Breakup in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  It was a good desk. Solidly built, but with enough design elements to also be visually appealing. There were hidden drawers, curved edges. He’d been tempted to create some kind of locking device, so that the hidden drawers would actually be inaccessible, but at the last minute decided that was a little too adventure movie-ish, and simply built them to blend into the desk itself.

  A picture of Jenny and the kids sat on the desk and he picked it up, running his fingers over their faces. He’d failed them. He hadn’t kept up his end of the bargain. He was supposed to be their protector, their provider. He was neither, and despite that fact, despite knowing that they would be better off without him, he couldn’t seem to wheel himself away.

  * * *

  FOURTEEN HOURS AND a million more reasons to let his family go later, Adam was just as uncomfortable as he had been in the guest room of his home. He sat in the exam room of his doctor’s office, waiting. Jenny sat in the plastic-backed chair against the wall. He’d left the wheelchair in favor of sitting on the too-short bed thing in the office. The protective strip of paper on it crackled when he moved, so he did his best to remain still.

  Jenny was checking her phone.

  “Everything okay?” His voice sounded rough and unused. So, pretty much the new normal.

  “Just checking in with your dad. We were supposed to ship the new cabinet fronts for the Wareham project in Joplin today.”

  “Supposed to?” he asked, because supposed to made it sound as if the shipment didn’t happen.

  Jenny sighed. “He decided to ship them with the countertops next week.” She put her phone into her purse. “I’ll call the project manager when we get done here, straighten it out.”

  Adam didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He didn’t know anything about the Wareham project; maybe it made sense to ship the tops and fronts at the same time.

  Jenny watched him for a long while, as if waiting for him to say something or do something more than sit on the edge of the exam table. Finally, she blew out a breath and took her phone from her bag again. While she tapped the keys, he watched the clock on the wall click off two minutes and twenty-five seconds. Then the doctor came in.

  “Adam, Jenny, how are you both doing today?” Dr. Lambert wore gray pants and New Balance running shoes. Under his crisp, white lab coat, he wore a pink polo shirt. Adam didn’t answer his question.

  “We’re fine. No seizures since our visit two weeks ago,” Jenny said, as if she spoke for him all the time.

  “Sixteen days, if you want to be exact.” Because sixteen days sounded so much better than two weeks. Two was nothing. Sixteen, that sounded like progress, at least to Adam. Jenny raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “Good, good.” Lambert made a notation on his tablet. “We’ll keep the same dosage, same meds for now. This could be the cocktail we’ve been looking for. Adam, how are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “No more headaches?”

  Adam shook his head, not caring that it was a lie. The headaches were much better than they had been the first few days after he’d woken up in the hospital. Instead of pounding at his brain like a hammer, they were more of a dull throb. And instead of lasting all day, they were an hour or so at the most. Nothing he couldn’t deal with. Besides, his head shake seemed to make Jenny feel better. Her shoulders didn’t seem so stiff now.

  “What about the vertigo?”

  “Nothing.” Of course, it was hard to have vertigo when he spent 90 percent of his day either lying on the guest room bed or sitting in that damned chair. He leaned his head forward, and the floor seemed to yo-yo toward him. Adam gripped the edge of the table and closed his eyes. When he looked up, Jenny was tapping at her phone again and the doctor was making another notation in his chart. Good, neither of them had seen through the vertigo lie, either.

  “Okay. Let’s see how things are looking, then,” the doctor said as he turned to face Adam.

  He shone a light into Adam’s eyes. Looked in his ears. Listened to his lungs and his heart and his belly. Adam wondered what any of that had to do with his malfunctioning brain, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know. The less he knew, the more he could pretend that this wasn’t really happening. That maybe he was still stuck in the rubble of the day care, waiting to be rescued from the worst dream of his life.

  Finally, Dr. Lambert finished his examination. He sat on the wheeled stool while he made a few more notes on the tablet.

  “I like what I’m seeing, Adam,” he said after a long moment. “I think we may be on the right medication track, and your vitals are definitely returning to normal. What’s going on with your knee? Still giving you trouble?”

  “The rehab doc still thinks he’s going to require surgery to fix the knee, but they’ve talked about ultrasound therapy as a stopgap measure,” Jenny stated. “He said it might be enough to reattach the hamstring, which would be a good first step. Or it would be if he was actually going to the physical therapy appointments.” She shot Adam a look before he could offer another monosyllabic, false-positive reply. “They won’t approve surgery until you give us the all-clear on the epilepsy front.”

  “I can walk, though—it’s just not as comfortable as it used to be.”

  “Walking mostly comfortable is good. But those ligaments aren’t going to reattach themselves, Adam. Rehab will help, especially since I don’t feel confident approving the surgery just yet. We need to ensure the epilepsy is under control before we put you under the knife.”

  Because if his brain freaked out during surgery, chances were the knee surgeon could do more harm than good, Adam supposed. He didn’t say that, though. He didn’t want Dr. Lambert to refer him to a head-shrinker as well as a rehab specialist.

  “Have you given any more thought to a service dog?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said.

  “No,” Adam said at the same time. He stared at his wife for a moment.

  She shook her head as if to say, “Fine, have it your way.”

  “I don’t like the idea of having a big dog in the house. We have small children,” he said, and he knew even as he said the words that they were a reach. Having a service dog in the house wouldn’t be a danger to the kids. It wasn’t trained to find drugs or bombs, but to sense his messed-up brain waves or something. Adam still wasn’t positive what the service dog would do, other than be another reminder of his new inadequacies. That was enough to put a stop to the dog coming to their home.

  Her home. Whatever.

  “As long as the children understand the dog isn’t a pet, you have nothing to worry about. Even if they don’t quite understand it, it isn’t as if the dog will go on the attack. These are gentle dogs who are trained to meet your specific needs.”

  “Well, I don’t need a dog.” Adam stood abruptly, but the floor did that yo-yo thing again and he quickly sat in the wheelchair.

  Dr. Lambert pressed his mouth into a hard line. “Fine,” he said after a while. He motioned to the door, and they went into the hallway.

  “Thank you, Dr. Lambert,” Jenny said, but Adam heard no actual thanks in her voice. There was annoyance, but not thanks. He supposed he was the reason for that.

  “Kim at the front desk will schedule you back. Let’s go three full weeks this time, unless there is a seizure.” He walked beside Jenny while she pushed Adam in the wheelchair. “If there are any issues—” Adam knew what that meant: if the meds stopped working “—please call immediately.”

  “We will.”

  The doctor nodded. He paused for a moment, but didn’t say anything else, just turned on his heel and went down the hallway.

  Jenny scheduled the appointment while Adam sat in the wheelchair. In the parking lot, she turned to him. “You didn’t have to be rude about the dog.”

  “I don’t need a s
ervice dog. I’m not blind or deaf.”

  “Service dogs aren’t just for the blind or deaf. Did you even read the literature?”

  He’d put it in the nightstand drawer, and refused to open that drawer since putting the pamphlets there. “Of course I read the stupid flyers.” What was one more lie on the mountain of lies he’d been telling her since the accident?

  “Then stop acting as if a service dog means you’re permanently—” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Disabled? News flash, Jen, the doc thinks I am permanently disabled or he wouldn’t keep bringing it up.”

  “Epilepsy isn’t the end of the world.”

  “Well, it sure as hell isn’t normal, either,” he said. He got out of the wheelchair, slapped at it until it collapsed into a flat heap, and shoved it into the trunk of the Mustang convertible he’d restored his senior year in high school. The handles stuck out so that the trunk wouldn’t close. He shoved at it again, but no matter what he did, the stupid chair wouldn’t fit into the trunk.

  Jenny pushed him aside. “Let me do it,” she grumbled. “If we had a family car, this wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

  “We don’t need a family car just because I’m stuck in that stupid chair for another couple weeks.”

  “Rehab might shorten those couple weeks,” she said. “There is no way to rehab epilepsy.”

  She glared at him for a long moment then started around the car. Adam opened the passenger door, got in and slammed it shut. She slammed her door when she got in, too.

  “We need a family car because we have a family,” she said, anger making her husky voice even huskier. It sent a thrill down Adam’s spine, which was ridiculous. He couldn’t walk without a wheelchair; there was no way he could make love to his wife the way he wanted to. “Two kids, all of their school stuff, Frankie is already playing football because he wants to be like you. We need a family car.”

  “This car is important to me,” Adam said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “This car is impractical.”

  “I restored it. It’s a classic.”

  “Then we’ll just get a second car.”

  “No.”

  She glared at him again. “No?” she asked, her voice deceptively calm. Quiet.

  “No.”

  Jenny put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot. She didn’t say anything until they pulled onto the highway leading to Slippery Rock. Adam glanced at her. Jaw set. Mouth in a hard line. Hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, knuckles white.

  Adam started to apologize. He didn’t want to snap at Jenny. He didn’t want to fight with her. It was too hard to fight. He leaned his head against the rest and closed his eyes. He didn’t like fighting, not with Jenny. Not with anyone. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had always been. The Mustang was the way things had been.

  The Mustang meant everything would be okay again.

  * * *

  THEY DROVE IN silence until the big “Welcome to Slippery Rock” sign came into view. It had taken everything she had not to snap at Adam, not to react when he obviously wanted a reaction. A reason to fight. She wasn’t going to be that reason. He hated his diagnosis? Well, so did she, but according to some of the information she’d read online, keeping his world bland and ordinary could help to keep the seizures under control. Something about blood pressure spikes and endorphins, and it didn’t make a ton of sense to her, but then Jenny had never pretended to be interested in biology or any of the other sciences. She’d been too busy reading fiction books and daydreaming about Adam Buchanan.

  She didn’t want to lose him now. She couldn’t let him keep walking all over her, though. She was done with that. Everything had been Adam’s way since they got married. They’d bought the fixer-upper he wanted, drove the car he’d restored, watched the TV shows and movies he liked best. Hell, she’d taken the job he wanted her to take—and fallen in love with the intricacies of it, true enough.

  It never bothered her before the tornado that her life was so closely wrapped up in his. She didn’t mind being the one to discipline the kids or pay the bills or make the vacation plans he wanted or bring up the possibility of expanding Buchanan Cabinetry. But now she had the job, and the parenting, and the house upkeep, and she didn’t even have Fun Adam to run around with the kids in the backyard while she caught up on the laundry. Or, God, the man she loved to have take her in his arms and kiss her senseless.

  God, she missed being kissed.

  She’d give anything if he would reach across the car right now to take her hand. To tug on her ponytail the way he’d done a thousand times in her life. Anything, just to let her know he was still there. She’d done all the reaching since the tornado, and no matter what she tried, she hadn’t been able to touch him in whatever dark place he lived now.

  The Mustang flashed past the town sign, and Jenny slowed. She was through missing things. Missing Adam. Missing picking up the kids at school. Yes, her husband had limitations now, but that didn’t mean he could shut himself up in a room and avoid the rest of the world.

  Act as if none of them existed anymore.

  “It occurs to me that I’ve been too soft on you.” Jenny said the words carefully as she pulled to the stoplight outside Mallard’s Grocery. No inflection. No anger. Just words. Calm, cool, concise words. From the corner of her eye, she saw Adam’s head snap in her direction. Maybe this change in tactics was a good idea. “I don’t like this any more than you do, and I know you have it much worse than me because you’re living it. But I’m living it, too.”

  The light turned green and Jenny continued to their home. Adam didn’t say a word as she pulled into the drive. “I’m watching you fade away and I’ve tried everything I can to stop it. To bring you back.”

  “You think this is easy for me?” he asked after a long moment.

  “I think this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.” Her finger traced the small scar at his neck. His skin was warm, and it took all her self-control not to kiss the scar, the way she’d done a million times. She had to be stronger than the attraction she had for her husband.

  Jenny pulled her hand back, not wanting to feel the heat of his skin against hers. God, she wanted to kiss him there. Just for a little while, she wanted them to be the Jenny and Adam they’d been since high school. She would kiss the scar and then make her way to his mouth. He would carry her inside the house and make love to her on the living room floor because there wasn’t time to carry her all the way upstairs, to that big bed he’d built for her when they were first married.

  She pushed the hot thoughts of sex with Adam away as quickly as she’d drawn her hand away from his neck. Made herself remember the phone call that came in the middle of the night when she was fifteen. Aiden and Adam had lost control of their dad’s Buick on black ice and totaled it. Adam had cracked two vertebrae in his neck, and had to wear a halo for three months, until the bones were strong again. Then, after the halo came off, he’d needed screws to hold those vertebrae apart.

  She’d thought at the time nothing would be harder than that.

  God, how wrong she’d been. His life hadn’t ended with the car accident, and it hadn’t ended when the tornado tore through Slippery Rock. But she had no idea how to reach him this time.

  “You’d think God would have been satisfied with one head injury, huh?” he said, and his mouth twisted in that familiar half smile that usually made her heart skip a beat. Instead of sounding like a joke, though, his words were flat, with hard, pointy tips.

  “I could have done without either. You scared ten years off my life with that car accident. And when I saw the steeple start to fall during the tornado...” Jenny shook her head. “I know this isn’t easy for you. It isn’t easy for me, either. But we have to figure out how to get through it, because I can’t keep jugg
ling all the balls you keep throwing my way.”

  “The balls I keep throwing?”

  “I’ve taken up the slack at work. I’m cooking all the meals, cleaning the house, getting the kids to and from school. I’m paying the bills and doing the laundry and chauffeuring you to doctor appointments—”

  “I’ll call a taxi,” he interrupted, but Jenny kept talking. She had to keep talking or she would never get all this out.

  “Slippery Rock doesn’t even have Uber. And that isn’t the point. The point is I’m doing it all. By myself. And you’re wallowing.”

  “I have a deadly disease.” Adam narrowed his eyes.

  Jenny popped the trunk, got out of the car and pulled the wheelchair from it as if she’d been doing it all her life. Some days, it seemed as if she had. She wheeled it to his door.

  “Well, you aren’t dying today. And you say you’re well enough not to need a service dog. And yesterday you were well enough to use a knife to cut up an apple. You say you have no vertigo, no headaches...” She counted off the lies he’d told the doctor on her fingers. “And here I am, thinking I had to protect you from the world.”

  “Jen—”

  “No. Don’t Jen me. Don’t lie to my face and tell me you’re too weak, too scared, too...whatever. You say you’re fine, well, I’m taking you at your word.” She checked her watch. Still time to make the staff meeting at one, and if she hurried through the rest of her day, she could pick up the kids after school. “I have the Wednesday staff meeting. You know, the one you instituted last summer? We’re talking about new product lines, and I’ve been allowing your parents too much say in what Buchanan’s does. I’m going to the meeting, and I’ll pick up the kids—”

  “I haven’t had lunch.”

  “There is bologna in the fridge—you can figure it out. And while you’re figuring it, would you please do a couple loads of laundry? Frankie’s out of clean underwear and Garrett wants his favorite dinosaur shirt for school tomorrow.”