Winners

by Danielle Steel

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and she was embarrassed that he’d seen her crying.

  “No,” she said honestly.

  “What happened?”

  “One of my friends came to visit, my best friend.” She started crying again after she said it. She didn’t want to explain it to him. “All she talked about was the ski team, and training, and what everyone is doing.” She sobbed and wished he could put his arms around her, but the look in his eyes was as warm as an embrace.

  “I’m sorry, Lily. Some people just don’t get it. I feel like that sometimes when people talk about their families and what a good time they have together.” He rolled slowly back to her room with her. “Do you want to watch a movie?” he suggested. “I could watch with you.”

  “No, I’m okay.” She smiled through her tears and helped herself to a tissue and blew her nose. “She’s always been my best friend. And she looked so nervous, visiting. I don’t think she’ll come back.”

  “She may not,” he said, honest with her too. And maybe it would be better if she didn’t, but he didn’t say that to her. He could see how hard the visit had been for his new friend. They talked for a while after that, and then he went back to his own room, and Lily called her father, and he could hear that she was upset.

  “Did something happen?” She told him about Veronica’s visit then, and he felt bad for her. There was so little he could do to make things easier for her. Nothing, in fact. They talked for a while, and she felt better, and then she called for the nursing aide to help her get ready for bed. It had been a long day.

  Bill called Jessie Matthews in Squaw Valley the next day. He told her that Lily was at Craig now, and she asked about his visits to the neurosurgeons they had seen. Jennifer had visited her when she got back and had thanked her for the opportunity, but they didn’t discuss how the consults had gone.

  “They all agreed with your prognosis,” Bill said sadly. “And Dr. Hammerfeld at Mass General sang your praises. But they all said the same thing about Lily’s injury being complete and what that means.”

  “I thought they would. How is Lily doing at Craig?”

  “She sounds very busy, and she’s trying to catch up on her schoolwork now. They have an amazing program, and she met a very nice boy her age. They seem to have made friends with each other. Her boyfriend dumped her when we got back, and her old friends aren’t making much of an effort to visit. She misses the ski team. It’s all a big adjustment for her.”

  “And for you too,” Jessie said sympathetically.

  “I’m going to make some changes to the house before she comes home. It won’t work for her the way it is. And how are you?” he asked her, knowing that her life had been radically altered too.

  “We’re okay. We’re managing. It’s hard for the kids.”

  “It can’t be easy for you either,” he said kindly.

  She sighed when he said it. It hadn’t been. It was hard to believe Tim had been gone for two months. “All you can do is the best you can. Let me know how Lily’s doing. I think she’ll learn a lot of good things at Craig. It’s a very impressive place.”

  “I can see that it is. I just hope she comes home soon.” He was lonely without her, but Jessie hoped he let her stay long enough to really benefit from what they offered.

  That day Lily got an example of some of the more unusual but very useful things they taught. One of the instructors shepherded four of the younger women into a specially fitted van, and they were each secured while they were inside. All of them were in wheelchairs like Lily’s and had full use of their arms. They were all several years older than Lily, but it was a good chance for her to meet them in a small group. They headed downtown to a shopping mall, with many stores.

  “What are we going to do there?” one of the women inquired, but it was nice to get out of the hospital for an outing.

  “We’re going shopping,” the instructor informed them. When they arrived, the driver carefully lowered each wheelchair from the van.

  The outing was to teach them to negotiate shopping in small stores, and it had been prearranged. It was to give them confidence, show them how to maneuver their wheelchairs, how to get the attention of salespeople, and even how to try on clothes, and not allow themselves to be ignored. It was a little chaotic in the first store, especially with four of them in chairs, but by the second and third ones, they were getting better at it, each of them bought something, and all of them were having a good time. They chatted animatedly with each other as they went from store to store. It reminded Lily of her disastrous outing at Harrods with Jennifer and how insignificant she had felt while salespeople ignored her and she got jostled by everyone. The instructor said they were going to a department store next week. It was the most fun Lily had had since the accident, and she felt successful when they went back to the hospital after lunch. And Phil Lewis had a surprise for her at the physical therapy session too.

  “What’s on our agenda for today?” she asked, with a feeling of dread. She’d had so much fun shopping with the other women that she wasn’t in the mood to play boot camp with him again, but he had other plans.

  He had turned on a flat-screen TV and slipped a DVD into a machine. “We’re going to watch movies today,” he said simply, and Lily watched as the film came on. It explained about the Paralympics, which was a form of Olympics, held right after the normal Olympic Games, winter and summer and in the same location, only this was for physically impaired people with injuries such as hers. She watched coverage on several events, and was suddenly mesmerized when she saw people downhill racing on skis, fitted with a seat and device like a chair. It was called Alpine skiing, and looked fast and dangerous and exciting. The ski was a monoski in some instances, or a pair of skis, and the poles had little skis on the tips for balance. And the skier sitting on the chair came down the run at full speed. It was an exciting event and didn’t look easy to do. There was Nordic cross-country skiing too. Lily watched several events and sat riveted until the end of the DVD.

  Phil turned to her after he took the DVD out of the machine. “I thought that might be of interest to you.” He had read her file carefully and knew she’d been training for the Olympics.

  “When do they do it?”

  “Every four years, just like the regular Olympics. The next one is next year, in March. They have winter and summer games. There are five categories in the Winter Paralympics. I thought the chair racing could be something for you. You’d have to do a lot of work to train, but you’re capable of it, if you were on the Olympic downhill team.” Lily was silent for a long moment as she stared at him.

  “I want to do it,” she said with a determined look. “You’ll have to work on your balance, and you need to work on your upper body anyway. It’s something for you to think about.” He had shown it to her to inspire her, and interest her in new goals that she could achieve. She had never imagined after her injury that she could ski again.

  “I want to do it!” she said again, and Phil nodded. He had hoped she would.

  “Then we’ll work on it.” It was the carrot he was going to use to push her hard. And she did everything he asked of her that afternoon. She was still excited about it when she met Teddy at the pool. She told him all about the race she’d seen on the film. It looked every bit as fast and exciting as downhill.

  “I’ve heard about it. Are you really going to do it?” He looked happy for her. She’d had a great day.

  “I’m going to try. Why don’t you enter an event?” she said, trying to include him.

  “I’m not really good at any sport. I was into horses, but not much else.”

  “Why don’t you ask Phil if there’s an event he thinks would work for you?” She had seen a sledding event that she thought Teddy could do, although he was vulnerable to the cold, so he’d have to be careful.

  She was still talking about it at dinner after they met with their tutor, it was all she could think about, but she didn’t say anything to her father when
he came to visit her that night. She was afraid that he would object. He didn’t want her to get hurt again. But she could hardly sleep that night, thinking about the Paralympics, and she talked to Phil about it again the following afternoon. She didn’t realize it, but her upper body was already getting stronger after a few days, and he was pleased. She had a lot of spirit, and she worked hard at everything she did. When they reviewed her case at the end of the week, all her instructors agreed that she was doing well, and they were sure she was going to succeed.

  And that weekend she caught up on her schoolwork with Teddy. Veronica had said she would come by on Saturday afternoon, and Lily was relieved when she didn’t. She didn’t want to hear her talk about the Olympic team again. It was just too hard, but still, Lily missed her old friends.

  A group of ten of the patients at Craig went to the movies on Saturday night, and sat in a row of wheelchairs, eating popcorn and laughing at the movie. At first it felt weird, but after a while she enjoyed it, and Teddy had gone with them. And on Sunday her father and Joe came to visit after they played golf, as he had promised. They stayed for dinner, and Bill was in better spirits when they left.

  “She’s a brave girl,” Joe said to him.

  “Yes, she is,” Bill said proudly, “and it’s a remarkable place. They teach people to lead full lives, in spite of their injuries. It looks like they do a very good job.” He could see that Lily had already learned a lot in less than a week, and she looked healthy and well, better than she had since the accident, and she already seemed more confident as a result of what she was learning. Everyone he’d seen had a positive attitude, and they appeared to have a good time at what they were doing.

  “I know this sounds odd,” Joe said, “but I kept thinking while we were visiting, why don’t you build a place like that, on a smaller scale?”

  “Why would I do that?” Bill asked, with a startled look. “They’re the best there is.”

  “I can see that. But a lot of the patients are older than Lily, and they have an entire medical facility that you wouldn’t have to provide, and they work with brain-injured people too. And they have a research component you also wouldn’t need to do. If you watch them, the younger ones all gravitate toward each other, and their needs are different from the adults’. The older patients are trying to get back to careers they had before, and jobs, or functioning as heads of families. What if you built a rehab facility geared only to young people, even younger than Lily? Someone said that Craig only takes them from sixteen upward. There must be kids with spinal cord injuries too. I know there’s a rehab hospital for children, but you could do something really special. You could take kids from ten to twenty, or ten to twenty-two, or even younger, with just enough medical care to meet their actual needs, and only take them when they are ready for rehab and not before.

  “The whole program could be geared to young people, all their activities, art, music, everything they do at Craig, but without the broader age span and maybe with a particular emphasis on sports. You could do it in a very high-end way, but on a smaller scale, and set up scholarships in Lily’s name. You could even work in tandem with Craig in some way, and offer things that they need for their younger patients, and pass your patients on to Craig when they were too old for your facility. It might be a terrific complement to what they offer. And you could keep it smaller and make it a very special place. It might be a wonderful thing to do in Lily’s honor.

  “You could have a sports program that would excite all of them and have instructors there to train for competitive sports.” Lily had mentioned the Paralympics in passing, and Joe thought it was a fantastic idea. “You could hire some of the best people in the country. You have the money and the access. It’s something to think about. Not to compete with Craig or the children’s hospital, but as a different, additional facility where appropriate. They might even like the idea. I’m sure they get kids under sixteen that they can’t accept into their program, but you could take into yours.” Lily had told Joe at dinner that there was a rehab hospital for children in Denver, but he had something far more sophisticated in mind.

  Bill looked at him as they stopped in front of his house. “I may be crazy, and it would be an enormous undertaking, but I like the idea. Now what do I do?”

  “Start thinking about it, and talk to some of the people you’ve met who’ve been helpful to you. You’ve learned an awful lot about spinal cord injuries since Lily’s accident. Put it to good use, not just for Lily, but for others like her. Focus on kids her age and both younger and a little older. I think this is something you could really do.” Joe looked excited about it, and inspired, and suddenly so did Bill.

  Bill was thinking about it as they walked into the house. They had a glass of wine and talked about it some more, and the idea was gnawing at Bill as he went up to bed. He still wondered if it was a crazy idea, but he felt as though something were pushing him to do it. He tossed and turned all night, and when he woke up at six in the morning, he knew he had to do it. The blessing in Lily’s accident had just come clear. He was going to call it The Lily Pad, and he was going to build it in Lily’s honor. It was going to be a whole rehab center, just for kids.

  Chapter 13

  BILL WAS STILL excited about Joe’s idea when he came down to breakfast in the morning, and found Joe at the kitchen table, reading the paper with a cup of coffee. Joe glanced up and saw that Bill looked like he’d already had ten cups of coffee. He paced around the kitchen with fire in his eyes.

  “The market must be either severely up or down for you to look like that,” Joe teased him. He hadn’t seen his friend that excited in years, or maybe ever, and surely not recently since Lily had gotten hurt. Bill was totally alive.

  “I’m going to do it,” he said, helping himself to a mug of coffee, and taking a sip of the steaming brew with narrowed eyes. His mind was racing at full speed.

  “Do what?” Joe stretched out his long legs. He was enjoying staying at Bill’s and being in Denver. It was the perfect antidote to his lonely life in New York, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

  “What we talked about last night. The center for kids with spinal cord injuries. Like Craig, only entirely geared to young people. It could feed right into what they’re doing at Craig for a slightly older age group. I’m going to call it The Lily Pad. I don’t know why, but I just feel I have to do this. It’s the right thing to do. I don’t know a thing about building a rehab center, but if we find the right people to run and staff it, we could create a fantastic place.” Bill loved the idea, and Joe could see how excited he was. He was a man with a vision. And when Bill got started on something, he didn’t stop. It was how he had made his fortune, built on genius, guts, and sheer grit. And he had what it took to pull it off, unlimited money, and the courage to do something new. And knowing him, Joe was certain he wouldn’t stop until he had built the best center for kids in the world.

  “It could be amazing,” Joe said, looking excited about it too. Bill was brilliant at solving difficult problems and achieving the impossible, excellent at execution, attention to detail, and follow-through. “I’d love to help, if you need someone to do research on the project or make contacts. I’ve got the time,” Joe reminded him. And Bill knew he had the skill in spite of the recent fiasco in his career. “I don’t know anything about hospitals, but I can learn, and business is business, whatever you’re selling. You’d need a great medical chief of staff, but there’s got to be a lot of administrative work with something like that.” Bill nodded, his mind going in a thousand directions, and the doorbell rang while they were talking. He had completely forgotten the meeting with the architect, to make the accommodations he needed for the house for when Lily came home.

  Steve Jansen was young and had done projects like this before. He had been recommended by two other architects. He walked through the house, pointing out changes that needed to be made that Bill hadn’t even thought of. And they picked a spot for the new elevator. It meant los
ing a walk-in closet on each floor, one of which was full of files and luggage, which he could put elsewhere, and the other with Lily’s ski equipment which she no longer needed. It gripped Bill’s heart when he opened the door and saw her ski gear, and he closed it again quickly with tears in his eyes. He didn’t want Lily to see any of that either, so he was glad the closet would disappear. Steve assured him that he could get everything done within two months, and have it ready before Lily came home.

  He suggested installing a discreet ramp in the foyer, with a handsome brass railing to match the decor, and a similar one in the living room, lowering the island in the kitchen and moving the sink, making easier access to the fridge, and completely remodeling her bathroom with a special shower and tub and a lowered sink. Bill wanted everything in the house convenient, comfortable, and accessible to her without making it look like a hospital ward, and Steve completely understood. Joe was fascinated as he watched the meeting proceed. They walked each floor of the house. By the time Steve was finished with the remodel, there wouldn’t be a single unmanageable feature for her. He even suggested lowering the stove and kitchen cabinets and counters. It wasn’t going to be inexpensive, but it was worth every penny to Bill. He had seen on the single night she was home how difficult the house was for her now. At first he hadn’t wanted to change anything in their home, because it meant accepting that Lily would be in a wheelchair forever, but he realized now that she would be, until something changed in the research everyone talked about. Making their home fully livable for her was his gift to Lily, and Steve was impressed, as was Joe. Bill had made an enormous shift in a matter of days, after seeing her blossom at Craig.

  Bill poured them each a cup of coffee at the end of the meeting, and they stood in the kitchen, while Steve explained that everything was going to be high tech, state of the art, with black granite in the kitchen and pink marble in her bathroom. It was going to be beautiful when it was finished, not just functional, in keeping with the standards of the home they lived in, which was magnificently done. It was a high standard for Steve to meet, but he assured Bill he was equal to the job, which was what Bill had been told.