by Lexi Blake
It was worse when Lila started talking about all the new therapies and research being done.
He knew she was only trying to help, but it was his responsibility to make sure Noelle was comfortable. It was his job to let Noelle know that she was enough.
“Okay. I’ll drive her out to the therapist’s today,” Lila said. “I don’t have anything after two, when I get to recheck Zep’s finger. Luckily it was something I could handle. It was just the tip. Don’t. You have no idea how many jokes he made about that.”
He was sure that dealing with Zep Guidry as a care provider was almost as bad as dealing with him as a law enforcement officer. “I can imagine.”
“What are you doing today?”
He was not looking forward to his day. “I get to attend a planning meeting. The town fair is next week. I have to make sure there’s some form of security. We’ve got a couple of volunteers. I get to teach a class on our crowd control protocols.”
“We have crowd control protocols? We have crowds?”
He was looking forward to taking his honey to her first big town party. “Oh, you haven’t seen what can happen at one of these things. Especially at some of the food stands. They brought in fried butter last year and nearly started a stampede.”
Lila groaned. “I am going to make pamphlets warning of the dangers of both fried foods and butter. And fair food. Are we sure the vendors all have health department clearance?”
“I thought you were trying to make people like you.”
She shrugged. “They’ll like me when I save their arteries.”
“They won’t,” he insisted. “They don’t even know what their arteries do. Besides, your sister would be leading the revolution if you got fried food banned.”
“That’s true.” She kissed his chest. “Gotta go, babe. There’s coffee when you’re ready and yes, I finally figured out you’ve been putting chicory in my blend. It’s delicious.”
“Hey, you love all things Cajun.”
She wrinkled her nose and stalked off.
He forced himself to get up. She was right about working crazy hours. He wasn’t going to be able to do it much longer. He was starting to get irritated due to worry and lack of sleep. Just yesterday, he’d actually given out three tickets for dog doo violations when he would usually issue a warning. The owner of a Labradoodle with an obviously healthy colon had accused him of being the po-po who was too concerned with poo-poo.
He couldn’t deal with these people on no sleep. Coffee and a hot shower would only keep him going for so long. He’d managed to keep his irritable mood from Lila and Noelle, but the rest of the town was definitely starting to notice. He was a bear.
Noelle sat with her laptop at the breakfast table, a big bowl in front of her. She glanced up. “There’s oatmeal. Lila made it in the slow cooker last night. It’s pretty good.”
Her eyes went back down to the screen.
He grabbed a cup of coffee. He was too tired for this, but he didn’t like the fact that there seemed to be some tension to his daughter he didn’t understand. “I heard you decided to not go out this weekend. I thought you had fun.”
She didn’t look up from her computer screen. “I did. The movies were good, but I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“I get the reports on your pacing. You’re ahead, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Did those girls say or do something they shouldn’t have?”
“No. I just don’t want to go. And I think you should talk to your girlfriend about the fact that she’s not my mom.” Noelle’s lips firmed. “Look, I like Lila. I like her a lot, but I’m starting to think that maybe she doesn’t like me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“She’s always talking to me about how smart I am and how much I could do.”
“That doesn’t seem like a bad thing.”
“It is when you really can’t do any of those things. I can’t go to college, Dad.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we can work something out. I mean, I’ll be honest, I don’t see you going to UT Austin and living completely on your own, but maybe we could start looking around for a community college we could get you to. And maybe we should think about getting a car you could drive.”
Her skin paled in the morning light. “I’m not driving. I’m not.”
“Sweetie, you have to learn at some point.” Had she honestly believed she wouldn’t drive at all?
Now her eyes met his and there was disappointment in them. “She got to you.”
“Got to me how?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Like I said, I like Lila.”
Frustration welled inside him. “Tell me. I can’t solve the problem if you don’t tell me what the problem is.”
“I’ve started to wonder if maybe she doesn’t want to be burdened with a stepdaughter in a wheelchair. She keeps pushing me to try things I can’t do. Maybe she wants to send me away so you can start a new family and not have to deal with me.”
Oh, they were going to have to have a meeting. A family meeting. “That’s not what she wants. She’s thinking about you and what’s best for your future.”
“I don’t have a future,” Noelle shot back with a savage anger he hadn’t heard from her before. “Not one that includes going to college and living in a dorm. I can barely manage to get in my chair from bed, much less getting myself around a campus. I’ll go and do the PT because it seems like that’s something she needs me to do in order to be okay with me, but I don’t want to listen to her complain about how lazy I am.”
“Nobody is saying that. Lila certainly isn’t. Is she saying things when I’m not around?”
“No. Not like that,” Noelle replied. “She’s always positive about it, but I have to wonder. I know I’m a burden.”
“You’re not a burden. You’re my daughter and you still come first in my life.” She had to. He was pretty sure he wanted to marry Lila, but Noelle still had to come first. “I’ll talk to Lila. Maybe we should all sit down and talk.”
There were tears in his daughter’s eyes. “I don’t want her to hate me. I want things to stay the same. Can’t she like me the way I am?”
“She does like you.” His heart ached for her, but she was wrong about Lila. She had to be. “Are you okay with her taking you to therapy? I can pick you up, but I have a meeting that will likely run long.”
Could he get out of it? He would send Roxie, but she was even less tolerant than he was and might end up arresting the board members.
Noelle sniffled. “Yes, I can go with her. We’re fine most of the time. We had a nice night last night, although she tried to teach me how to make the oatmeal. I can’t cook. She keeps trying to teach me things.”
She was trying too hard. “Lila is the type of woman who throws herself into everything she does. She’s a type A. She has to be to do her job the way she does. She’s trying to solve problems and be a good role model to you. Be patient with her. She means well.”
“I hope so.” Noelle looked back to her computer.
He got himself a cup of coffee and thought about how to navigate this new land mine.
* * *
• • •
Frustration sparked through Lila, and she was about ready to pull out her own hair. “I know that didn’t go the way you hoped, but it’s early and you need to try it again.”
“I don’t want to try it again,” Noelle complained, staring up at the parallel bars like they were a snake about to bite her.
Unfortunately that snake was the only way to get to where they needed to go. After the physical therapist, a young woman named Tanya, had told her Noelle had been very stubborn about the new regimen, she’d decided to come in and take it over herself. Noelle hadn’t been happy when she’d walked into the facility with her. She defi
nitely hadn’t been happy when Lila took over the session. She hadn’t seen another way. At first, she’d meant to simply watch. She’d come in and stayed in the background. Noelle ignored everything her therapist said, and the minute Tanya turned her back, Noelle chose to flirt with the teenage boy who was rehabbing a broken ankle. It was typical teenage girl stuff, but she had to do something about it.
Noelle had been okay through the warm-up and the TENS unit treatment. It was when they got to the exercise portion of the afternoon that Noelle had turned stubborn. Lila had watched her carefully, and all evidence pointed to the fact that Noelle simply didn’t appreciate her normal routine of denial and flirtation being interrupted. In some ways it was reassuring. Noelle always seemed so perfect. This proved she could be a rebellious teen like all the rest. It meant there was some fire under her placid surface. They were going to need that.
She’d responded well to the warm-up. All her charts showed she was past ready for this. But the real struggle had been getting her on her feet.
“I think you should go another ten minutes.” They had actually made the tiniest bit of progress. She was sure Noelle couldn’t see it, but that was exactly why she had a therapist.
“Definitely.” Tanya nodded with obvious satisfaction. “I’ve been trying to get her to do this for months. I don’t know why but she thinks she can’t do it.”
There was only so much a therapist could do, but Lila was something more. At least she was to Noelle. She could take this further.
“It hurts.” Noelle stared up at them with a sullen frown on her face.
Of course it hurt, but sitting in that chair for the rest of her life and never giving herself a chance to try would hurt more. The trouble was sixteen-year-old girls thought they knew everything. She should know. She’d been one. “Pain is feeling, and feeling is good in this case.”
“I’ve been telling you this for months. It will hurt, but it will also get easier every time you do it,” Tanya explained. “You’ve got this. You can do this.”
Noelle said nothing, her eyes not meeting either of them. Lila glanced around. They were the only ones left on the floor. Maybe privacy would be a better idea. Maybe then Noelle would actually tell her why she wasn’t trying. “Tanya, I think I can handle the rest of the session.”
Tanya nodded as though she understood and then sighed as she looked down at Noelle. “You should listen to her, sweetie. I’ve been trying to get Doc Hamet to change up your PT for months. I would trust this woman with my own daughter. I’ll see you next week.”
Lila waited until she was gone and they were alone before turning back to her very stubborn patient.
“Noelle, I need you to trust me. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but this has been a very encouraging day. Let’s do ten more minutes and then we’ll get you back to massage.”
She would take little victories with Noelle. If she were anyone else, Lila knew she likely would have given her the tough-love speech and walked away until the patient was willing to do the work. She knew damn well that unless the patient wanted it, no amount of pleading or bargaining would work.
But this was her patient. Her kid. She knew she shouldn’t think of her that way, but she’d come to love Noelle. She wasn’t willing to let this lie, and she knew after today that she was going to have a big discussion with Armie about this. It might break her if he wouldn’t listen. She wasn’t sure she could live with herself if she didn’t convince them to try.
Noelle stared at her, a stubborn set to her jaw. “I can’t walk, Lila. I’ve told you that a hundred times today.”
If only she would put as much will into actually trying as she did arguing, she might already be walking. “Do you think I didn’t see your hips move? It wasn’t the wind that moved them.”
A startled look came into her eyes. “You saw wrong. I didn’t move them. I can’t move them. I can’t move anything from the waist down.”
She was so frustrating and they were so damn close. “You did. You move them more than you think. And you have feeling below your waist. We both know that. I’ve explained to you that given where your spine was injured, there’s a good possibility that you can get some mobility back. But you have to put in the work. Noelle, you only have so long before you won’t be able to come back from this. I know what the doctor told you, but he was wrong.”
“And you’re right?”
Dr. Hamet would eventually show up since he was supposed to be “overseeing” her practice. He was going to get a massive earful and a hearty definition of the word incompetence. “I am. So let’s get up and do ten more minutes and then you can rest.”
Noelle’s deep brown ponytail shook. “Ten more minutes of hell isn’t going to fix anything.”
This was it. She’d seen it before in other patients, heard about it from her friends who’d specialized in physical therapy. There was often one chance to convince a patient they could do it. Especially with the hard cases. If she’d been working in Papillon right after Noelle’s accident, they might not be here. Noelle would likely already be up in her braces, and these sessions would be all about pushing her limits and making her strong. Instead, Noelle and Armie had been fed crappy information and they’d accepted it because they’d both been too traumatized to think to go for a second opinion. She had to get over those hurdles or this wouldn’t work. “No, it’s going to be a long road and it’s going to hurt, and you’ll be walking at the end of it. You might not ever be able to walk without a brace, but you’ll be mobile.”
“Then why don’t I stay in the chair?” Noelle asked, her exasperation evident. “I know you’re doing this because you think if I can move myself around I’ll go to college and study something important, but what about when I actually get there? It’ll still be hard to get around. I still won’t be normal. Do you want to be the freak who everyone stares at?”
She wasn’t even going to deal with that. It was ridiculous. It was time to start some of that tough love. Begging wasn’t working. Softness would let Noelle know she could keep fighting and eventually get her way. “Noelle, get up and finish this out. We’re not moving from this spot until you finish. We can stay here all night. Your father will come looking for us and then you can explain to him why we can’t go home.”
“I’m tired.”
“I don’t want to listen to excuses. You can come up with a million and one and none of them are valid. People will always find a reason to point and stare. You think the braces are worse than a wheelchair? God, is that the reason you don’t want to try? Because if you try you won’t have an excuse to not leave town? Are you afraid of the big bad world, baby girl?”
Finally there was some real fire in her eyes. “Screw you, Lila. You think I don’t know why you’re doing this?”
Sometimes a knock-down, drag-out fight was exactly what was needed. “I’m doing it because you’ll thank me in the end. In here I’m not your friend. In here I’m your primary care provider, and what I say goes. I won’t coddle you.”
Noelle got enough of that at home. It had become very clear to her as she’d watched Noelle deflect every time the therapist tried to get her out of the chair that something was driving Noelle, and it wasn’t pain. It was fear. There was only one way to break through it, but they were running out of time. They’d already wasted a bunch of it. She wasn’t going to be the one who simply let this brilliant young woman throw away a chance at more normalcy.
“You’re not my friend at all. You’re trying to get at my dad.”
It was obvious this would get nasty. Luckily she didn’t back down from a fight. “I already have your dad. Believe it or not, I’m doing this as much for him as I am for you. One day he’s going to figure out he handled this wrong, and that guilt will eat him up forever. Now give me your hands and we’ll get you on the bars.”
“You want to get rid of me.”
She couldn’t help
but roll her eyes. “Sure. I want to get rid of you. I want your dad all to myself. You’re wasting my time.”
Tears shone in Noelle’s eyes. “Why are you so mean?”
The shift was obvious. Again, it was something she’d absolutely seen a hundred times. The patient started out aggressive, and when that didn’t work, tried to play on her sympathy. She couldn’t afford sympathy. Sympathy would leave Noelle in that chair. “I’m mean because you’re too stubborn to see that you’re allowing your fear to keep you in that chair. Is that what you want? Do you want to sit there the rest of your life? Do you want the rest of the world to wait on you hand and foot? That sounds awfully easy.”
The words were mean and utterly untrue, but Lila was trying to shove Noelle into a corner where she’d fight for herself. Fighting for herself might lead her to break out of the cycle she was in. If Lila had to be the bad guy for a while, she was willing to do that. Sometimes the patient needed someone to fight, some villain to overcome and prove something to.
“It is damn fucking hard.”
Unfortunately, that hadn’t come out of Noelle’s mouth. She looked over and Armie was standing there, his eyes cold as ice. He wasn’t in uniform today. He wore slacks and a dress shirt and loafers. He looked like he’d just come out of a business meeting, which according to what he’d told her this morning, he likely had. And he looked angry.
She had a lot of explaining to do. She knew she would have to eventually, but she hadn’t expected he would walk in at the worst possible time. They needed to show a united front or Noelle would use it as another way to stay in the box she’d put herself in. “Let’s talk in the office. Noelle, this isn’t finished.”
Noelle started crying in earnest, her big eyes shimmering and her face going red. “Daddy, I want to go home.”
“Noelle, I need to talk to Lila alone for a moment. Why don’t you go and get your things and wait for me in the lobby,” Armie said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. The sheriff was in the house.
