by Dale Mayer
“How about a chef’s salad with some fried chicken on the side,” she said, when staring at some in front of her.
He chuckled. “What is it about fried chicken that gets everybody every time?” he asked with a big smile.
A voice beside her said, “And here I thought it was just me.”
Startled, she looked over to see Iain, standing on crutches. He towered above her.
“Wow,” she said. “I knew you were tall, but I didn’t realize how tall.”
He grinned down at her. “I’d probably still be taller than you, even if I stood on my stump.”
She shook her head and grinned. “Can you get a prosthetic for that?” She motioned to his missing foot and calf.
“Working on it,” he said easily. He hobbled forward as she moved her tray down.
Dennis looked at him, grinned, and said, “Man, I like to see you on your feet.”
“Me too,” he said. “Whatever you’re making for her, make one for me too, will you?”
“Supersize it though?”
“I can get behind that,” Iain said.
She laughed. “What if you don’t like what I’m having?”
“He was talking veggies and nutrition,” Iain said. “That’s something I definitely need to focus on.”
She nodded. “I guess what you put in your body is just as important as the rehab work you do, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely it is,” Dennis interrupted, not giving Iain a chance to respond. “You guys go pick your places. I’ll come and deliver.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, frowning at him.
“Of course I’m sure,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “I just don’t want to add to your workload.”
“And I thank you for that.” Dennis beamed. “But this is a pleasure. Go find a table, and I’ll bring it.”
She walked forward, slipping out of the line and heading toward the juices and water section. Iain was right on her heels. She pointed to what was in front of them and said, “I want just water but maybe coffee afterward.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I think I’ll have some milk to go with mine.”
She nodded. And, not giving him a chance, she grabbed one of the bottles of milk for him and a bottled water for her, then asked, “Anything else?” With both on her tray, she snatched up the cutlery they needed and said, “I might as well carry it. It’s not like we both need to.”
“That’s a good idea. I’m not great at walking with crutches and also carrying trays yet,” he said with a smile. “I’ve seen lots of guys do it though.”
“Come on. Let’s go find a place to sit,” she said. “Inside or outside?”
He hesitated. “You know what? I’d like to do outside, but I’m afraid it’ll be deadly hot, so how about half and half?” He pointed at a table with the shade line down the center.
She chuckled. “That’s perfect because I was thinking I’d like to sit in the sunshine.” As they made their way to the table, she didn’t offer to help him navigate. Something she’d been warned about when she first started working downstairs was to make sure the patients didn’t think that she was pitying them or taking it easy on them, pride being a very subtle and sensitive yet critical issue. After they sat, and she opened her bottle of water, she took a drink, smiled at him, and said, “How are you adjusting?”
“Well, I’m adjusting,” he said. “Not terribly fast though.”
She waited for him to continue that thought.
“I told Shane a few days ago that I was ready for more, but, after a test run—which is why I missed lunch with you that day—he thought I needed another week, to get the inflammation down more. So, I’m still waiting.”
She nodded. “Any other surprises?”
He hesitated.
She lifted her eyebrows and said,” You can talk to me, you know?”
“Can I?” The corner of his mouth quirked.
“Yep,” she said. “When I moved here, I found it difficult to adjust myself.”
“Adjust to what?”
“The multiple changes in my life. Change from a big city to this. Change from having a relationship to not. Change from my previous job to this new one. I had a lot of adjustments, and I decided to make it a new beginning for myself. But, as such, I didn’t have any foundation or any history to go on here. Nothing to draw on in my experiences to make it easier.”
He cocked his head to the side as he studied her.
She gave a self-conscious shrug. “I guess that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?”
“It makes more sense than you realize,” he said slowly. “At the VA hospital where I was, I was the class clown. I was joking and laughing, and I knew that it was just a facade and that underneath nobody could really see the pain I was in. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that when I got here.”
“I like the sound of that,” she said. “Because, of course, the class clown is hiding something. It’s usually pain or embarrassment or lack of confidence.”
He smiled. “In my case it was the inability to deal with the body that I currently live in. I kept hoping and hoping that the surgeries would work. And, of course, the jury is still out as to whether they really will.”
“You’re walking,” she said slowly. “In my book, that’s a huge success.”
He looked at her, startled, and then he nodded. “And that’s what I just came to realize,” he said. “When I left that place and came here, I was determined to find out who I really am. I want to be who I am on the inside, not just the person on the outside everybody saw.”
“And that sounds very deep too. I think, when you get an opportunity to be at a place like this,” she said slowly, “you almost have to wipe out everything that came before. You can challenge the good things, the things that worked, taking them to a new level. Things that pissed you off from the old life almost have to be put in a box and stowed away, so you can give this experience a chance, without that prior stuff hindering your vision. A fresh start to take each new experience from a whole new perspective.”
“Easier said than done,” he said with a smile.
“I’m just as guilty. I came with what I thought was a broken heart, only to realize very quickly that I wasn’t brokenhearted. It was more like a dent to my pride,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. She lifted her water bottle and took another big sip. “My heart wasn’t touched. My pride took a blow when I realized he preferred somebody else to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m not,” she said. “The best thing I did was come here. If I had stayed with him and had tried to make it work, we both would have been unhappy. Where’s the joy in that?”
He gave a shout of laughter. “A perfect way to look at it,” he said. “I’m trying to take this as a new experience and come to terms with who and what I am right now.”
“What you are,” she said firmly, “is a man with a disability. But you are not a disabled man. Those are two very different things.”
He stared at her in surprise. “I think I like that,” he said slowly.
She nodded. “It’s all about perspective,” she said. “What you’ve already done since you’ve been here is great.”
“No, right there, you’re wrong,” he said. “I haven’t done anything yet. I don’t even feel like I’ve had to apply myself.”
“Maybe the harder thing for you was to do nothing,” she said seriously. “You came here in bad shape. You were ready to do the old gung-ho, charge-forward thing. But instead, what you had to do first was ease back, relax, and let your body destress and deal with the extra damage because of that trip.”
He glanced at the table. “Maybe,” he said. “I’m not very good at doing nothing.”
“And, after two—now three—weeks of doing nothing, as you say, you’re feeling like you haven’t made any progress. Yet it’s the opposite. You should be slowly improving to the point that now maybe you can get to work. The r
eal work you came here for.”
Just then Dennis arrived, carrying large plates of food. He placed them on the table, stepped back, then looked at them both expectantly.
She smiled up at him. “Thank you. It looks lovely.”
“And,” Dennis said with a huge toothy grin, “it tastes even better. I’ll be back in a little bit to make sure you’re doing okay.” And, with that, he strode off again.
Iain watched him go. “Does he ever walk, or is he always in a race?”
“I have seen him casually walk,” she admitted. “Just not very often.”
Iain smiled, nodded, and said, “It’s like a lot of things in this place. There’s a time for everything.”
“And your time, so far,” she said, “has been to rest and to recover. Your time to move forward will happen soon enough.”
He nodded. “This afternoon, I think. Shane said yesterday it was time to switch things up.”
“See?” she said. “You may not want to eat quite so much, at least not before your workout. Because, if Shane says he’ll switch it up, chances are he’ll really switch it up.”
“It’ll hurt tomorrow, won’t it?” He wrinkled up his face. “I can handle pain, but I don’t really like it.”
“Nobody likes pain,” she said. “We can all handle a certain amount of it. But nobody wants to get to the point where we tolerate it so much that we don’t even feel it. Because to feel pain is to feel alive. And to recover from that hurt is to recover from what we went through. That means, realizing that every step we take moving forward are the steps that we’re doing for ourselves, to improve our lives and to improve our future, now that we know that we actually have one.”
He shook his head. “Heavy words.”
“Enlivening words,” she corrected. “Now let’s eat.”
Iain spent the next few days thinking about her words. Robin had a unique take on life, and maybe he needed that too. His reason for coming here was to experience a whole new beginning, but he had been very disappointed at his start so far. Shane explained he was just checking to see what Iain could do and what he couldn’t do, trying to see where his weaknesses were and finding out what needed to be done.
But it sounded like the same old song Iain had heard time and time again. He felt that this was as good as his legs would get. This was what he had; this was all he had, and he had better make the best of it. When he woke up in the morning three days after that prophetic conversation with Robin in the cafeteria, Iain had gotten dressed and was sitting here when a knock came at the door. He called out, “Come in.”
Shane poked his head around the door and said, “This morning’s session might be a bit rough. I just wanted to warn you to eat light.”
Iain looked at him in surprise, then slowly nodded. “Nothing has been hard yet,” he said.
“I know,” Shane said with a big smile, “but now it’s time to get down to work.” And he disappeared.
Iain wasn’t sure if he believed Shane or not. It seemed like just more talk. The trouble was, if this was all Iain had to live with, was it even worth doing more? He figured it would be something he had to ask Shane about. But maybe it was too early to judge. Maybe Shane didn’t know. Maybe Shane was being an eternal optimist.
For himself, Iain could feel that sense of wanting to just give up. That sense that nothing mattered. That this was it. He might as well leave the rehab center, save everybody the time and effort, and get a job somewhere. He didn’t have a clue how or what skills he possessed, but he was sure that nobody would take an amputee. Why would anybody take on someone who obviously has physical issues when they could get an able-bodied individual instead?
Although some companies were definitely helping out veterans more than others. He’d even heard about that group in New Mexico, helping vets get back into the employment field. He was pretty sure he’d met Badger a couple times, and he was the one heading this new group. Iain wondered if he should contact Badger and see if similar work was being done here in the Dallas area that Badger might know of for someone like Iain. Hell, Badger’s group had advanced prosthetics. Maybe Iain could get something that would work for him too. Make him more employable.
Refusing to allow himself to be daunted by the thought, he opened up his laptop and quickly sent an email. It took a bit to find Badger’s company online. Titanium Corp. Once Iain found it, he stared, amazed to see the group photo of the men of steel, standing with their arms around each other. Their prosthetics were obvious, but the bonds were just as evident. With that, he grabbed the contact email and quickly sent Badger a message.
Looking at the picture on the main page, he knew at least three of the other men too. Iain’s heart ached as he realized how much he missed that camaraderie, that sense of belonging, that knowing that you weren’t alone in this world. That’s how he felt right now, kind of adrift.
Even though he had a lot of physical support here, they wouldn’t be there for his tomorrows. They wouldn’t be the people who helped him make the shift from this end of his rehab to the next stage in his life. He’d come here with such high hopes of a new beginning, a chance to get his right leg to do so much more than it was doing. His back, even though strong, obviously couldn’t handle the long truck ride and had set him back by days if not weeks. He felt tired, and he didn’t know why, but it was more at a soul level.
He chose the wheelchair and wheeled his way to the cafeteria. He wasn’t even hungry, and now he was worried about Shane’s words. He headed for the coffee first and, with a hot mug, wheeled himself onto the deck. He sat here quietly, all alone, trying to figure out what was wrong with his world. He sat out in the sun, pondering life, hating this slump, but realizing that, instead of looking for new hope, he needed to look in a new direction. A direction that had a future.
As he sat here nursing his coffee, Dennis arrived at his back. “Hey, not eating today?”
He looked up at him, smiled, and said, “Shane warned me it could be a bit rough. Told me to eat light.”
Dennis’s frown was instinctive. “Maybe light,” he said, “but you can’t go with nothing. If your blood sugar’s low, exhaustion will take over in no time. You don’t want Shane thinking that you’re in such poor shape that you have to quit again.”
“No, I don’t really want that,” he said, “but I don’t even know what eating light means anymore.”
“I got you,” Dennis said. “Give me a minute.” He disappeared.
Iain didn’t even particularly care what he brought. It would be food, and, as long as he ate half of what he normally would, he should be okay. At least he hoped so. Shane had set off a chain of events that Iain had been trying to calm down since they had talked. And yet, all Iain seemed to be concerned about right now was worrying and fussing and looking at a million different options, but none of them seemed even appealing or possibly doable.
When Dennis returned a few minutes later with a beautiful-looking bratwurst, scrambled eggs, and a piece of whole-wheat toast, he said, “This is about half of what you normally eat, so get some of this down, and then we’ll plan for a better lunch for you.”
“I could be sick to my stomach by lunchtime,” he murmured, but he didn’t believe it. He’d yet to see anything to match his expectations coming here.
Dennis nodded, and his tone turned serious when he said, “I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen guys come in exhausted and starving. They take one look at the food, and their stomach muscles heave right away. I don’t know what Shane has planned for you. Just know that it’s for your own good.”
Iain gave a startled laugh at that. “Is it really for my own good?”
“Sometimes the methodology seems a bit rough or confusing,” Dennis said. He placed both palms on the table and leaned forward to look at Iain. “But Shane is one of the best. If he sees something he can do to help you improve, then listen to him. He’ll get you there.”
“And I’m wondering if there’s anywhere to get to,” Iain said. “I’ve had
no progress since I arrived. The last surgeon said this is as good as the right leg will get. Maybe I’m wasting everybody’s time by being here. I should just go to town, rent a place, and find a way to do something with my days and to learn to live with my life as it is.”
“Screw that,” Dennis said. “That’s a defeatist attitude. You just got here. I already heard that you were having a couple tough weeks because of your trip here. And now that you’re here, don’t give up. See what Shane has got to say first.”
“Well, it sounds like you’re in my corner,” he said with a half smile.
“I’m in everybody’s corner,” Dennis said, “but especially the underdog. I want every one of you to get up and walk out of here to live happy, cheerful lives,” he said emphatically. “And I’ve seen enough here to know what can happen. I know you’re probably thinking that you’ll be the one case that it doesn’t happen to. I swear to God, I’ve seen time and time again the same attitude, the same thought process for almost every person who came through those front doors.
“You’re also a big man, and you know that that leg won’t handle you too much longer, no matter what the surgeons have done. You’ll have to strengthen it. And Shane is the one to help make it stronger. Shane’ll make it work and will support you. And he’ll make sure that that back of yours is capable of handling everything that’s still to come. You’re young, and you could have some fifty more years,” he said. “You want a body that can cradle you, can support you, and can work with you,” he said. “So, whatever Shane says, you do it.” He smacked the table and turned and walked away.
Realizing he’d been told off in a subtle way and not really understanding how or why, Iain dug into his eggs and bratwurst and smiled. They were, as always, very tasty. His stomach was happy to get some food. He stopped with that, finished off his coffee, then slowly made his way back to his room. There, he changed into his shorts and a muscle shirt and headed to his meeting with Shane.
As he wheeled into the room, Shane looked at the wheelchair in approval. “Glad you brought that today,” he said. “You’ll be grateful for it when we’re done.”