“I guess I’ll have to up my game,” Maggie quipped, and climbed onto the bed on my other side.
“Look guys, I’m enjoying this little homecoming pow wow, but can we move it to the living room? It’ll make me feel less weird. Everyone hanging out around the bed reminds me of that damn hospital room.”
“Sure man,” Cooper said, taking Lily’s hand. “We’ll go get some coffee going and meet you guys in the living room. Take your time.”
Hayden slapped me on the back and headed out, closing the door behind them.
“Sorry, babe,” Maggie said. “They have been so anxious to see you. You know they love you. They were so worried about you.”
“I know, Maggie. I love them too. Can you help me?”
Maggie assisted as I got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and held the wheelchair for me while I maneuvered into it. I was sweating a little after all the exertion; being in the hospital and lying in a bed for a week tends to zap your strength. Maggie grabbed a cool washcloth and wiped my forehead for me.
“Thanks, babe. I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“Don’t be sorry, Joe. I love you. I’m here for you. Always.” She leaned down and kissed my lips and I felt it all the way down into my dead legs. How could she make me feel something where no feeling existed?
Looking at my girl, I decided there could only be one answer for that. Magic. That had to be it.
We spent the next few hours sitting around the living room talking and cutting up with the people who meant the most in the world to me. It did me a lot of good, actually. It took my mind off of my present physical state and for the most part I felt like nothing had changed at all. Occasionally, though, I’d decide I needed a drink and when I leaned toward the coffee table I would glance down at my immobile legs and notice the wheelchair beneath me. Those moments were like sharp kicks to the gut, reminding me that things had changed drastically.
Cooper and Lily had to go pick Ms. Sophie up for lunch, so when they left, Maggie asked Hayden if he could hang out a little longer while she got a shower, promising to feed him lunch. Hayden was more than happy to babysit me for a free meal. It made me feel like shit again, knowing someone needed to “sit with me” in case there was something I couldn’t do for myself, or I flipped the damn chair over. But I was happy to have the company and Hayden wasn’t one to baby me. He would treat me like he always had and I appreciated his stubborn ass for that now more than ever.
“Thanks, Hayden! I’ll be done in about half an hour and then I’ll fix us all some lunch.” Maggie leaned over and gave Hayden a hug around his shoulders.
“No problem, Maggie. I’m free until about two o’clock. Brice needs me to cover the bar for him this afternoon,” Hayden replied.
Another shot to the gut for me. I should be at the bar this afternoon. I felt my earlier mood dissipating and aggravation settling in, holding me down, feeling like I couldn’t fucking breathe. I clenched my fists, but what I really wanted to do was punch something.
“Be right back, babe.” Maggie kissed me and headed down the hallway.
We sat there, Hayden and me, not saying anything for at least fifteen minutes. At last, Hayden said, “Hey man.”
“Yeah?”
“Look, Maggie told us, you know, what your doctor said. That this may be temporary and the anti-inflammatory medication you’re taking could have you out of that chair.”
My doctor had prescribed medication and a regimen of physical therapy twice a day to help prevent muscular atrophy, and to facilitate a speedy recovery if I were to regain feeling in my lower body. The operative word being…if.
“Yeah, that’s what he thinks… or hopes, I guess.”
“And the physical therapy. That’s supposed to help too, right?
I nodded.
“Well, if it doesn’t work…if the inflammation isn’t the problem, I know someone you could go see.”
I looked at him perplexed. “You do?”
“Yeah. It’s this guy out in Texas. Some world renowned spinal surgeon.” Hayden cleared his throat before continuing. “I know someone he helped before, and so, you know, if this doesn’t work out, I can get you in there.”
“You can get me in there? You know this guy personally or something, Hayden?”
“I found him on the internet, but yeah, I’ve talked with him,” he replied, not making eye contact.
“Okay, man. I appreciate it.”
Silence ruled for another few minutes and then I said. “Well, enough about me. How are things at the bar? Brice and Pete pulling their weight?”
“Going good, nothing to worry about. We have all the shifts covered and I’m covering as much as I can when I don’t have a job to be on.”
“Thanks, man, really. I appreciate all of your help and tell the guys how much I appreciate them stepping up and working extra shifts. I feel like shit about it.”
“They know, but I’ll tell them, and no one wants you to feel bad, Joe. We all just want you to do what it takes to get better and come back when you’re ready.” Hayden never called me Joe. I seriously couldn’t remember the last time he had referred to me as anything other than “dude”, “man”, “ass”, “dipshit”, etc. I knew he was being sincere and I could feel a lump of emotion forming in my throat. Dammit, I was not going to cry. This wasn’t some cheesy Lifetime movie for God’s sake. I swallowed the emotion down and switched gears.
“So, how’s Beth? Have you seen her lately?”
“Not in a week or so, been working at the construction site and then going by the bar or covering a shift, so no, I haven’t seen her. I did talk to her a couple of days ago though, told her you were coming home. She’s…uh…she wants to come see you, so be expecting a visit from her soon.”
“Okay.” I said, watching Hayden. A million different emotions washed over his face. “And how are you doing?”
“Right as rain,” he said flatly.
Hayden obviously didn’t want to talk about Beth and I was beginning to feel lightheaded from not having eating anything yet. Luckily Maggie returned a few minutes later and Hayden’s mood and mine both brightened. She went to work in the kitchen and Hayden and I helped with what we could. We all sat down and enjoyed lunch, and after Hayden left to open the bar for the evening I decided to take a nap. I had a physical therapy session scheduled later in the day, and those sessions always drained my energy.
Maggie helped me out of the chair and back onto my bed where she laid down next to me. She fell asleep before I did. I don’t think that I had really rested since I woke up from the coma. My mind was always thinking, relentlessly, until all I ever really did was lie awake tired and miserable. Sometimes I wondered if it would have been better if I hadn’t woken up at all. I would never tell anyone I felt that way; it would only add more heartache for everyone else. So, I kept going, and I tried to laugh through the sadness. Some days were easier than others. The truth was, I didn’t know what the future held, so I had to hope, right?
I held onto Maggie and closed my eyes, letting myself dream about days not too long ago when I could dance with my girl…when I could carry her to bed after she had fallen asleep on the couch…when I could put my hand on the small of her back while I guided her into a restaurant. Small, insignificant things to others …they were never insignificant things to me. I lived for those things.
I wanted them back.
Joe
“What are you doing?” I asked Maggie. She was on her laptop staring intently at the computer screen. I attempted to maneuver myself over to where she sat. When I came around the couch, I bumped into the end table. Maggie jumped and quickly looked up when she heard something fall over and hit the floor. It had been three weeks now, and I was as clumsy as I was when I first got home. I had tried not to dwell too heavily on this major life change, but it kept my stomach in knots on a daily basis and was therefore difficult to ignore. Especially when almost every time I entered a room I knocked something over because this chair is big and awk
ward in spaces not designed for this kind of thing.
“Sorry,” I muttered, bending over the arm of my chair to pick up the vase I had knocked over. “At least I didn’t break it.” I tried to grin, but even that was becoming a difficult task.
“I’m on Groupon …trying to find good deals on places to eat.”
I managed to wheel my chair over to see what she was looking at without running into anything else. On the screen was a list of restaurants and the Groupon price for each one. She pointed to one in particular and asked me, “What do you think about Ethiopian food? There’s one here for a new Ethiopian restaurant that recently opened up.”
“What the hell is Ethiopian food? Does Sally Struthers come over to your party of four that’s seated on a dirt floor and feed you grain from an earthen bowl?”
Maggie chastised me with a look that said, I can’t believe you just said that.
I grinned for real this time, and shrugged. “What? It’s a legitimate question. Seriously, what is it?”
“It’s a spicy cuisine…like a stew, served on flatbread, and everyone at the table eats from the same platter and –”
“Stop.” I held up my hand. “Pass. What else you got?”
“I’m still looking, but you don’t even want to try it?”
“I’ve had enough change in my life to last me for a while. I’m not interested in trying anything else new.”
Maggie nodded. “Okay. I was only trying to find us something fun to do – to break the monotony of our routine. You know…get out of the house and do stuff couples do, go somewhere new and exciting.” She looked down at her hands and then looked away to stare out the window.
I realized then that my tone might have been harsher than I had intended. I was wallowing in self-pity and it was affecting Maggie. I scrubbed my hands over my face and then rested them on the arms of my chair while I tried to find the words I needed to say. This situation was hard, and I needed to realize that I wasn’t the only one adjusting to change here. Maggie was too. Hell, she’d quit her job, moved halfway across the country, and jumped into the role of caretaker for me. And here I was acting as though my life was the only one that was different.
“Come’ere,” I said, holding out my hand to her.
She turned to face me. “It’s okay, Joe. I wasn’t thinking –”
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t you dare blame yourself or apologize to me, Maggie. You were being thoughtful, and I was being an ass. I want to go out and do things other couples do. You have no idea how much I want to do that. And I need to get over feeling completely inadequate, I know. I just don’t know how to do that. I’m trying though. I am. I’m just not there yet. You need to know that you are the one bright spot in my life, and I know that I’m only as sane as I am right now because of you. I owe it to you to try harder. Forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Yes, there is. My number one job is to give you a reason to smile every day, and I haven’t been doing that.”
Maggie moved towards me and curled up in my lap, resting her cheek on my shoulder while I wrapped both arms around her. “You don’t get it. You are my reason to smile, Joe. Just you. Not the things you say or the things you do. Joseph Asher Carlisle is my reason to smile every day, just because you live and breathe. You are allowed to be cranky and sad and moody. I certainly can’t offer you advice or tell you how you should feel from one day to the next, and I’m not judging how you handle your situation. I think you’ve done remarkably well, and I’m in awe of you if I’m being honest. If I get sad, Joe, it’s just me wishing I could snap my fingers and make things better for you, and I know I can’t.”
It took everything in me to not make a fool of myself and cry like a baby. Her words couldn’t have hit me in the heart any harder than if she had tied them around an arrow and launched them at me from twenty feet away. I didn’t think I deserved her, certainly not now, but I would do better at earning her love. That much I was sure about. I stroked her hair and laid a soft kiss on top of her head.
“Hey,” I said, leaning back so I could see her better. “What do you give a dog with a fever?”
She leaned back and smiled softly. “I don’t know.”
“Mustard. It’s the best thing for a hot dog.”
She laughed.
“Thank you,” I said while smoothing out her hair.
“For what?”
I couldn’t list all the things I was thankful to her for so I summed it up with a just a word. “Everything.”
“This is bullshit!”
“Why is this bullshit, Joe?”
I looked at the guy I saw every fucking day now, and to be honest, I was getting sick of seeing his face.
“It’s bullshit because I’m doing all this work and for what? Is it really doing anything? I mean…” My voice trailed off as my physical therapist secured the harness. “It just feels like it’s for nothing.”
I was suspended over a treadmill, secured in a harness. The purpose of this torture device was that my therapist would move my legs in a walking pattern while the treadmill moved. Locomotor training he called it.
“If it was bullshit, I wouldn’t have you doing it.”
“I’m sure you would…if for no other reason than to have something to laugh at. Look at me… I look ridiculous.”
“No, I would just look at your ugly mug if I needed a laugh. No need to go through all this trouble.”
“Well aren’t you funny. You got any more jokes?”
“Who said I was joking?”
I scowled at the man I was beginning to hate, and decided not to comment any further. What was the point? I wasn’t exactly in a position where I had the upper hand.
After another moment of neither of us speaking, he finally said, “Look, Joe, I can’t say for certain that you’ll walk again, but this is your best shot at it. Okay? You do everything I tell you to do, and I will do everything in my power to help you. Work is only fifty percent of success. The other fifty percent is attitude. You come in here every day with the attitude that you’re doomed to sit in that chair for the rest of your life, you might as well stay home. But if you come in here believing that you can walk again, then your odds of doing just that have improved dramatically.” He placed his hands on his hips and stared me down. “So, what’s it going to be? Your call.”
He was right. If I was serious about trying harder then I needed to lose the bad attitude and actually try. I met his stare, squared off my shoulders, and answered him.
“I know you love me, but are you just going to stare at me all day, or are you going to move my legs for me?” I then gave the man standing in front of me a genuine smile.
“Okay then. Let’s get this party started.”
“You’ve got this, and I’ve got you,” my therapist said. I was out of my chair and standing between two parallel bars holding on for dear life. Week four into grueling therapy sessions and I was determined more than ever to walk again. “Look, you’re doing it! You’re standing on your own.”
I had not realized my therapist had let go until I looked down and confirmed that I was indeed standing by myself. Well, by myself in terms of my therapist didn’t need to hold on to me, but I wasn’t going to be saying, Look, ma, no hands anytime soon. I was clutching both bars so tightly my knuckles were turning white. It was progress, something tangible, and I was excited about it.
By week five I had worked harder at therapy than I had ever worked at anything in my life. I couldn’t remember ever having put so much of myself physically and mentally into something and it whipped my ass every week. I was feeling like giving up and the therapist reminded me that today was two months to the day of the accident. It seemed like it was so long ago and at the same time like it was yesterday. I closed my eyes and made myself remember; remember what it was like to walk, to run, to work the bar, to dance with Maggie, to play outside with my nieces, and I gritted my teeth and went back to work. All of a sudden something
happened that until then, I had only dreamt about. I felt something in my lower extremities. Nothing I’d dreamed about ever felt like this. We were about an hour into the session when I felt a sharp pain shoot down my right leg. It felt like a hot poker stabbing me in multiple places, starting at my hip and radiating all the way to my toes. The pain was so deep and so intense I cried, fucking cried. It was the most horrible and most wonderful sensation I had ever felt.
Maggie
“I’ll meet you downstairs when you’re all done,” I said. This was our routine. I brought him to physical therapy every day. After the first couple of times sitting with him during his sessions, he had asked me to wait for him downstairs in the lobby. His therapist would bring him down after they were finished. I would usually grab a coffee on my way back down and then I would find a seat near a window and read a book while I waited.
I bent down to give him a small kiss, but Joe put his finger on my lips. “Not today. Today, I want you stay.”
“Uh, okay. Sure.” I looked around the mostly white room that was filled with different kinds of exercise equipment and found a seat in the corner out of the way. Joe wheeled himself over to the other side of the room, and I opened my bag to pull out a book. I heard the door open and looked up to see Joe’s parents walking in. “Hi,” I said while standing up to greet them. “What are you guys doing here?”
Joe normally liked to do these sessions without an audience, so it was odd, them being here.
“Joe called last night and asked us to come here today,” Katherine said while giving me a hug.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. Joe was still talking to his therapist, so I offered to get them a drink. “Would you like coffee or a soda? There’s a vending machine down the hall.”
“No, no, we’re fine. Do you know why Joe asked us here today?” Jonah asked.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. He usually wants me to wait downstairs in the lobby. Today he asked me stay.”
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