“Last night,” I whispered hoarsely, hoping he wouldn’t notice my throaty voice. “You’ve been sleeping for hours and hours.”
“You look exhausted,” he said weakly, touchingly showing more concern for me than for himself. “Why don’t you go back to the Hall and sleep? I’m okay. I’ve fallen before, and, like before, in a few days I’ll be whirling all over that house again. Where’s my wife?”
Why wasn’t he noticing the cast that bulged out his chest? Then I saw his eyes were unfocused and he hadn’t fully pulled out of the sedatives given him to ease the pain. Good . . . if only he wouldn’t start asking questions I wanted Chris to answer.
Sleepily he closed his eyes and dozed off, but ten minutes later he was again awake and asking questions. “Mom, I feel strange. Never felt like this before. Can’t say I like the way I feel. Why this cast? Did I break something?”
“The temple papier-mâché columns fell,” I weakly explained. “Knocked you out. What a way to end the ballet—too real.”
“Did I bring down the house—or the sky?” he quipped, his eyes opening and brightening as the sedative I’d hoped would keep him hazy wore off. “Cindy was great, wasn’t she? You know, each time I see her, she’s more beautiful. And she’s really a very good dancer. She’s like you, Mom, improving with age.”
I sat on my hands to keep them from twisting in the betraying way my mother used to use her hands. I smiled, got up to pour a glass of water. “Doctor’s orders. You’ve got to drink a lot.”
He sipped as I supported his head. It was so strange to see him helpless, when he’d never been bedridden. His colds had come and gone in a matter of days, and not once had he missed a day in school or ballet class, except in order to visit Bart in the hospital after one of his many accidents that never left him permanently damaged. Jory had sprained his ankles dozens of times, torn ligaments, fallen, gotten up, but he’d never had a serious injury until now. All dancers spent some time tending small injuries, and sometimes even larger ones, but a broken back, a damaged spinal cord—it was every dancer’s most dreaded nightmare.
Again he dozed off, but before long he had his eyes open and was asking questions about himself. Perched on the side of his bed, I rattled on and on nonsensically, praying that Chris would come back. A pretty nurse came in with Jory’s lunch tray, all liquids. That gave me something to do. I fiddled with a half-pint milk carton, opened yogurt, poured milk and orange juice, tucked a napkin under his chin, and began with the strawberry yogurt. Immediately he gagged and made a face. He shoved my hands away, saying he could feed himself, but he didn’t have an appetite.
Once I had the tray out of the way, I hoped he’d fall asleep. Instead he lay there staring at me, his eyes lucid. “Can you tell me now why I feel so weak? Why I can’t eat? Why I can’t move my legs?”
“Your father has gone out to bring in food for the two of us, snack food that’s not good for you, but it will be tastier than what we can eat in the cafeteria downstairs. Let him tell you. He knows all the technical terms that I don’t.”
“Mom, I wouldn’t understand technical terms. Tell me in your own layman’s words—why can’t I feel or move my legs?”
His dark sapphire eyes riveted on me. “Mom, I’m not a coward. I can take whatever you have to say. Now spill it out, or else I’m going to presume my back is broken and my legs are paralyzed and I’m never going to walk again.”
My heart quickened as my head lowered. He’d said all this in a jocular way, as if none of it could possibly be true . . . and he’d stated his condition exactly.
Desperation came to his eyes as I faltered, trying to find just the right words, and even the right ones would rip out his heart. Just then Chris strode in the door, carrying a paper sack with cheeseburgers. “Well,” he said brightly, throwing Jory a pleased smile, “look who’s awake and talking.” He took out a burger and handed it to me. “Sorry, Jory, you can’t have anything solid for a few days due to your operation. Cathy, eat that thing while it’s still hot,” he ordered, sitting down himself and immediately unwrapping his burger. I saw he’d bought two super ones for himself. He bit into it with relish before he brought out the cola drinks. “Didn’t have the lime you wanted, Cathy. It’s Pepsi.”
“It’s cold, with lots of ice, that’s all I want.”
Jory watched us narrowly as we ate. I forced down the cheeseburger, knowing he was suspicious. Chris did an admirable job of eating two burgers and one cardboard dish of French fries while I managed to eat only half of my burger, and didn’t touch the greasy potatoes. Chris balled up his napkin and tossed it in a can, along with our other trash.
By this time Jory’s lids were growing heavy. He was struggling hard to stay awake. “Dad . . . are you going to tell me now?”
“Yes, anything you want to know.” Chris moved to sit on Jory’s bed and placed his strong hand on top of Jory’s. Jory blinked back sleep.
“Dad, I’m not feeling anything below my waist. All the time you and Mom ate, I was trying to wiggle my toes and I couldn’t. If I’ve broken my back, and that’s why I’m in this cast, I want to know the truth, all of it.”
“I intend to tell you all the truth,” said Chris staunchly.
“Is my spine broken?”
“Yes.”
“Are my legs paralyzed?”
“Yes.”
Jory blinked, looked stunned, gathered his strength for one last question. “Will I dance again?”
“No.”
Jory closed his eyes, tightened his lips into a thin line and lay perfectly still.
I stepped closer to lean above him, and tenderly I brushed back the dark curls fallen over his brow. “Darling, I know you’re devastated. It wasn’t easy for your father to tell you the truth, but you have to know. You’re not alone in this. We’re all involved. We’re here to see you through, to do everything we can. You’ll adjust. Time will heal your body so you won’t feel pain, and eventually you’ll accept what can’t be helped. We love you. Melodie loves you. And you’ll be a father come this very January. You reached the top of your profession and have been there five years . . . that’s more than most people accomplish in a lifetime.”
Briefly he met my eyes. His were full of bitterness, anger, frustration, a rage so terrible I had to turn away. It was all over him, his fierce resentment at having been cheated and stolen from before he’d had enough.
When I looked again, his eyes were closed. Chris had his fingers on his pulse. “Jory, I know you’re not sleeping. I’m going to give you another sedative so you can really sleep, and when you wake up, you are going to think about how important you are to a great many people. You’re not going to feel sorry for yourself and allow yourself to wallow in bitterness. There are people walking the streets today who will never experience what you’ve already had. They haven’t traveled the world over and heard the thundering applause and cries of ‘bravo, bravo!’ They’ll never know the heights that were yours and can be yours again in some other field of artistic endeavor. Your world has not stopped, son, you’ve only stumbled. The road to achievement is still ahead and wide open, only you’ll have to roll along that road instead of run or dance; but you’ll achieve again, for it’s in you to always win. You will just find another craft, another career, and with your family you will find happiness. Isn’t that what life is all about when you come down to the basics? We want someone to love us, to need us, to share our lives . . . and you have all of that.”
My son didn’t open his eyes, didn’t respond. He only lay there as still as if death had already claimed him.
Inside I was screaming, for Julian had reacted in the very same way! Jory was closing us out, locking himself in the narrow, tight cage of his mind that refused life without walking and dancing.
Silently Chris readied a hypodermic needle before he swabbed at Jory’s arm, then released the fluid steadily into his arm. “Sleep, my son. When you wake up, your wife will be here. You’ll have to be brave for her sake.”
I thought I saw Jory shudder.
We left him deeply asleep, in the care of a private-duty nurse instructed to never leave him alone. Chris drove us back to Foxworth Hall so he could shower and shave, take a nap, put on fresh clothes before he drove back to be with Jory. We expected Melodie to return with us.
Her blue eyes went terror stricken and stark when Chris told her as kindly as possible Jory’s condition.
She uttered a small cry and clutched at her abdomen. “You mean . . . never dance? Never walk?” she whispered, as if her voice were failing her. “There must be something you can do to help him.”
Chris soon dashed that hope. “No, Melodie. When the spinal cord is injured, it prevents the legs from receiving the messages from the brain. Jory can will his legs to move, but they won’t receive the message. You have to accept him as he is now, and do everything you can to help him survive what is probably the most traumatic event he will ever have to face.”
She jumped to her feet, crying out pitifully, “But he won’t be the same! You just said he’s refusing to talk—I can’t go there and pretend it doesn’t matter when it does! What will he do? What will I do? Where will we go, and how will he survive without walking and dancing? What kind of father will he make now that he has to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair?”
Standing, Chris spoke firmly. “Melodie, this is no time for you to panic and throw hysterical tantrums. You have to be strong, not weak. I realize you are suffering, too, but you have to show him a bright, smiling face that will give him the assurance that he hasn’t lost the wife he loves. You don’t marry just for the good times, but for the bad times as well. You’ll bathe, dress, put on your makeup, style your hair, and go to him and hold him in your arms as best you can, and kiss him and make him believe he has a future worth staying alive for.”
“BUT HE DOESN’T!” she yelled. “HE DOESN’T!”
Then, breaking, she was crying bitter tears. “I didn’t mean that . . . I love him, I do . . . but don’t make me go and see him lying like that so still and quiet. I can’t stand to see him until he’s smiling and accepting, and then maybe I can face up to what he’s become . . . maybe I can . . .”
I disliked her for showing such spineless hysteria and failing Jory when he needed her most. Stepping to Chris’s side, I linked my arm through his. “Melodie, do you think for one moment that you are the first wife and expectant mother to suddenly find the world crashing down on your head? You’re not. I was expecting Jory when his father was in a fatal auto accident. Just be grateful Jory is alive.”
She sank in a crumpled heap on a chair and bowed her head into her hands and cried for long minutes before she looked up, her eyes darker and more bleak than before. “Perhaps death is what he’d prefer—have you thought of that?”
It was the thought that tormented my hours, that Jory would do something to end his life, as Julian had done.
I wouldn’t let it happen. Not again. “Then stay here and cry,” I said with unintentional hardness. “But I’m not going to leave my son alone to fight this out by himself. I’m going to stay with him night and day to see that he doesn’t give up hope. But you keep this in mind, Melodie: You are carrying his child, and that makes you the most important person in his life—and important in mine, too. He needs you and your support. I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but I have to think first of him . . . why can’t you?”
Speechless, she stared up at me, her lovely face stricken, tears streaking her cheeks. “Tell him I’ll come soon . . . tell him that,” she whispered hoarsely.
We told him that.
He kept his eyes closed, his lips glued together. There were ways of telling he wasn’t asleep, only shutting us out.
* * *
Jory refused to eat until tubes were put in his arms to feed him intravenously. Summer days came and went; long days that were full and mostly sad. Some hours gave me faint pleasures when I was with Chris and Cindy, but few gave me hope.
If only, if only were the words that started off my mornings, as they finished off my nights. If only I could live my life all over again, then, perhaps, I could save Jory, Chris, Cindy, Melodie, myself—and even Bart. If only.
If only he hadn’t danced that role—
I tried everything, as Chris and Cindy did, to pull Jory back from that terribly lonely place where he’d taken himself. For the first time in my life I couldn’t reach him, couldn’t ease his sorrow.
He’d lost what mattered most to him, the use of his dancing legs. With his legs he’d soon lose his wonderfully powerful and skilled body. I couldn’t look at those beautifully shaped strong legs lying so still beneath the sheet, so damned useless.
Had the grandmother been right when she said we were cursed, born for failure and pain? Had she programmed us for tragedy to steal the fruit of our successes?
Had Chris and I achieved anything of real value when our son lay as if dead, and our second son refused to visit Jory but once?
Bart had stood and stared down at Jory lying helpless and still with his eyes closed, his arms straight down at his sides. “Oh, my God,” he’d whispered before he hurried from the tiny room.
Never could I convince him to visit again. “Mother, he doesn’t know I’m there, so what’s the good? I can’t bear to see him like that. I’m sorry, really sorry . . . but I can’t help.”
I stared at him, wondering if I had wanted to help him so much I’d risked the life of my beloved Jory.
That’s when I began to tell myself that I wasn’t going to believe he’d never walk, never dance again. This was a nightmare to be endured, but eventually we’d awaken and Jory would be whole again, just as he’d been.
I told Chris my plan to convince Jory he could and he would walk again, even if he never danced.
“Cathy, you can’t give him false hope,” warned Chris, looking terribly distressed. “All you can do now is help him accept what can’t be changed. Give him your kind of strength. Help him—but don’t lead him down false trails that will bring him only disappointment. I know it will be difficult. I’m in hell, too, just as much as you are. But remember, our hell is nothing compared to his. We can sympathize and feel dreadfully sorry, but we’re not inside his skin. We’re not suffering his loss—he’s all alone in that. Facing up to agony you and I can’t even begin to understand. All we can do is be here when he decides to pull out of his protective shell. Be here to give him the confidence he needs to go on . . . for damned if Melodie is giving him anything!”
That was something almost as awful as Jory’s injury . . . that his own wife would shun him now as if he were a leper. Both Chris and I pleaded with her to come with us, even if she said nothing but hello, I love you, she had to come.
“What can I say that you haven’t already said?” she screamed. “He doesn’t want me to come and see him like that! I know him better than either of you do. If he wanted to see me, he’d say he did. Besides, I’m afraid to go, afraid I’ll cry and say all the wrong things, and even if I stay quiet, he might open his eyes and see something on my face that would make him feel worse, and I don’t want to be responsible for what might happen then. Stop insisting! Wait until he wants me to visit . . . and then, maybe, I can find the courage I need.”
She flew away from Chris and me as if we carried with us some plague that might contaminate her dream that this nightmare would end happily.
Standing in the hall outside our rooms was Bart, staring after Melodie with his heart in his eyes. He turned to glare at me.
“Why don’t you leave her alone? I’ve been to see him, and it tore me all apart. Certainly in her condition she needs to find some security, even if it’s only in her dreams. She sleeps a great deal, you know. While you stay with him, she cries, walks as if in a dream, with her eyes unfocused. She half eats. I have to plead with her to swallow, to drink. She stares at me, and obeys like a child. Sometimes I have to spoon the food into her mouth, hold the glass for her to sip. Mother, Melodie is in shock
—and all you think about is your precious Jory, not caring what you do to her!”
Sorry now, I hurried to her side and held her in my arms. “It’s all right. I understand now. Bart has explained how you can’t accept this yet . . . but try, Melodie, please try. Even if he doesn’t open his eyes and speak, he’s aware of what’s going on, and who comes to see him and who doesn’t.”
Her head was on my shoulder. “Cathy . . . I am trying. Just give me time.”
The next morning Cindy came into our bedroom without knocking, causing Chris to frown. She should have known better. But I had to forgive her after seeing her pale face and frightened expression. “Momma . . . Daddy, I’ve just got to tell you something, and yet I don’t know if I should. Or if it really means anything.”
I was distracted from her words by the outfit she wore: a white bikini so brief it was barely there. The swimming pool Bart had ordered was now complete and this was the first day it was ready. Jory’s tragic accident was not going to inhibit Bart’s style of living.
“Cindy, I wish you would wear those beach coverups at the poolside. And that suit is much too skimpy.”
She appeared startled, crestfallen and hurt because I criticized her suit. Glancing down at herself briefly, she shrugged indifferently. “Holy Christ, Momma! Some friends of mine wear string bikinis—you should see those if you think this one is immodest. Some of my friends wear nothing at all . . .” Her large blue eyes studied mine seriously.
Chris tossed her a towel, which she wrapped around herself. “Momma, I’ve got to say I don’t like the way you make me feel, somehow dirty, like Bart makes me feel—when I came to tell you something I overheard Bart talking about.”
“Go on, Cindy,” urged Chris.
“Bart was on the telephone. He’d left his door ajar. I heard him talking to an insurance agency.” She paused, sat down on our unmade bed and lowered her head before she spoke again. Her soft, silky hair hid her expression. “Mom, Dad, it seems Bart took out some kind of special ‘party’ insurance in case any of his guests were injured.”
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 130