Winners

by Danielle Steel

  “Here,” she said simply. “Denver.” He nodded.

  “I like your music. So what kind of freak accident did you have?”

  “I fell off a chairlift, when the cable broke.” He made a face and looked sympathetic.

  “Ooh, that sounds nasty. And scary. I flew over a jump, without the horse. I usually rode better than that. So where’s your SCI?”

  “T10,” she told him, which was considerably lower than his, which was why she didn’t have the respiratory complications he did and had full use of her arms. “Complete,” she added, in the vocabulary she had learned in the last two months.

  “So here we are, at Camp Craig. You can go kayaking, canoeing, fishing, scuba diving, swimming, sail a Hobie Cat, play Foosball, billiards, and table tennis, take acting classes, learn to use blow darts, use a sip-and-puff pole or a sip-and-puff rifle, take singing lessons, go hiking, or hot air ballooning. We go to amusement parks in the summer, and learn to plant a garden. I take art classes, and unfortunately, in addition to all that, at our age, they make you go to school. I’m a junior, what are you?”

  “Me too,” she said, smiling at him. “I saw skiing on the list too.”

  “You must be incurable, if you want to go skiing again.”

  “I was training for the Olympics,” she said softly, and he looked sympathetic again.

  “Yeah, there’s skiing, but I haven’t tried it. I don’t qualify. They have horseback riding too, but I figured I’d quit while I was ahead.” There was certainly enough to do, and she couldn’t imagine how they fit it all in. “And they have massage therapy and acupuncture, which I kind of like,” he admitted. “And they have a dentist, a dermatologist, and an eye doctor. Full service rehab, the best one in the country,” he said proudly, “otherwise I wouldn’t be here. My parents always sent me to the best camps too. Anything to keep me busy and get me out of their hair.” He said it matter-of-factly, and it sounded sad to her. “Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked with interest, and she shook her head. “Me neither. Maybe we were twins who were separated at birth,” he suggested, and she laughed. He glanced at the clock on her wall then and saw that it was noon. “We should probably go to the cafeteria before everybody else gets there. The food is pretty good.”

  She noticed that he was trim and in good shape, which wasn’t always the case with spinal injury patients, she had discovered. Some had a tendency to put on weight from being sedentary, but he looked young and fit, and had powerful shoulders and upper arms. She had noticed that her own arms were getting stronger from rolling her chair herself when no one pushed her. “I’ll show you where the cafeteria is,” he offered, and she followed him out of the room. He was faster because his chair was motorized, and he had to slow down for her. He looked happy to be talking to her as they rolled along side by side.

  “Are there a lot of kids our age here?” she asked him. It was nice having a guide and made being there seem less scary.

  “Some. The population changes all the time. Sometimes it’s younger people, sometimes older. We’re still among the youngest ones here, since the lower age limit is sixteen, but almost no one stays longer than four months. Their goal is to get you home. They must have forgotten to tell my parents that when they checked me in.” They had been to visit him once in two years, but he didn’t say that to Lily. He had become kind of a permanent fixture at Craig, since he had nowhere else to go. The holidays had been tough the first year, but he was used to it now. He had just spent his third Christmas at Craig.

  The cafeteria was a large, friendly room, with tables set up for four and six people, and some for two. They were encouraged to eat in groups and meet new people.

  “There are usually about fifty SCI inpatients living here at any given time, so we all know each other pretty well,” Teddy told her, as they went to order their lunch, which would be brought to them on trays. Teddy and she were both on the full meal plan, and he ordered a healthy lunch, and she did the same, before they went to a table. There were already a number of other people at tables around the room, including technicians and therapists and medical personnel who were eating there too. “Did I tell you we play volleyball and basketball?” he added, and she smiled. He was a one-man welcoming committee and made it sound like a luxury cruise, although it was still one she would rather have not been on. But it was certainly better than she’d feared, and she was happy to have met someone her age so soon. And Teddy seemed hungry for the companionship of his peers.

  “I’ll introduce you to my friends when they come to visit. The kids from my ski team said they would come by too,” she volunteered, and Teddy looked skeptical.

  “Don’t count on it, Lily,” he said gently. “People mean it when they say it, but they’re busy in the real world. They stop coming after a while. It’s like we’re shut away, and they forget. Whenever people leave here, they say they’ll come back and visit, and they never do. And I think it makes people who don’t have injuries uncomfortable to come here. It freaks them out to see us and realize it could happen to them. Don’t expect your friends to come here too often. They just don’t. I’ve seen it a lot in two years.” He sounded philosophical about it, and he didn’t want her to be disappointed and was sure she would be.

  “Maybe you could come to visit at my house sometime, after I go home.”

  “My wheelchair is pretty heavy,” he said practically, “and you have to have a special van.”

  “Maybe we could borrow one from here.” She felt sorry for him if his parents never came to visit him, and had left him there for two years. It didn’t sound like he was going home anytime soon. “My dad can figure it out. He’s good about stuff like that.”

  “He must be a nice man,” Teddy said quietly. “Mine sure isn’t. When they explained what kind of care I needed once I got home, they decided to leave me here. They say it’s safer for me.”

  “Is that true?” she asked, as she finished her sandwich and took a bite of an apple. She was careful about what she ate now. She didn’t want to gain weight from lack of exercise.

  “Maybe,” Teddy admitted, “if I get sick, or catch a bad cold. I can’t clear my lungs, so someone has to do it for me. I can’t cough and clear my chest on my own because of the C5 and 6. But how big a deal is that?” Apparently it was to them, or they’d have taken him home. She knew her father would never do that to her, but not everyone was like her father. “Where’s your mom, by the way?”

  “She died when I was three. In a car accident. I live alone with my dad.”

  He asked to see her schedule then, and she showed it to him. He gave her the lowdown on the different therapists, and warned her that the physical therapist they’d assigned her to was a tyrant.

  “Oh great,” she said, looking discouraged, “just what I need.”

  “He used to be in the Marines, and he runs his sessions like boot camp. But he’s terrific actually. He got me using my arms. They said I’d never be able to use my shoulders again, and thanks to him, I can.” She had noticed that he used the sticks attached to his gloves to do everything she could do with her hands. He was incredibly able with them and could feed himself with ease. He surprised her even further when he told her he liked to draw. “I’ve been painting for two years. You might like the art classes here too. But you must be kind of a jock if you were on the skiing team. If you are, there’s plenty for you to do. But believe me, Phil will get you going. He makes everyone do upper body work to strengthen their arms. I hated him for the first six months, but now he’s my best friend. He just looks tougher than he is.”

  “You’re scaring me,” she told Teddy, and he smiled. “I’ve never wanted to be a Marine.”

  “You don’t have to be,” he explained to her. “All you have to do is work hard. If you slack off, he pushes you, but if you do your best in your sessions with him, that’s all he wants. He hates slackers and quitters. You don’t look like either one to me.” And he could see she was in great shape, with a totally athletic
body that hadn’t melted yet. It had only been two months since her accident, and she hadn’t lost her muscle tone, although they both knew she would eventually in her lower limbs, which was why Phillip Lewis would want her to develop everything above her waist, which was the level of her injury. “I’ll go with you if you want,” Teddy volunteered, and she liked that idea. She didn’t want to go to boot camp alone. She felt like the new kid in school.

  He took her to the therapy rooms after lunch, and went to look for Phil. Teddy found him a few minutes later, and brought him over to meet Lily, who looked at the physical therapy instructor with trepidation, while he and Teddy chatted. Just as Teddy had said, they were obviously friends. And Lily could see why Teddy had said he looked like a Marine drill sergeant. He wore his hair in a buzz cut, he was powerfully built, and he stood erect with precision and discipline. And as soon as Teddy left them, promising to catch up with her later, Phil took a careful look at her upper body. He had read her records before she got there and knew she’d been in training for the Olympics on the ski team. She had the body of a downhill racer, long and lean, with good muscles in her legs and thighs, but now she was going to need her arms.

  “You want to be able to go wherever you want, for as long as you want. And you won’t be able to do that with weak arms,” he explained. He had her do some exercises that were more tiring than she’d expected, and then he had her lift weights until her shoulders and arms were screaming. And after that he laid her on a mat and worked her legs for her. By the time he got her back into the wheelchair, she felt as if she could hardly move, but she noticed that she moved with greater ease.

  She only had a fifteen-minute break, and then she had to report to the pool, and she was happy to see Teddy there. They had him in a harness, and lowered him gently into the pool, and he looked like he was having fun. They were working with several other people, and then they helped Lily into the pool, and after the workout she’d had with Phil, it felt great. She spent an hour in the pool, while they watched her swim, and then she was scheduled for a massage. She fell asleep on the table, and by the time she got to her room after that, all she wanted to do was go to bed. She groaned when Teddy appeared in the open doorway. He was in great spirits, and delighted with his new friend.

  “Ready to rock and roll?” he said cheerfully. He had become her official tour guide and new best friend.

  “Are you kidding? I’m ready to sleep for the next twelve hours. You’re not kidding that this is boot camp.” But she was beginning to enjoy the challenge of how far she could push herself. It was going to be an interesting few months, if she survived.

  “They push the younger ones harder. They figure we can take it,” Teddy said with a wry grin. “We have tutoring at six o’clock.”

  “Can we skip it?” she asked hopefully. She was genuinely exhausted.

  “Not if you plan to graduate and go to college,” Teddy said, and she groaned again. “I was supposed to go to Princeton like my father and grandfather, but I’d rather go to art school, if I ever get out of here. I’m still relatively on track, although I suck at math.”

  “So do I,” she said as she followed him out of the room again, and went to meet their tutor, who was a pleasant, friendly woman from one of the local public schools. She had already gotten all of Lily’s assignments from her school, and they agreed on a study plan for her, with meetings with the tutor every day. She had work to catch up on from the last two months, and several papers due.

  They didn’t get to dinner till seven-thirty, and when they did, Lily checked her BlackBerry for the first time all day. She’d been too busy to even think about it till then. She saw that she had a text from Veronica, who said only “Too much homework. See you tomorrow. Love, V,” another one from a friend from school who said she’d come on Saturday, and one from her father that said “See you at 8. Love, Dad.” She had half an hour to eat before he came. She ordered chicken, a baked potato, and steamed vegetables, and followed Teddy to a table where two boys were sitting who were in their mid-twenties. Teddy knew them both and introduced her. Their names were Bud and Frank, they were both good-looking and seemed athletic. Bud said he had had a diving accident the summer before. Frank had been in a car crash in L.A. on New Year’s Eve. They both had injuries similar to hers and were fun to talk to. Teddy was the only one she’d met so far who didn’t have full use of his hands, but he managed extremely well.

  They were having a lively conversation at dinner, when she saw her father walk into the cafeteria, looking for her, and she waved at him. She introduced him to her new friends, and they sat and chatted for a while, and she told him about her day. He was happy to hear she’d met with the tutor, and impressed by all the rest. It was obvious that they were pushing her hard, but she looked livelier than he’d seen her in two months. He wondered if Jessie was right, and it was good for her to be with young people who were struggling with the same things. He asked her if any of her friends had made any plans to visit her, and he was disappointed to hear they hadn’t, particularly Veronica. Teddy didn’t comment, but Lily could see he wasn’t surprised. He had predicted it at lunch.

  And then she and her father went to sit in the living room. Family visits were encouraged, so everyone was welcoming to him, and there were several other family members there who were staying at the family facilities at Craig. She told him that Teddy’s parents had been to visit him only once in two years, and Bill was horrified at how people could be so negligent of their own child.

  “He seems like a nice kid,” Bill said easily. He was glad she had found a friend, someone her own age whom she could relate to, whose struggles were even greater than her own.

  “Could we have him to the house sometime, Dad?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t hesitate.

  “We’d have to borrow a van. We can’t fit his chair in our car.” He had seen the heavy motorized chair that Teddy used, and he agreed.

  “I talked to Joe today, by the way. He’ll be here this weekend.”

  “That’ll be nice for you, Daddy,” she said, smiling at him. It was hard for either of them to believe this was only her first day. They both felt as though she’d been there for a month. And he didn’t say anything to her, but he was meeting an architect in the morning about the changes he needed to make in the house for her. Among other things, he wanted to put an elevator in. Otherwise, she’d be trapped on every floor until someone could carry her up or down, and it was likely to be him. With an elevator, Lily would have autonomy in the house. Joe said he’d help him get the construction project organized. Joe had always loved renovating and building houses, and he had built a spectacular weekend house in the Hamptons, which they later sold. Helping with the construction was something he could do for Bill, and for Lily too. He wanted to do anything he could to help them both, and lighten the load on Bill.

  “How long will he stay?” Lily asked him.

  “Maybe a couple of weeks. He doesn’t have much to do in New York. And with his apartment on the market, he doesn’t want to be there while they show it. So he’s happy to come out here,” Bill said about his old friend. Lily knew he’d had some kind of business problem, but she didn’t know the details, and her father didn’t volunteer them, out of respect for Joe. “We’ll come to visit you after we play golf on Sunday.” He would have liked to take her out, but her counselor had encouraged him to leave her there so she could enjoy some of the weekend activities with the other patients, which was better for her. He felt guilty not rescuing her, though.

  Bill left at nine o’clock, and she went back to her room alone. A nursing aide came to help her shower and get ready for bed, and by ten o’clock she was lying in her bed exhausted. It had been a busy first day, but she was more comfortable than she’d expected. She closed her eyes, thinking of everything she’d done that day and all that Teddy had told her, and soon she was asleep. She didn’t even remember to set her alarm. But Teddy had told her that an aide would wake her if she overslept,
and there was a call button next to her bed if she needed anything during the night. There were always nurses on duty. It was a hospital after all, even if it felt like boot camp to her.

  Chapter 12

  LILY’S SECOND DAY at Craig was even busier than the first one. She had physical therapy again, a class that showed her how to get around a kitchen, which was something she hadn’t been too efficient at before the accident either, and had never had to be. She went swimming again, went to driver’s ed, and met with her tutor, but she hadn’t had time to do her assignments. The tutor told her to be sure and do them over the weekend, and she and Teddy made a date to study together. And Veronica finally showed up. Lily met her in the living room, and Lily noticed how ill at ease she seemed. It was the first time she had seen Veronica in more than two months, and Veronica looked shocked when she saw Lily in the wheelchair. The accident was finally real to her.

  All Veronica talked about was training with the team. She described everything their coach was doing and how hard they were pushing. And by the time she left, Lily wanted to cry, and realized how much she missed skiing and always would. She felt totally left out of the life they had once shared, and she wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but she was almost sorry Veronica had come. She had told her father not to come so she and Veronica would have more time to visit, and now she realized that that had been a mistake. At the end of the visit Veronica walked out of the hospital, free as a bird, and Lily felt like she was in prison, and she was more acutely aware of her injury than ever. Seeing and listening to Veronica made her feel like her life was over. She had been told by her counselor how normal it was to be angry and feel the loss of her life as she had known it. And all she felt was devastation after Veronica’s visit to the hospital. She was crying when she rolled back to her room, and she ran into Teddy on his way to his. He stopped with a look of concern when he saw her.