by Dale Mayer
“You’ll hurt me that much?” he joked. Iain wasn’t exactly sure what today was supposed to bring. Of course, with everybody warning him, he could feel his own defenses and maybe a little bit of fear rising up. Like he had said to Robin, nobody liked to be in pain.
“It’s not what I’ll do to you,” Shane said. “It’s what you’ll do to you.”
He frowned at him.
Shane gave him a quick grin. “I promise I haven’t killed anybody yet.”
“And there’s always the first,” Iain announced. He rolled closer, parked the wheelchair against the wall, and said, “What are we doing?”
“Floorwork,” he said. “I want to see what kind of stretching we can get out of that leg.”
Still seated, he lifted his right leg and said, “How will we start?”
Shane looked at him in surprise, then shook his head and said, “No, we’ll start with the leg missing the foot.”
“And why would you want to start there?” he asked in surprise.
“Because it’s been pulling more of its own weight than you’d expect and because the other one is so badly injured. The surgeries have helped, but you have a long road of recovery to get that right leg to pull its own weight. In the meantime, the left leg is the one hurting.”
Iain stared at Shane in surprise.
Shane smiled and said, “Trust me. Let’s start on that one, and then we’ll get to the one that’s just recovering post-op.” And that’s what they did.
Iain didn’t think he could stretch, considering he only had 75 percent of that leg. He had the knee joint, but then the stump was about four inches down, and that was it. He’d hoped that having a stump would allow him to get a prosthetic, but, so far, that hadn’t happened. And all because they were waiting to see what the right leg would do. It had to support all his weight. If only he wasn’t such a big guy …
“Okay, let’s get started,” Shane said, and he put him through the paces. It seemed minor until twenty minutes later, when Shane took the exercises to another level.
By that time, Iain felt sweat flowing freely off his body. He gasped when he finally reached a break in his exercises and asked, “So, are we done for the day?”
Shane looked at him in surprise and said, “We won’t be done until noon. Unless, of course, your body needs to shut down for a while?” Shane lifted an eyebrow, as if assessing Iain’s condition and his willingness to do what was needed.
“Will this help me?” Iain asked. He was stretched out on the ground, supporting his weight on his elbows, as they had been working on the abductor muscles on the outside of his thigh.
Shane smiled, nodded, and said, “You don’t understand the intricacies of what we’re doing, but it’s very important that you get your balance tuned up. With your balance back, you can regain your strength. Then we can get you walking normally on a prosthetic.”
“I would love to get a prosthetic.” But he hesitantly added, “They kept saying it would depend on my good leg.”
“Honestly, your good leg is the one that’ll get the prosthetic,” Shane reassured him. “The bad leg is the one that we have to build up from surgery, and that’s where we’ll start now.”
Iain frowned at him in shock. He stared down at his right leg and winced. “I don’t think I’ll like the next hour.”
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, “but I can guarantee that you won’t like it one bit.”
Chapter 6
Robin hadn’t seen Iain for a couple days. She went out of her way to check his room, but, so far, the door had always been closed. She changed up her breakfast and lunchtime hours, hoping to catch sight of him, but still nothing. Finally, on Friday morning, she asked Dennis if he’d seen him.
Dennis gave a solemn nod. “Shane started putting him through the heavy paces on Wednesday,” he said. “He’s not in very good shape.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, I guess that’s good,” she said slowly.
He looked at her tray and said, “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Yogurt and fruit,” she said with a smile. “Maybe a little extra yogurt on the side.”
“Or I could make you a parfait,” he said in a teasing voice.
She smiled and nodded. “And I’m not saying no to that. You do make the best.” And right in front of her, he layered fresh fruit, granola, cream, and plain yogurt until she had a beautiful concoction set before her. He handed it to her, and she carried it over to the coffee station. She poured herself a cup and stepped out into the sunshine.
She couldn’t stop thinking about how Iain was surviving. He’d been afraid that what he had was what he would be stuck with, that his hope of a new beginning was useless, and that it wouldn’t happen. Did he still feel that way? She glanced around, sitting in such a way that she could watch everybody come and go. But still saw no sign of him. She finished her breakfast, refilled her coffee, and headed to work. She and Stan had no shortage of appointments today, and she was kept busy right up to lunch. She was almost ready to miss lunch when Stan stopped in, looked at her, and said, “I don’t even have the energy to go upstairs and grab food. How are you doing?”
“Same,” she said.
He nodded, looked over at their receptionist at the front desk, and asked, “Annette, how are you doing?”
She looked at him, smiled, and said, “Why don’t I run get food for both of you? What do you want?”
“What’s on tap today?” Stan countered.
She picked up the phone and quickly called upstairs. Robin had to admit it was a huge boon to have food right now, right there, hot and ready.
“Something Spanish,” she said with a shrug.
“That’s fine,” Stan said. “Get us two of everything.”
Annette laughed. “How about I see what I can get on one tray.”
“Or take the trolley,” Robin suggested.
Annette looked at her in surprise, then nodded. “You know what? That’d probably be the best idea. Maybe I’ll grab myself something too.” The trolley was a teacart made out of stainless steel. She moved it to the elevator and disappeared from sight.
Stan and Robin looked around the front room, which was empty for once.
Robin said, “I feel like I shouldn’t dare mention the fact that we’re caught up because we’ll immediately have a dozen vehicles pulling in the parking lot.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that the truth. And it’s not even a surgery day.”
“Thank heavens,” she said. “Of course it’s way worse when we’re booked like this, and then we have emergencies coming in as well.” She noted how tired Stan looked. “Are you sleeping okay?”
“Not last night,” he said. “Don’t know what was wrong, but I was walking around outside at midnight.”
“I have done that a time or two,” she admitted.
“How are you and Iain getting along?”
Her eyebrows shot up.
He shrugged and said, “I’ve seen you spending a fair bit of time with him.”
“Not this week,” she said with a shrug. “Apparently Shane started putting him through the paces, and Iain’s been noticeably absent for the last half of the week.”
“Well, it is Friday,” he said. “If you wanted to spend some time with him this weekend, I’m sure that could happen.”
“If he’s in any shape,” she said with a nod. “Maybe even just to get out to the pasture and lie down and sunbathe would be nice.”
“Says you,” he said. “I’ll sleep. Besides, we’ll have patients all weekend, so I’ll be back and forth checking in on them.”
“Right, we’ve got what? One dog and one cat for the weekend?”
“And then the regulars,” he said. “That’s why we have got to solve the Hoppers problem.”
“Iain did say that he was pretty handy with a hammer and nails.”
“If he were a little bit further down his healing road,” Stan said, “I’d probably get him to come take a look, offer some suggestio
ns on what we could do. What does Hoppers actually need?”
“Basically a covered outdoor run and a way to get back inside,” she said. She walked over to the nearest window and studied the many dog runs they had. “Why can’t we convert one of these to accommodate him?”
“There’s an idea,” he said, standing next to her. “Even if we just made him a smaller one off to the side.”
They stepped outside and walked around to where dog runs were. They weren’t huge, but they were large enough that dogs could stretch their legs, run back and forth, and somebody could throw a ball for them.
As they stood at the fourth one, she nodded and said, “We could even put a little doorway through here and make him a separate run.” She studied the exterior of the building and then sighed. “But that’ll mean giving him access through this big foundation wall.”
Stan stepped to the side and said, “Well, what about using this nearby door instead? We could inset a bunny door in this side door and put another little small fence around here, cutting into the dog run, but redirecting to the side piece here, and then Hoppers can come and go as he wants to.”
The two of them discussed it until they heard a shout from inside. They headed back in to see Annette pushing the trolley, fully laden. “Oh, that looks so good,” Robin said. She looked around and said, “Why don’t we just eat out here in the sitting room?” They sat around a small coffee table, with Annette joining them for their lunch break, and ate large plates of wraps filled with rice with raisins and curry spices.
“I don’t know what this is,” Robin mumbled with her mouth full, “but it’s divine.”
“I didn’t even ask,” Annette said. “I was so busy trying to get some of everything for you guys that I wasn’t too bothered about getting the names of the dishes.”
“If I care enough,” Robin said, “I can always ask Dennis myself.”
“True,” Annette said with a smile. Only as they were almost done did Annette add, “And, by the way, I saw Iain up there.”
Robin froze, looked over at Annette, and asked, “Really? Do you know who he is?”
She nodded. “I figured you two were friends. He was up there, and I just happened to notice,” she said with a casual shrug.
Robin sat back, wondering if both Stan and Annette saw their friendship as something more. She frowned.
“Don’t bother arguing,” Stan said. “We can see the sparks.”
“Not a whole lot anybody can do about sparks in his condition or mine,” she said with a laugh. “And hardly sparks. More like, gentle interest.”
“This is a place for friendships,” Annette said quietly. “It’s a place where any connection that’s built here isn’t built on the physical looks but built on gaining new strength, as people go from strength to strength.”
“That’s very insightful,” Robin said. She laid down her fork, sat back, and rubbed her tummy. “That was great.”
“It really was,” Stan said, as he worked on finishing the last bit on his plate.
Robin contemplated Annette’s words because she was right. This wasn’t a place where physical attraction was first and foremost. It was all about seeing the soul and the character residing inside the pain and also seeing the growth of the survivor in the patient’s eyes. Not the physical body but the mental body, the emotional body, and how well people dealt with life. “I think Iain will have a few tough weeks,” she said to Annette.
“He looked pretty wiped out right now,” she said, “but he was glancing around, as if searching for somebody.” And she let her words hang in the air.
Robin frowned.
“You may want to take the dishes up yourself,” Annette said. “Not that I guarantee he’ll still be there by now.”
“Not likely,” she said. “It’s Friday. I don’t know what his afternoon schedule looks like.”
Annette nodded. “Probably like ours, which will be hellish.” She pointed to the parking lot where three vehicles were pulling in at the same time.
Stan groaned, put the last bite in his mouth, snagged his coffee, and said, “I’ll be in my office.”
Robin laughed and said, “My coffee is gone. I’ll return the dishes and grab another cup while I’m there.” And, without giving Annette a chance to say anything and ignoring her smug smile, Robin grabbed the trolley and pushed it out of the lobby and the reception area. The last thing they needed was for clients to come in with patients and see food everywhere. She quickly closed the elevator door and zipped up to the cafeteria level. There, she pushed the trolley and headed toward Dennis.
Dennis smiled, took one look at the trolley, and said, “That’s what I like to see. Empty plates.”
“It was fabulous,” she said. She quickly unloaded the trolley and grabbed more coffee. Then she caught sight of gooey melted chocolate chip cookies. She sighed and said, “I’ll get fat here.”
“I think that’s a complaint everybody has,” a man said behind her. She spun and saw Iain standing on his crutches, looking like he could collapse. Instinctively her hands moved out to his in an offer of support.
“Oh my,” she said. “You look like you’re done for.”
“That bad, huh?” He squeezed her fingers and gave her a crooked grin.
“I’ve got about five minutes, if you want to talk,” she whispered.
He shook his head slowly. “Honestly I’m not done yet. I have some more work to do at the pool, and then I have appointments this afternoon.”
From his tone of voice, she could tell they weren’t appointments he looked forward to. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m around most of the weekend though, if you want to visit.”
“That would be great,” he said with a smile.
She looked at the clock on the wall behind him and realized that she didn’t have five minutes at all. “Look. I’m really behind downstairs,” she said. “How about I check in with you over the weekend? Maybe we can sit and have coffee or something.” A smile flashed on his face, and it looked genuine. Tired and worn out but genuine.
He nodded. “If my door is shut, don’t wake me though,” he said with a half grin. “I might sleep through to Monday.”
“And, if you do,” she said warmly, “then you needed to.”
With that, she dashed off, barely avoiding spilling her coffee on the trolley as she headed downstairs. But, as she bolted in, ready to tackle the afternoon’s worth of work, she had a smile on her face. A knowing grin on Annette’s face as Robin blasted past told her that her friend had taken notice too.
Getting to the pool was agonizing. Iain didn’t know why the hell Shane had been hiding all this from him through the first three weeks, and yet maybe Shane had been right to take it easy on Iain those initial weeks so the swelling in his back and both his legs went down. But getting to the pool today had almost maxed his abilities. He’d changed to the wheelchair because absolutely no way could he manage crutches.
Once downstairs, he pulled to the side of the pool, locked the wheelchair, reached out a hand for the railing that would lead to the steps into the water, and slowly stood on his weak leg. Reaching for the second bar, he hopped closer. And then, with one final push, he jumped into the water.
As soon as the cool waves caused by his exuberance closed over his head, he felt some of the stress sliding off his shoulders. He didn’t even want to surface. He wanted to stay under and float in a space where he didn’t have to worry about his body not supporting him. A space where he didn’t have to worry about his build being too much for his leg, where his oversized body—that he’d always taken so much pride in—was now going against him. A place where he could just relax and be free. But eventually he had to surface, and he did so slowly, releasing the air in his lungs and taking a deep breath of more. When he opened his eyes, Shane stood there with a frown on his face.
“That frown doesn’t make me feel good,” Iain muttered.
“You’re done for the day,” he said. “Here I was hoping to get a few
laps out of you, but you’re too tired.”
At that, Iain gave him a flat stare and said, “I can do at least two.” And he started off with a front crawl. He still couldn’t stop the rotation though, something that he knew would improve his strokes and would take away his exhaustion faster than anything because swimming was something he could get into a rhythm, and it didn’t tire him.
He could go for miles, but, with only one whole leg, he found himself constantly rotating at the hip level. He focused on keeping his body straight and his legs moving from the thigh, not the foot. Realizing that that was where the mistake was, he slowed down his strokes and moved steadily forward. He came to the far wall, flipped, kicked off, then turned and headed back toward Shane. But he didn’t stop there. He did another flip turn and headed back, finding it easier as his body loosened up a bit more.
After another eight laps, he came to a slowdown and stopped in front of Shane. “It’s much easier if I remember to kick from the hip joint,” Iain said.
Shane crouched in front of him. “I think that’s one of the biggest lessons for anybody in this situation. You have to maintain your center of gravity and remember where your baseline is. Every set of joints is important all the way up, but you have to make sure that the spine and the hip joint are squared off to the rest of you and then stay that way.”
“It’s like relearning how to walk all over again,” Iain said. “Now that I’m in the pool, I’m having to relearn how to swim.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” he said. “I know it sounds funny, but, even if you just lost toes or half a foot, you would have a similar adjustment. It wouldn’t be quite so large and exasperating, but you would still have to make an adjustment.”
“Now what?” he asked. “I did ten laps. That’s not a whole lot, but I am feeling a bit better.”
“And you’re looking a bit better,” Shane said. “We’ll do some stretches to finish off.”
“Well, what stretches are to you,” Iain said, “is a full-body workout to other people.”
“And that’s quite possible but hardly my concern though. I don’t worry about other people. Let’s worry about you.”