with your life.” My voice sounded strong, determined, positive—everything that I didn’t feel on the inside but wanted to be for him.
“You make it sound so simple.” He released my hand and rubbed his thigh again, staring past his knee to where his foot no longer resided.
“I’m not saying it will be easy, but it is simple. You just do it—one step at a time.” I rested my hand over his, reaching down inside myself for courage, and then I slid my hand onto his knee just above the stump. He flinched but didn’t pull away. I looked into his eyes, swallowing my urge to cry. “This may be the hardest thing you ever have to do, Coop. But you aren’t going to have to do it alone. I’m right here.”
He gently removed my hand from his leg and seemed to focus somewhere far away again, his voice falling into that detached monotone of a Marine holding his feelings in check. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time hanging out with a cripple.”
His words stung, the truth of his condition hitting me harder. “I don’t see it that way,” I said softly.
“I can’t ask you to help me.” He stared down at his leg, bitterness and frustration seeping into his words.
“You didn’t. I offered.”
“I don’t want your pity,” he snapped.
I moved around to the front of his chair and knelt down so I was looking up at his face. I wanted him to see that I meant what I said. “Listen to me, Coop. You’ve been my friend since I was six years old. This isn’t about pity. I…I care about you.” My face felt hot and I knew it wasn’t the sun shining down on us that made my cheeks burn. “I think I can help. And I bet if the tables were turned, you’d be there for me.”
He studied me for a long time and I forced myself to meet his gaze, ignoring the butterflies that fluttered against the walls of my stomach trying to escape. I took a deep breath and waited for him to say something…anything. Finally, he looked away and scrubbed his hands over his face in defeat. He groaned loudly. “I’m probably going to regret this. So, what did you have in mind?”
A smile spread across my face and a weight lifted from my shoulders. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter 7
It was still three days until I could spring Alex from the hospital and initiate my plan. Until then, I would have to be patient and keep busy. But keeping my mind on work was all but impossible.
I made a note on the inventory sheet, detailing a small flaw in the neck of an old wine decanter dating back to colonial days, a rare find in such good condition. I set it back on the shelf and finished writing in a ledger. Cursing under my breath about Brig’s outdated system, I let out an exasperated sigh. Every Friday I took inventory. Today I counted the antique bottle collection lining one wall of the antique shop. The sun shone through the curtains and cast a bright glow on the blue, green and red glass. I dusted off an old ruby red whisky bottle from the 1800’s and placed it back on the shelf, adjusting the price according to the collectors book on the desk to my left. I was thinking about how I could help Alex when Brig walked in.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s been quiet. But it’s early yet.” The summer tourists usually filed in after lunch, looking for old bookcases or little antique tables that would go just perfectly with their shabby chic décor.
“I’ll have you close up shop around six tonight. Do you have plans with your friends or do you want to eat pizza?” He pushed an old Victorian dresser further back against the wall, making the aisle a few inches wider.
“No plans; pizza sounds good.” I tabulated the value of the bottles, my head buried in the musty old ledger. Brig resisted change like an old piece of wrought iron and the computer age had not caught up with him. He refused my suggestion to transfer all of the records to QuickBooks software and spreadsheets. You would have thought I’d used foul language. I could not convince him that a computer was a good idea. I was shocked when he bought me a cell phone for my sixteenth birthday—until I realized it was only so he could keep tabs on my whereabouts at all times.
“You haven’t gone out much lately.” He startled me from my thoughts as he unfolded a squeaky little step stool that looked as much like an antique as anything else in the place. “I figured you’d be enjoying your time away from school with your…what do you kids call it…your BFF’s?” He grinned down at me trying to sound hip, but couldn’t quite pull it off.
I shrugged and placed the last of the bottles back on the shelf. He was right. I should be doing normal teenage girl stuff, but none of that appealed to me. I preferred being alone, especially now. I realized that I didn’t really have a best friend—someone to share everything with. Spending so much time at the gym and on the track, I never felt like I fit in with my high school crowd, and as far back as I could remember, Levi and Alex had occupied much of my time. Now, our threesome felt like a lonely and broken twosome. I sighed as I set the ledger down and reached for a dust cloth. It occurred to me that being with Alex made me feel closer to Levi somehow, probably because each of us had tried so hard to save him from himself. I shook off the memories that rode in on that thought.
Senior year would be here before I knew it and I would have no choice but to see my classmates and friends. For now I needed time alone to process my brother’s death. The few girls I considered friends understood and would be there when I was ready, but I couldn’t explain that to Brig. Nor could I explain my feelings for Alex. I didn’t understand them myself. I grabbed the furniture polish and changed the subject. “Are the guys coming over tonight for poker?” I asked.
“Yup. The usual.” He climbed onto the foot stool and set about hanging some old lanterns on nails he had lined up in a row on the exposed beams overhead. He met with the same five guys the last Friday of every month ever since I could remember. I wouldn’t think much of it, but it seemed strange that I’d never met any of them face to face and didn’t know their names. They showed up after dark and left at all hours, no traces of them having ever been there. It was like this private club that Brig kept secret. The only woman allowed was Vic and she only showed up occasionally. I’d learned a long time ago not to ask questions. Lately, it seemed that questions were all I had.
“I’m going to pick up Alex at the hospital on Monday. His doctor said he should be ready for discharge by then.”
“That’s good news.” He climbed down off the ladder, his back still to me as he fiddled with some ancient, rusty tools laid out on a table. “I hope you aren’t planning to pester him about what happened.”
“I won’t,” I said indignantly. I’d been holding my questions back all week, not wanting to
ruin the tentative bond that I’d created with Alex. There would be plenty of time to work up to that conversation once he was walking and doing better.
My grandfather turned to me, his expression doubtful. “I know you, young lady. I also know that you talked to Victoria about your suspicions. I told you to let it go, and I meant it.” His tone of voice was harsh, meant to intimidate and command, a tone that probably worked well on soldiers in battle and uncooperative prisoners, but it had little effect on me.
“Why can’t you just admit that the story we were given by the military doesn’t add up? You knew Lee as well as I did, and it’s just possible that things didn’t go down the way they said.”
He let out a slow breath and scratched his head, letting the stern expression fade. He knew by now that he didn’t scare or intimidate me. He also knew I never walked away from a situation once I made up my mind to do something. “I understand you wanting answers,” he said. His voice grew somber. “But at what cost? Do you really want to know that your brother committed suicide? Do you want your mother to have to live with that knowledge? You know what she believes about suicide keeping a soul out of heaven.”
My heart thudded against my ribs. It shocked me to hear Brig say the word suicide and my brother in the same sentence. We had never talked about it when Levi was alive—not really. I hadn’t even let myself think about it, yet I realized that it was all I had been thinking since I read the letter from the military about what happened. Mom’s beliefs notwithstanding, I knew I couldn’t rest without knowing. I looked down at my feet, unable to meet the cool gray of his eyes. “If that’s the truth—yeah, I want to know.”
“There’s no point in it, Jordan.” His voice was angry again, or maybe just frustrated. He had to be as curious as I was. He wasn’t a man who liked lies or cover-ups unless he felt it was for the greater good. That got me thinking.