by Dale Mayer
“I’ve got Melissa in the hot tub,” he said. “This would be great.” He carried them down the stairs toward the hot tub.
She lay there, her long neck gently stretched with her head resting against the back of the hot tub, her body floating upward. He smiled at that because it was one of the best things she could do. Just completely relax, letting the heat work away on her joints, on her sore muscles.
As he approached, she looked up. “Is it that time already?”
“Not quite,” he said. He held out an ice cream parfait and said, “How about one of these?”
“Oh my,” she said, staring at it. “I love ice cream.”
“Well, we don’t always get it, but Dennis has been bringing more of it in.” He sat down beside her on the dry side and held out the ice cream.
Chapter 6
Several days went by as Melissa settled into a pattern. The next morning she looked at her phone on purpose. She’d been here now ten days. Ten whole days. It had gone by so fast. Even more of a surprise was to see that she was doing okay.
Shane looked at her halfway through one of her sessions and asked, “Problems?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m just shocked that I’m not in any pain.”
He looked at her, startled. “Does that mean we aren’t working hard enough?”
“Good Lord, no,” she said with feeling. “I’m just encouraged.”
“Good.” And he gave her a quiet smile.
Just something about that smile of his. But she had also come to learn that Shane was extremely well regarded by everybody else in the center, and his time was at a premium. She was honored that Shane was her therapist, and she had better remember not to take his attention as anything other than professional. She hadn’t thought she would ever be worried about that, but she didn’t appear to be herself these days. As she lay here, he nudged her gently.
“I guess that means you’re done, huh?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Sorry. I’m just drifting off.”
“That’s why I’m asking,” he said with a smile. “It just seems like you’re not quite here.”
“Well, I need to be,” she said, “because, in order to have the progress I want, we need to move this forward a little more.”
He nodded. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Let’s get back to work.”
When he finally called it quits after another thirty minutes, she lay here on the ground, her chest heaving. “It feels like I have more range of movement in my arms,” she said, so pleased, as she stretched her arms overhead and stretched out her hands and feet as far as they could go.
“You do,” he said. “There’s been a lot of improvement.”
“Good,” she said. “Definitely room for it.”
He laughed at that. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We have a long way to go yet.”
She nodded. “As long as I can see progress, it’s so much easier to keep at it. I feel defeated when I can’t see any progress.”
“Exactly. Not to worry,” he said. “You’re a long way from hitting your limit,” he said. “Do you need a hand up?”
She looked up at him. “No, let me try rolling over.” She slowly rolled over, until she was on her hands and knees.
At that, he stopped her. “Now, instead of using the wheelchair for support,” he said, as got down beside her, “see if you can move your left leg so your left foot is in front of you for support, then slowly stand up.”
It took her a moment, and it wasn’t terribly graceful, but she did manage it. She looked at him in surprise. “Not sure I’ve ever done that before.”
“Getting up and down from the ground is a really good skill to train your body into doing,” he said.
She nodded and took the half step toward the wheelchair, and this time, instead of just plunking herself down, she slowly sat down.
He looked at her with a special smile. “And that’s another achievement.”
She nodded. “And I felt that one too,” she said, “so yay for having enough improvement to feel it.” And, with that, she headed out the door.
“Don’t forget to keep eating well,” he said. “How are the green drinks?”
She looked back at him and frowned. “I haven’t had any in a few days.”
He looked at her and said, “Did you cancel them?”
“I didn’t think they were something I was canceling or approving,” she said. “They were just appearing, but I haven’t had one recently.”
“I’ll check into that,” he said. “You need them every day.”
She wrinkled up her nose.
He laughed and said, “Now, none of that.” He walked over, tapped her lightly on the nose, and said, “You need them.”
“Okay,” she said. “As everything else is moving forward better than I’d expected, I’ll trust you on this.”
“Do that,” he said with a bright smile. “You won’t be sorry.” At that, he turned and walked out, heading back to his office.
She stared at his back as he left, feeling a heavy sigh releasing from her chest as she wheeled down the hallway.
“What’s that for?” Dani asked.
Melissa looked at her friend. “You always seem to pop up in the most unexpected places.”
Dani smiled and said, “Well, I’m all around this place all the time. How are you and Shane getting along?”
Immediately Melissa felt tongue-tied, but she shrugged and, with as much enthusiasm as she could find, said, “Fine.”
“Fine?” Dani’s gaze was a little more intense than Melissa would have liked.
“Fine,” she said. “There’s obvious progress, and, for that, I’m delighted.”
Dani’s eyebrows shot up. “Now that’s lovely,” she said. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Me too,” she said. “You forget just how much you stop believing in yourself, until you see some forward movement, and then you wonder how you could have let yourself stop believing.”
“I don’t think it’s as much that you stop believing,” Dani said, “as much as you stop thinking about it. And we tend to slide into a negativity versus optimism, so it’s like a natural step to go backward.”
“It still sucks,” Melissa said with a laugh. “But today I managed to do a couple things that I hadn’t done before, so it’s all good.” She slowly wheeled herself toward her room.
“What are you doing now?”
“It’s lunchtime,” she said, “so I was going to the washroom before the cafeteria.”
“Well, if you’re up for it,” Dani said, “my father is here. He wants to see you.”
She looked at her in delight. “The Major’s here?”
Dani nodded. “He extended his trip by a few extra days, so he didn’t get home as early as expected. But he’s back now. I thought maybe if you were up to it,”—and she stopped and looked at her friend—“maybe you could join us for lunch?”
“Absolutely. Does that mean anything different than going to the cafeteria though?”
“Absolutely not,” Dani said with a laugh. “You’ll see my father as soon as you get there because he’ll be holding court, as usual.”
“He always was quite the character,” she said with a knowing grin.
“Well, that hasn’t changed.” Dani chuckled. “How about I wait for you?”
Melissa quickly used the washroom and changed into a fresh shirt. “Ready,” she said.
As they headed toward the dining room, Dani asked, “How are you doing emotionally here?”
“I’m getting there,” she said. “There’s a lot of change, a lot of adjustments.”
“But all good?” She heard the note of worry in her friend’s voice.
Melissa looked up and said, “Dani, you’ve done a great job here. I can’t believe it. What you’ve created, it’s amazing.” Dani flushed with pleasure, but Melissa meant it. “Seriously,” she said. “I’m not just trying to be a friend. This is amazing. And I haven’t had a chance to get d
own to the animals, except to see the various ones that come through here. But, once I realized you had animals all over the place too, it just made my heart smile.”
“The animals are a big hit,” Dani admitted. “Not just because animals are here but also because we’re helping the animals. And that’s a two-pronged benefit for everybody.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said. “I wish I could do something with animals myself. You know that I’d have a hobby farm and half a dozen critters of my own.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “But you have a lot of abilities, and it’s not the time for you to start worrying yet about your future. But keep those ideas in mind. Maybe you can do something with animals.”
“Like Aaron?” Melissa teased.
Dani flushed with pleasure. “Like Aaron,” she said. “But, in his case, it was something he wanted to do way back when anyway. So this was just him finally aligning his work with what his heart really wanted to do.”
“And I imagine that makes a lot of difference.”
“I didn’t really have any goals when I started out here, except to help my father, but it certainly made a difference now that I do have a purpose in my life.”
“I think that’s what I’m missing,” Melissa said. “I’m still a little lost.”
“You’re a little lost, but that’s because so much in your world needs your focus, but you’re getting there. Don’t shortchange yourself.”
“I hope so,” she said. “No,” she stopped and shook her head. “No, I know so.”
“Good,” Dani said, as she led the way to the cafeteria. Even before they arrived, they heard the laughter and a louder noise level than usual. She rolled her eyes. “As you can tell, my dad is here.” She chuckled, and they pushed open the door. The din rose and fell as the waves of conversation washed over them. And then Dani called out, “Major.”
After a moment of silence, she heard him saying something about having to go, and then he walked toward her. Melissa looked at the big robust man in front of her. “He’s not quite the way I expected.”
“Well, he’s pretty well crashed and burned and been reborn from the inside out,” Dani said. “That’s why I came here and built this. It was to help him, and it’s been a godsend for him.”
The Major walked over, took one look at Melissa, and his face split into a huge beaming grin, but it was the gentlest of arms that reached down and gave her a hug. “If it isn’t beautiful little Melissa,” he said. “I would love to see you any place but in here, but, if you need help, this is where you belong.”
Melissa smiled, feeling the tears in the back of her eyes because really, all the years she’d been looking for family, she’d been looking for what Dani had—a father who cared, a parent, somebody who would be there, and the closest Melissa had ever had was the Major. But he wasn’t hers; he was Dani’s. And something in Melissa’s world hadn’t allowed her to accept him quite the same way, even though she knew that he’d have been more than welcoming. Only she’d still been dealing with her own hurts at the time.
She smiled up at him and said, “Don’t you look fine.”
He gave one of his huge belly laughs and said, “I do, indeed. And you can thank my daughter for that. We’ve been to Hades and back again, but we’re here now, and that’s where we need to be. And it’s a good place to be.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, “and nobody’s more grateful than me. I didn’t want to ever be in a position where I needed to come here,” she said, “but, now that I am, Dani has welcomed me with open arms.”
“Of course she has,” he said. “We all would.” He looked around and smiled, saying, “I haven’t eaten, so what about you? You’re here to get food too?”
“I’m hungry,” Melissa admitted. “Shane put me through the works this morning.”
“I did not,” Shane protested from behind her.
She twisted around and smiled up at him, loving the teasing banter from everyone in the place. “Well, let’s just say you put me through more than you have so far.”
“That’s true,” he said. “I’ll let you get away with that one.”
She chuckled and looked up to see the Major, studying her and Shane, a speculative look in his eye. She immediately shook her head. “No, no, no. No, you don’t.”
He smiled and said, “Be good for you.”
“None of that,” she warned.
He chuckled, grabbed the handles of her wheelchair, and said, “Food. Let’s get food.”
“You don’t have to look after me,” she protested.
“Well, it hasn’t been so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like,” he said. “It’s not as much of a case of looking after you as helping you. Remember that,” he said.
“I’m trying to.”
“I remember you always used to be a tough little nut who hated to ask for assistance, who hated to have other people do things for you, feeling like you were supposed to do it all yourself.”
“Well,” she said hesitatingly, “was I like that even back then? Because that hasn’t changed.”
“Oh, my goodness, you so were. You had this big shield around you that said, Stay away, nobody’s allowed in. But Dani and I didn’t listen.”
Melissa chuckled at that. “No, you didn’t.” So much affection was in her tone that she realized, of all the things she had missed, it was Dani and the Major.
Shane was interested to see how Melissa related to Dani and the Major. Particularly the Major. Shane could see the affection in her eyes. And he realized just how much of her issues stemmed from the loss of her parents in her late teens. She’d become very close to Dani at the time, until Melissa had made the decision to join the navy. Her Hathaway House record had multiple notes on the issue, some from Dr. Sullivan as well, and Shane knew that Melissa would have to deal with an awful lot of adjustments and life patterns. Hearing the Major brush aside her protest made Shane feel good to realize the Major had pegged her right.
Dani looked at Shane. “She’s a good person,” she whispered. “She took a big hit at a young age.” Dani explained about the loss of Melissa’s parents, how Dani and her father had been as close to Melissa as she would let them get, but the Major had been right. “She forged this big wall, afraid that, you know, anything else happening in her world and she’d break, couldn’t handle it. I tried hard not to get her to go into the navy, but she was pretty adamant, and I didn’t really have any reason to keep her away from it. I wanted her to stay with us, where she could be with somebody who knew her and cared, but she was determined to move on and to find something else in her life.”
“And maybe she just needed to find her own path,” Shane said.
Dani nodded. “Look where it left her.”
“Yes, but everything for her is fixable,” Shane said.
Dani looked at him. “Hopefully. You think she’ll come through this okay?”
“Once we can stop the pain that’s crippling her all the time. And that’s mostly about muscle alignment and some structural stuff. With that alone, she’ll be a different person.”
Dani beamed and said, “I’ll hold you to that.”
He laughed. “Well, I’m glad you care so much about her. I get the feeling she really needs that.”
“She does, and she also has a hard time asking for it.”
“She has a hard time asking for anything, including for me to stop when she’s had enough. It is a problem.”
“She’s always been very stubborn,” Dani muttered. “Stubborn, capable, frustratingly independent.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen all that plus,” he said with a smile. “And that’s all good. She’ll need it all. But it’s all about having it balanced.”
Dani faced him. “That’s part of your job, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he said, “but it sure helps if I have something to work with, instead of something to work against.”
Chapter 7
Life at Hathaway House was not what Melissa
had expected, but it settled into a rhythm faster, smoother, and easier than she thought possible. The days were whipping past, and she was adapting. She looked forward to seeing Dennis every day, and, of course, Shane was the highlight of her day, but she didn’t want to tell him that. She knew that she was building up a stupid childhood crush on him, and she would have to get past that real fast.
If anybody in this complex belonged to everybody, it was Shane. Well, maybe Dennis too. Dani and Stan appeared to belong to everybody as well. Stan definitely had a soft spot in everybody’s heart. But then he kept bringing up animals that made them all want to take him and the animals home. He’d shown up with two baby squirrels the other day.
They were just old enough to get into mischief, and he’d been hard-pressed to keep the squirrels contained in the little bundle he had them wrapped up in. But she’d loved every minute spent with them. Definitely something she would love to do in the work sector. She was just about to ask Stan about the work involved downstairs, then realized that she was still a long way away from being physically capable of working at all.
She hadn’t seen Aaron yet, but apparently he was coming home soon for a visit. He was almost done with the year’s schooling; then he’d work downstairs with Stan. She couldn’t think of anything better.
Melissa wasn’t up for attending a university, not for many years of it at least. But maybe she could do something. She would love to be around the animals, of course, but not just yet. She would first deal with all the things that she still had to work on. But things were getting there. After breakfast, she had her first visit of the week with Dr. Sullivan. As she wheeled in, Dr. Sullivan looked at her and said, “Well, there’s a smile on your face.”
“There is,” she said. “I’ve been here now three weeks, almost four weeks, and I’m seeing enough progress that I’m feeling good about my decision to come here.”
“And what about Dani? Had that friendship worked into your decision-making process?”
“It’s nice to see her,” she admitted. “I wasn’t used to seeing somebody who was so open in her affections before. She and the Major were very foreign to me. My parents, my family? I hadn’t realized how stiff and formal my relationship was with them, until I met Dani and her father. Their relationship was so very different, and it was something that I really wanted, but, at the time, it felt like I was being disloyal to my parents, even though they were dead and gone, but it was like having to be true to their memory.” She shook her head. “People are really messed up.”
