by Amy Field
Camaraderie was a big part of treatment at Walter Reed, but since Katie wasn’t really military it was hard for her to connect with the other patients. And while her injuries were severe, it wasn’t like she’d stepped on a landmine in Iraq—she felt fake being there. To make matters worse, Maryland was about as far away from Kansas as anything could be, so while her mom came in for a few days every couple of weeks, she felt very, very alone.
There had been cards and such at first, but that all dried up pretty quickly as well. She realized very, very quickly, that while lots of people knew who she was, very, very few people, even among those in her life really knew her. People didn’t know what kind of flowers to send or books to buy. Even the attempts other people made to make her feel loved and cared for often fell flat.
Then one day, about two months after returning, just after having put weight on her second foot for the first time since the accident, Katie received a package. It was anonymous, sent without a card or even a label from the vendor. It consisted of a vase with Peonies, which were her favorite flowers, and a box of Swiss chocolates.
It couldn’t be. Katie couldn’t afford to let herself believe that this had really come from him, because if she was wrong the devastation would be worse than having never received anything at all. Maybe it was some sort of twisted joke from Lance. Yes, that was far easier to believe and more likely than that the man who’s heart she broke would come to her in her hour of need and make everything right again. So she chose to believe they came from Lance, but she made herself a promise; a deep, secret promise she would only admit to herself in her most needy time. If she could only see him once more, if should could only get a chance to say….
Katie awoke the next morning from a deep, deep sleep. They’d had to give her tranquilizers she was so agitated from receiving the package. Her eyes were blurry, but after fumbling with her glasses she could make out the figure at the foot of her bed. And she sat straight up.
It was Lance.
“Get the package, Stilts?” His eyes flitted to her legs, still in ugly metal braces. And he smiled a smile that didn’t demand one in return.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s been three months. Plus, I just argued a case before the Supreme Court. I…” He started using his “drone-on” voice. Katie couldn’t handle it. She let him have it.
“Shut the hell up.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, shut the hell up. And get out of my room. Now.”
“Katie, c’mon now, I know it’s been a while but…”
“But nothing. You wanted me for a cheap lay, and I gave you that, again and again and again, because I hated myself for losing out on the best opportunity of my life. You just validated my poor sense of self-worth. You’re nothing more than the gum on the sidewalk that sticks to an old shoe and convinces you to get rid of a shoe you should have thrown out long ago. So now I’m throwing out the gum along with the shoe. Get. The Hell. Out. Of. My Room.”
Lance looked more shocked than he had that day on the mountain. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then shrugged and walked out, carrying his flowers with him.
Catherine sat in silence for a few moments, weeping and raging. The quiet was broken by a deep baritone.
“Well, done, Catherine. I knew you had it in you.”
Katie knew that voice, but she couldn’t let herself believe it was true.
He stepped out of shadows near the room’s private bath. It was only then that she noticed the sound of the toilet running.
“How long have you been here?”
“I’ve been here since last night. My plane didn’t get into Washington till after eleven, and I came straight here. The nurse said it would be alright if I cleaned up in there, and I heard Lance come in while I was shaving. But I waited. I knew you could handle him.”
Katie’s face flushed. He must know about she and Lance. “Jacob, I’m so sorry. But after you and I broke up, I just felt so badly about myself, and nobody had ever made me feel worse than Lance, so….”
He smiled sadly. Sitting down on the bed he took her hand gently in his. “Remember, before, when we talked about things that we “needed to work out?”
She nodded through the tears which were running hot and fast down her face.
“Well this would fall into that category. Obviously you were working some things out, and no doubt still are…” He gestured towards her legs. “But now, at least, you don’t have to work through them alone.”
They sat in silence for a long while. It was like their comfortable silences of old, not the uncomfortable, “What is he thinking” silences that marked the end of their relationship. After a while, Katie spoke.
“Jacob, why are you here?”
His brow furrowed and his face scrunched up. “Catherine, you know why I’m here. I love you. I told you…”
“It’s been more than a year, and it’s been months since the Olympics.”
“I was at the Olympics.”
“No you weren’t.”
“Yes, I was.”
“I looked for you.”
“I’m not sure if you noticed, but there were a lot of people.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that one. So did he.
“Really, you were there?”
“I was, in the cheap seats. Your parents and family were up front. I couldn’t afford anything up there. But we met in the Olympic Village the day of…” His voice trailed off and he smiled sadly.
“Why didn’t you come see me?”
“I did.” He paused. “I tried. And I got in there, that first night. You were calling for me, so your parents let me in to see you. I held your hand until they came to take you to surgery. And your parents and I were with you all through recovery. But when the doctor came in and told you that you would never skate again, that you likely wouldn’t walk again…well, you kind of lost it. You started screaming about the ugly on the outside matching the ugly on the inside. Your parents asked me to go. I stayed in South Korea the whole month, but they never let me back in to see you again. They thought it would be too hard on the both of us.”
“So where have you been since?”
“Well, I thought that if they wouldn’t let me see you in South Korea, they definitely wouldn’t let me see you back home, and especially in a military hospital. To be honest, I was crushed, not by your injury, but by the way it seemed to break your spirit. So I went home, discussed it with my dad, and the two of us went to Pakistan and climbed K2.”
“What? You got depressed from getting dumped by your psycho ex-girlfriend and so went and climbed the second-tallest mountain in the world?”
He tried to suppress a smile. It didn’t work very well. “Ya,” he said. “That’s what we Swiss do.”
And together they laughed as they hadn’t in ages. And Katie knew once again that everything would be ok.
They held each other for a long time. The nurses came in twice, but realized what was happening and gave them plenty of space. This was at least as healing for Katie as anything they could do for her. Jacob stretched out his long frame carefully against hers, perched precariously on the edge of the bed, but her head resting on his broad chest.
“Do you know what I missed most, Jacob, through all of it?”
“What’s that, Catherine?”
“It wasn’t the running or the walking, the hiking or the skating, it wasn’t even bathing myself or going to the bathroom alone. What I have missed most, what I missed with you once you left and what I knew I never could have nor ever wanted to have with Lance was…I don’t know how to describe it. Every time I encountered something really good, you know: a sunset or a sunrise, or a good meal, or a great conversation, a healthy workout or a satisfying episode on tv; I just found myself being grateful, and wanting to give that gratitude to someone else.”
Jacob leaned over the kissed the top of her head gently. “That, Miss Catherine, is what we call prayer.”
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br /> She nodded. “I know. I think I started to realize that part of the way through. But I’ve never been very religious, and I don’t know the Bible well at all. I wasn’t sure I was even allowed to pray.”
There was that familiar chuckle again. “Of course you are allowed to pray. You must pray, when you experience the good things like you say, or else all the good gets backed up—bad for your system!” They both laughed at that one.
“Jacob,” Catherine said, once the laughter had subsided. “Would you pray with me now?”
Jacob looked down at her with tears in her eyes and drew her hand to his lips. “Darling,” he said. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Jacob shifted his weight again and slipped neatly off of the bed. Then, turning around, he planted both knees firmly on the ground and took both of Catherine’s hands in his own. At the beginning he simply bent his head and said nothing. Catherine followed suit. When he did speak, he said this:
Lord Jesus,
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for the world which you have made,
And the people you have given us to enjoy it with.
Thank you for the high peaks of the Swiss Alps,
And the golden fields of the Kansas heartland;
The mighty oceans and roaring seas,
The quiet islands, and the tiny, whispering sounds.
But most of all, thank you for Catherine,
Who has glorified you in the feats of her body,
And who now glorifies you by growth in the Spirit.
Her injury has taught her humility, let your healing now
Teach her of your grace.
In ancient times you spoke but a word and made
The deaf hear and the dumb speak; you opened the eyes of the blind man,
And said to the cripple, “Take up your mat and walk,” and so he did.
Speak now to your servant Catherine, and raise her up to walk again for you,
To run again for you, to dance in your temple and skate in your name.
And give her the grace always, always, always to be grateful,
And so to grow in the Spirit and grace, to give you greater glory,
And to love you and your people more and more.
Amen.
It was one of the most perfect, restful moments of Catherine’s life. Though he was kneeling slightly below her, she could smell the pine and apple blossom on his hair, and she felt as protected as she had resting on his chest. And her heart resonated with every word. She realized she knew more of the stories he was referencing than she was giving herself credit for, and from somewhere deep inside feelings arose: from Sunday school, from the occasional Sunday sermon she’d heard growing up, and she became aware of something—of a presence—a presence that had been following her, or perhaps better, that she had been following herself all of her life long. She realized now that every time she felt gratitude for something, every time things were right and ordered, every time her heart sang out in joy and gratitude or in pain and frustration and despair, it wasn’t to some vague abstraction, it wasn’t to “the Universe” in some generic sense—it was to a Person.
It was only then that she realized there was a crucifix in the room. Her mother had put in up on her first trip, along with lots of other things: family photos, the cereal boxes with Katie’s picture, and of course, her skates. The cross just hung there on the wall, unobtrusively at the foot of her bed in the shadow under the tv mount. But suddenly it seemed like the most real thing in all the room; this cross and her Jacob the two things which connected her to the Presence. And so, squeezing Jacob’s hand even tighter, she shifted herself on her bed and swung her feet out and over to the side.
Jacob still had his head bowed, praying intently. He’d squeeze when she squeezed his hand, but otherwise seemed pretty out of it. That was alright, this was her moment with Him. Gingerly, ever so delicately, she allowed her feet to touch the cold linoleum of the hospital room. And she pressed her weight down, first on one foot, and then on the other. As she did so she felt a heat, not like a burning sensation but more like the pleasant part of a roller coaster ride start at the base of her spine and move upwards through her and out her head, and downwards through her bottom, down to her knees and out through her feet. And the next thing she knew, she was walking.
And Jacob, in the meantime, had risen from his location on the floor at the side of the bed and stood, mouth agape and eyes glistening.
“Katie,” he spluttered. “I, uh, I…shall I call a nurse?”
“No, silly!” she answered, arms out, standing free of all the walls. “And my name is Catherine.”
Over the next few weeks Catherine improved more and more. It wasn’t as though she started walking on her own all the time that day in the hospital, but while her progress before had been coming in fits and starts, now it was proceeding by leaps and bounds. Within a week she could navigate the halls using just a walker; two weeks and she could get to the bathroom by herself and shower herself using a stool. By the end of a month they were beginning to talk about moving her home, and started to develop a plan for more long-term physical therapy.
Her mother arrived the week after Jacob showed back up, and at the month-mark, when talk about her moving home grew more serious, her dad came out too. It was decided that the best course of action would be for Catherine to return to Kansas and live with her parents for a time. There she would have full time support and people around the house as she got back on her feet, as well as access to regular physical therapy.
The day before she was scheduled for discharge they threw a party for her at Walter Reed. All of her new friends from the floor were there, along with her family, friends, and of course, Jacob. People made toasts and praised Catherine and her team for all of her hard work. She was especially moved when a number of her veteran friends talked about the inspiration she had been to them, and that they now believed firmly that if she could get better and return to an ordinary life, so could they.
Finally, towards the end of the party, the unmistakable sound of silver clinking on glass filled the air. Jacob rose, his large frame towering over most of the others, and spoke.
“As most of you know, Catherine and met nearly two years ago now when Catherine came on a hike through the Alps. I was hired to be her guide, and we discovered on that trip a great affection for each other, and a common vision for our future. We lost sight of that vision, but Catherine’s injury and rehab have brought us back together. And so now, with all our friends and family present, I’d like to ask you a question I once asked you long ago…”
With that he knelt, and Catherine raised herself up out of the wheelchair in which she’d been sitting. He produced a box from inside his jacket pocket and offered it up to her. She didn’t even year the words, just yelped out a “Yes!” and started crying. The room erupted into applause and before she knew it she was wrapped up in Jacob’s arms and he was spinning her, around and around and around again. And as he set her back on her feet, which grew steadier by the day, he reached backwards to the table on which his glass was set and raised it. “To climbing the mountain again, no matter how steep it seems, and no matter how far you’ve fallen.” And crowd responded with cheers, which sounded eerily like an “Amen.”
Jacob accompanied Catherine home and helped her resettle with her family. Then he went to New York and Chicago and cleaned out her condos there, selling most of her things but saving personal mementos. After the practicalities of life in both cities were taken care of Jacob moved back to Kansas City where Catherine’s rehab continued to progress steadily.
One night Jacob was reading in the living room when Catherine walked in from her bedroom, where she had been working.
“Hey Jacob?” she asked.
“Ya, Babe. What can I do?”
“You mind taking me for a ride?”
“Of course not.”
Catherine was more than used to cars by now, but they still hadn’t cleared h
er to drive yet. They wanted to make sure she had adequate nerve control over both legs. This wasn’t an uncommon request. Usually they’d just zip over to the Target or the Walgreens for shampoo or something, but instead she had him drive her to her old ice rink.
As they pulled up into the handicapped parking spot Jacob glanced over at Catherine.
“Sweetheart, what are we doing here? You know the doctors have been clear about skating. One bad fall could undo everything…”
“I’m not here to skate, Jacob. I just left something here that I’ve been thinking about. I’d like to have it back.”
Jacob gave her a quizzical look, shrugged, and then smiled. “Alright.”
He moved to help her out of the car but she shrugged him off. As she’d gotten her feet back under her there was a very definite “I’ll do it myself!” streak that he hadn’t seen before. He and her dad would joke about it from time to time as apparently this is what she was like as a little girl.
It did not surprise him that she still had keys to the rink. She was, after all, the most accomplished athlete ever to come through the little local complex. Nor was he shocked that she still knew where lights and such were. She walked them over to the skate rack, selected a pair, and handed them over to him.
“Here,” she said. “Put these on.”
“But, Catherine,” he sputtered. “I don’t skate.”
“You do now,” she insisted, and in a tone which he had learned not to argue with.
After losing his shoes and lacing up his own skates he stepped gingerly onto the ice.
“What’s a-matter,” she teased. “You scale Everest and K2 and now are afraid of a little old ice rink in Kansas?”
That set him off. He tried to step off faster to gain some speed, but wound up tumbling right onto his bum. He looked shocked, even hurt for a moment, but then the both of them burst into familiar laughter.
“This isn’t as easy as you make it look,” he said, trying to get himself back up.
“No,” she said. “It’s not. Here. You’re doing it wrong.”