A Life Worth Living

by Lorrie Kruse

  A lifetime later, the man said, “Oh, excuse me,” and hurried from the restroom.

  “I hate this,” Matt muttered beneath his breath. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  He sat there, mortified, his pants around his thighs and the pack nestled on his lap, with the toilet seat pressing a red ring into his ass that’d probably last for eternity. He wiggled his toes, willing the movement to migrate up his legs. If only he could walk. Just enough to get out of this damn stall.

  I’ll do anything, God. Just let me walk again. You name it.

  God was silent.

  Matt squeezed his eyes closed against the sudden urge to cry. Just get me out of this. Please.

  The restroom door opened. This time, Matt heard the creak of his wheelchair.

  “Where the fuck did you go? You took my chair and left me, damn it!”

  “Sorry. I went to drop off the bags so your chair wouldn’t tip over again.”

  He tightened his jaw and glared at his brother’s back as Brad took the pack and hung it on his chair, which was no longer decorated with shopping bags. He stayed quiet as his brother stood him upright, silently brooding about how much he hated every stinking moment of being paralyzed. He couldn’t make it through a lifetime of this. He just couldn’t.

  Back in his chair, he wheeled out of the bathroom and over to his family. “I’ve had enough real-life situations for one day. I’m leaving, with or without you guys.”

  Without waiting for a response, he plowed through the sea of people toward the food court. He held his head high, but he had to bite down on his lips. Even then his vision still blurred, just a little. He blinked away the tears. He would not cry. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Back at Faith’s apartment, with the family gathered around the dining room table playing cards, Brad retold the men’s room ordeal yet again. “Second I get him up, there goes the chair, crashing to the floor, with packages flying. Swear to God, we got some distance on Crystal’s new shoes. You all should have been there. It was hilarious.”

  “A riot, for sure,” Matt said while envisioning Brad choking on the potato chips he was shoving into his mouth by the handful. He glanced at the clock. Only eight o’clock. Felt a hell of a lot later. His gaze shot over to Kaylee playing on the floor with her new plastic horse. She looked like she had another four hours in her while Matt felt like he could close his eyes and fall asleep right there.

  Across the table, his parents sat side by side, so close their arms touched even though there was plenty of room. Jenny sat next to Brad, with her head resting on his shoulder. Then, there was Crystal, beside him, yet far enough away that Kaylee could have stood between them. When had the distance formed between them? Had it always been there and he’d never noticed?

  Brad snatched up another handful of chips from the bowl in the center of the table and set them on his plate. Jenny simply shifted her eyes, but it must have been enough for Brad to sense what she wanted. “My little health food nut,” he said as he fed her a chip.

  Like a baby bird, her mouth opened. She nestled closer to her husband as she chewed.

  Matt put his hand on Crystal’s thigh. He smiled when she covered his hand with her own. So what if she was sitting a little further away than he wanted?

  More quickly than he’d have liked, it was Crystal’s turn to play and she took her hand off his, leaving his skin feeling like a cold wasteland. When he took his hand off her thigh to make his own play, he wondered if she felt the same sense of loss.

  Her hand touched his leg and a rush of joy filled him. How lucky was he? But his smile had barely formed before she pulled it away. She reached for a chip and dropped it onto her plate without eating it. Only yesterday, it seemed, her hand had ricocheted off his leg when he’d been at St. Luke’s, just like now. Nothing had changed.

  And apparently, it wouldn’t. Not unless he did something about it.

  He took her hand firmly in his own. He put it on his thigh and held it in place. Her fingers squirmed beneath his hand like worms dropped on a hot frying pan. He focused his gaze on a spot on the wall while he worked hard to keep his face impassive. Inside, he was dying. What kind of marriage would they have if she couldn’t stand to touch him?

  As if she knew what he was thinking, her struggles stopped.

  Then, it was her turn again. He let go of her hand. She held her fingers in place for a moment longer instead of making a quick escape. His eyes locked with hers. She smiled, gave his leg a squeeze, and pulled her hand away. After her turn, she scooted her chair closer and laid her head on his shoulder.

  One second she was distant, the next, cuddled up to him. He had no idea which was real.

  She kept her head on his shoulder until the next play. Slowly, with each subsequent play, she gravitated further away. He rubbed the tight tendons at the back of his neck. He was tired. That was all. He was reading in things that weren’t there, something he wouldn’t do wide awake.

  He dropped his cards on the table. “Sorry guys, but I’m beat. I’m calling it a night.”

  His mother stood and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Sleep tight, honey.”

  Jenny leaned over and gave him a little hug. “Thanks for being such a trooper today at the mall. It was fun.”

  Fun. Yeah, right.

  “Goodnight,” Faith, Brad, and his father said as one.

  Matt looked at Crystal. She was still for less than a second. Barely a blip in time. Still, as she leaned toward him and hugged him, he couldn’t keep from thinking that it was all an act— Crystal doing what was expected and not what was real.

  His mouth found hers. He searched out her true feelings as his tongue caressed hers. She met him, move for move, but it felt empty.

  He felt empty.

  And lost.

  He pulled away. Tomorrow would be better. When he wasn’t so damn tired. “Good night,” he whispered.

  §

  Matt woke up early while the world was still dark. No Crystal cuddled in his arms. Not like he’d expected her to crawl into bed with him over night. Still, it would have been nice.

  With much effort, he rolled over and closed his eyes, trying to fall back to sleep, but the apartment was too quiet. Realizing that trying to sleep would be futile, he decided to take advantage of the empty bathroom before everyone woke up.

  Last night, he’d laid out the items he needed for bowel maintenance. He now put them to use and then waited until he could feel the little prickles at the back of his neck telling him it was time. Naked, he transferred into his wheelchair and covered himself with a bath towel, just in case he wasn’t as alone as it seemed.

  His bowels gurgled, telling him to hurry. That was one thing about trying to control what should have been a natural event. He’d discovered how little control he really had.

  Since he couldn’t feel pain, he couldn’t feel the cramps building. His body alerted him in other ways, though. The prickles he’d felt earlier spread over his upper body. He grew hot. Things were moving more quickly than normal. He was glad he’d given the toilet a test drive yesterday to get a feel for what he could grab on to in making his transfer.

  He opened the door to the hallway. The apartment was dark except for a glow coming from a nightlight in the bathroom. The only noise was Brad’s snoring from the living room. Trying to be quiet, yet hurrying at the same time, Matt wheeled into the hallway. A flash of heat struck. There wasn’t much time. Damn good thing the bathroom was close.

  Giving another push on the wheels, his chair stopped suddenly and his head jerked forward.

  “What the—” He managed to cut off his words. Hopefully, before waking everyone up. He backed up the chair and groaned when he saw the luggage and bags stacked up against the wall, right in his way. He backed up further and edged closer to the other side of the hall, but the path was too narrow for his chair.

  Another wave of heat struck. Sweat broke out under his arms, on the inside of his
elbows, and at the back of his neck. He had to get in the bathroom.

  He grabbed the closest bag and threw it. A duffel bag followed. He no longer cared about being quiet. All he cared about was getting to the toilet. His breath sucked out of him with another flash of heat, yet he reached for another bag.

  “What’s going on?” Crystal asked from behind him.

  “Some idiot blocked my path to the bathroom.”

  “We needed room in the living room for sleeping. I thought putting it here was best, out of the way.”

  She’d done this to him? Crystal? The one person out of everyone who should have been looking out for him? “Have you never noticed how fucking wide my chair is?”

  She crossed her arms. “There’s no need to swear.”

  “The hell there isn’t. I’m about to shit all over the place. I need to get in the bathroom. Now!” A cold sweat bathed him. “Oh, God.” He squeezed his eyes closed as the prickles crawled beneath his skin while chills competed with another blast of sudden heat.

  He sat upright, trying to push his ass as tightly to the chair as possible, hoping to delay things. “Just move the stuff, and make it quick.”

  She picked up a bag and carefully set it off to the side.

  “Now!” he growled.

  Another wave of chills hit him at the same time she moved the last suitcase. He raced past her, barely taking time to swing the door closed. He no more than got his ass on the toilet when his body let loose.

  “Damn it,” he growled, realizing what a close call that’d been. The sweats vanished as his temperature returned to normal, taking the prickles with it. He hung his head and pictured the mess there would have been had it taken him one second longer.

  He shouldn’t blame Crystal, but damn it. Any idiot could look at his chair, look at the hallway, and quickly determine he needed every inch. He shouldn’t have to explain that to her.

  §

  The apartment was still quiet and dark by the time he emerged from the bathroom. Feeling heavy with exhaustion, Matt transferred to the bed and pulled the covers up. He closed his eyes, but a hopeless sensation he couldn’t shake kept him from falling back to sleep.

  A couple of months ago, his life had been so great. Now it was… He puffed out a disgusted laugh as the word came to him. Shit. That’s what it was. Shit.

  How had he drifted so far off track from where he was supposed to be?

  A better question was, how was he supposed to get back to that point? If he didn’t recover, he’d never get there.

  Like he’d done so many times in the past, he focused on his toes, moving each one of them. Then, he concentrated on his ankles, willing them to move. Just the littlest bit would have made him happy. But it wasn’t happening.

  Someone moved in the hallway. A moment later, the bathroom door closed. It didn’t take long before the toilet flushed. A second later, there was a light knock on his door.

  He pictured Crystal. Except, she never would have left the bathroom without washing her hands. “Yeah,” he answered.

  The door swung open slowly to reveal Brad, his blond hair mussed. “Mind if I come in?”

  “Yeah, sure. I wasn’t doing anything important.” Just fighting a heaping dose of depression.

  Brad paused, like he was thinking of leaving.

  “Just get in here, would ya?” Matt worked hard to sit up, conscious of his brother staring at him like he was a circus freak. Too bad he’d missed the early show. Matt dragged himself backward to lean against the headboard.

  Brad finally came in, closing the door behind him. He sat in the wheelchair and fiddled with the wheels, moving himself forward and back. Which meant whatever he wanted to say was big.

  “I doubt you came in here to play.”

  Brad pulled his hands onto his lap. “I was thinking about this group home contract. I know Dad told you to cut it close. Is the bid doable?”

  “Would I write up a bid that wasn’t?”

  “No, I mean…” Brad looked away. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more.

  A rock dropped in the pit of Matt’s stomach. “You mean is the bid doable with me stuck in a wheelchair, don’t you?”

  “Well, now that you mention it.” Like Matt had been the one to start the conversation.

  “Even though we all knew it was a possibility you wouldn’t recover, none of us wanted to believe it. The build’s only about five weeks away.” He became interested in the wheelchair’s brake.

  “And…” Matt prompted.

  “I, uh, I think we have to stop ignoring the fact that you’re not coming back to work.”

  Not coming back to work.

  The words worked their way through him. Like an insect beneath his skin. Gnawing. He crossed his arms. “Who says I’m not coming back.”

  Brad looked up and arched his eyebrows. A who-are-you-kidding look. “Do you really think you can do the job in this thing? Hell, you can’t even…”

  The truth prickled beneath his skin. He didn’t like the truth. A fight was much easier to deal with. “Can’t what? Take a piss without help?”

  Brad’s only answer was a rise of his eyebrows.

  “What do you want from me?” Matt spit out.

  “I want you to tell Dad to hire someone in your place.”

  There it was. All laid out in the open like a deer that’d been gutted.

  “I love you,” Brad said. “I don’t want you out of the business, but I’ve got a wife and kid who expect to see me longer than one hour a day.”

  The bathroom door closed. Out in the living room came the sound of Kaylee giggling. From across the hall came the sound of their father’s coughing. Sounds of life.

  “You know as well as I do that if you’re on the payroll, that means we can’t hire help. If we can’t hire help, then that means we all have to work fifteen or sixteen-hour days, and we’ll still be lucky to get the project done in time. I can’t be away from my family that long.”

  “Sure, fine. How, exactly, do you think my quitting is going to help? You know Dad won’t hire anyone but a Huntz.”

  “This job is important enough that he’ll bend his rule. He won’t admit it, but he wants the contract on the new build.”

  “And I want it, too. If you remember, I’m the one who wanted Dad to bid on this job. I’m the one who said it’d be good for our image if we did a job that was good for the community. I want to be a part of the build.”

  Brad went back to playing with the wheelchair, rolling it back and forth. More news he wanted to share but couldn’t spit out without working up to it. Matt waited him out. What he really wanted to do was yell at his brother that the wheelchair wasn’t a toy and to stop messing with it. As if Brad had read Matt’s thoughts, he stopped rocking the chair.

  Here it comes.

  “You remember what a hard time Jenny had when she was pregnant with Kaylee? How she had to spend those last two months in bed?”

  “Yeah.” They’d all been worried because she’d already lost a baby. Worried or not, he couldn’t figure out what Jenny’s bed rest had to do with anything.

  Brad’s eyes shifted, like he was making sure they were alone. He leaned forward. “She’s pregnant.”

  Matt laughed. “Another little Kaylee?”

  “Shhh. We haven’t told anyone yet. We’ll have to soon, though. She’s five months along. She won’t be able to hide her beach-ball belly much longer.”

  “Late July?” Matt asked, making the instant calculation.

  “If she goes that long. You see, now, why I can’t be putting in fifteen hour days? She’s going to need me at home.”

  Faced with the real possibility of quitting, he wanted to dig in his heels and be as stubborn as his father. “Construction’s all I’ve ever done.”

  A quiet knock sounded on the door followed by Faith’s voice. “You two going to spend all day in there gossiping while we girls try to corral Kaylee?”

  “We’re coming,” Brad said.
r />   “I’ll be out in a bit,” Matt said as his brother stood. Brad gave him a quick, pleading look and then turned to leave. As soon as the door clicked closed, Matt focused his attention yet again on his ankles, willing them to move, just a fraction of an inch. The air turned too thick to breathe.

  So, he couldn’t move his foot yet. A month ago, he couldn’t move even one toe. It’d come.

  But would it come in time for him to be of any help?

  The door opened. He forced a smile, praying he looked calm and collected instead of like the mass of gelatin he felt like inside.

  “Unka Matyou, come play.”

  The smile became real. He patted his lap. “Come here, munchkin. Give your ol’ Uncle Matt a good morning hug.”

  She crawled up on the bed and hugged him. He rubbed his bristly cheek against her soft one, smiling inside as she giggled. What a hole there’d be in his life without her. His smile faded. What kind of hole would there be if Jenny lost the new baby?

  He gave her a quick squeeze. “How about you go find Grandpa? Let me get dressed. Then I’ll come play.”

  She wiggled her way off the bed and then went running. “Gampa, gampa.”

  When he wheeled out to the kitchen a while later, his eyes immediately went to Jenny, who smiled back. His gaze lowered to her stomach. Sure enough, she had a roundness he was surprised he hadn’t noticed and even more surprised nobody else had.

  His gaze shifted to Crystal, who held Kaylee on her hip. She smiled the perfect smile. The one that said she was happy he was up, happy to see him, happy they were together. For just one brief moment, her eyes said something else before the expression shifted to match the smile.

  “Hi, honey,” she said. “Sleep well?”

  “Yeah,” he said as he stared into her eyes. In that brief moment, he thought he’d seen a glimmer of despair. Surely he was imaging things that weren’t there. But he wondered, would there be a real glimmer in three months when they stood at the altar and she realized what she was getting herself into? How about a few months later? After she’d put up with him and his wheelchair long enough to know that wasn’t what she wanted?