Nurse in Recovery

by Dianne Drake

  So far, Anna couldn’t admit that she particularly liked Mitch. What she would admit, though, was that she disliked him a whole lot less than she had at their first meeting. For now, that was enough to get by. This was, after all, just a professional relationship. Former rehabilitation doc helping former nurse. That was it, nothing else. And once that resolve sat well with Anna, she cleared her head of all thoughts, including those of Mitch, once again simply relaxing in the remaining warmth of the shower spray.

  “Forty-five minutes already! What the hell’s she doing in there?” Mitch asked Ralphie.

  He paced the hallway outside the bathroom, debating whether or not he should knock on the door or call her again—without looking like an over-anxious twit. His mind occasionally wandered to a vision of Anna in the shower, the water sliding gracefully over her body, her wet, blond hair plastered back. Wow, she was gorgeous, in reality, in his mind. And that part of his mind was wandering into some mighty dangerous territory, fantasizing about her long, beautiful legs. Thankfully, that illusion was interrupted by the image of her wheelchair, a brutal stop in an otherwise nice fantasy. Don’t go there, he warned himself. Too many problems.

  Just the problems from which he’d been running these many months! So many people expecting so much from him, and he so powerless to help them all.

  No, he didn’t have the right to think about Anna in that way, in any way. But he did, and right now he felt like a total idiot, pacing the hall, worrying, fantasizing…unable to stop. She might need him.

  “Mitch, could you find me something to put on? I forgot to bring any clothes in with me.”

  “Sure.” He gulped. “What do you want?”

  “Anything Ralphie hasn’t touched.”

  Something Ralphie hadn’t touched turned out to be a scant pair of lacy pink panties and a bra to match. This definitely wasn’t in his job description, and he tried looking away as he slammed the lingerie drawer shut, but his eyes didn’t move fast enough.

  “You’re a doctor, for heaven’s sake,” he muttered, hoping that little reminder would turn things around in his head. Not a chance, since the last thing he saw before the drawer closed was a black thong tucked into the corner. The wild thoughts coming after that were anything but doctorly. Mitch’s mind filled instantly with explicit pictures of Anna in that thong, then of her in the underwear he was choking the pink out of in his hand.

  “Way too hot in here,” he muttered, dragging his hand up to his forehead to swipe at the sweat beading there. “What the hell!” he spit out, as the pink panties swished across his eyes on their way up.

  Stop it! he chided himself. He was, after all, a thirty-five-year-old man, not a thirteen-year-old boy. Even though his thong response was more like that of a thirteen-year-old boy. So before any more lascivious thoughts had time to creep into his consciousness, Mitch rushed over to a portable clothes rack in the corner of the room, grabbed a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt, then flew to the bathroom door with them. “Here,” he said, knocking much louder than he’d intended.

  Anna stuck her hand out to grab her garments, without seeing that Mitch’s eyes were squeezed shut. She was too busy concentrating on the dressing process ahead of her—how to do it, how to do it quickly. The top part was a breeze, but then it wasn’t the top part of her that didn’t move so well. And the body parts that didn’t move so well made that half of the dressing effort so much more difficult than she would have ever guessed it could be. Push herself up off the seat with one hand, then pull up her clothes with the other. Over and over, one pitiful inch at a time. It was exhausting, the pink undies first, followed by the jeans. Twenty lousy minutes to get that done, followed by another twenty to dry her hair and arrange it in the gentle shoulder-length underflip—the way she used to wear it instead of the basic frizzled ponytail that had sufficed in her non-life lately. Finally Anna emerged from the bathroom, exhausted but smiling.

  “That took a little longer than I thought it would, but thanks for staying.”

  Mitch was in her dad’s recliner, holding a bottle of beer in his hand, with a happy, drowsy dog lying alongside him on the floor. They looked like they belonged there, she thought as Mitch’s hand dropped absently over the armrest to stroke Ralphie’s head.

  “Would you like one of these?” Mitch grinned, holding up the bottle.

  “Nope,” she answered. “I don’t drink.” Anna moved directly across from Mitch, then her eyes followed Ralphie, who made the obligatory move to a spot beside her chair. He used to like lying across her feet, but now he simply plopped against her wheel, not at all concerned about the change. “I used to occasionally—the sweet stuff, strawberry daiquiris, piña coladas, but I gave it up when I started in the ER and saw what alcohol can do. Don’t have a moral objection to it or anything. Just a preference brought on by personal witness.”

  “Were you hit by a drunk driver, Anna? Lanli never told me the details of what happened other than you were hit by a car.”

  “No, not a drunk driver. The woman who hit me just lost control on the ice. Nobody’s fault. Not even hers, really.”

  Mitch straightened up, setting the half-empty bottle aside. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “One of those senseless things and nobody to blame.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too. It was one of those fluke situations, combined with a lot of bad timing. If I’d left the emergency room a little later, or earlier. If it hadn’t snowed, if I’d parked in a different place, if the gal who hit me had been delayed by a red light or her car hadn’t started. A whole lot of what-ifs that don’t do any good. What happened, happened and no one, and nothing’s, to blame.”

  Anna moved her hands in a sweeping gesture down her leg, then drew in a deep breath and let her eyes flutter shut. “All things considered, I’ve been pretty lucky, even though I don’t always act like I know that,” she continued, her eyes reopening slowly. Her focus went to the floor, not to Mitch. “Between the hospital and Dad, everything’s been taken care of legally and financially. And the injury could have been a lot worse. I mean, I’m not paralyzed. Impaired, but not broken all the way. And in my better moments I know that’s a good thing.” Anna was amazed how easily the words came. This was the first time she’d talked about the accident, or her injury, with anyone, and Mitch was turning something she knew she had to do, and had been dreading, into something that wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Were you angry right from the beginning…as angry as you are now, Anna?”

  His tone flowed with warmth and concern. Anna heard that and knew he wasn’t trying to provoke her, but she stiffened anyway, casting him an acerbic smile. “Angry?” She chuckled bitterly. “I was mad as hell. Mad at everything, and everyone, at one time or another. Still am, a good bit of the time. And I can’t always control it.” Then she added quietly, “And sometimes I don’t want to. I hurt, and I want everybody to hurt with me.”

  “Anger’s one of the first steps you go through,” Mitch commented. “It’s a natural reaction.”

  “Natural, and hurtful. If you’re there and I’m in the mood, you get it. I catch myself lashing out for no reason at all.”

  “Like when a stranger goes rummaging through your underwear drawer?” He smiled, reaching down for his beer. But as his hand skimmed the top of the bottle, he didn’t pick it up.

  Anna laughed. “Something like that. But I’ll give credit where it’s due. They matched. Now, if you’d mixed the pinks with the blues, that could have set me off.” Nice ease about him, she thought. Not all bite like he was earlier today. He would have been good with his patients, once they’d got used to him. Time to take back her thought about not particularly liking him. She did like him—solidly. The old Anna would have liked him immediately, but the new one was catching up.

  “Why’d you quit medicine, Mitch?” she asked. Since he was blunt, she could be, too.

  “This isn’t about me.”

  That was all he said. He clearly didn’t intend to open up. But did sh
e hear a little edge to his voice? Nothing showed on his face, no emotion, no reaction. Not even any anger. That little catch in his voice, though… “So I don’t get to know anything about you?” she persisted.

  “Like what?”

  “Married, divorced, children?”

  “No, no, no.”

  “Pets?” she continued.

  “No.”

  “Any pets in your future?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Cats, dogs, ferrets?” He was sure stubborn, and uncomfortable, about inserting any of himself into the conversation. Meaning this was just what he’d said it would be—he was the trainer, she the one he would train. That was all. No expectations of friendship in there anywhere. Not that she’d wanted that kind of relationship developing between them. But still…

  “Probably not the weasel,” he replied, then smiled. “Dogs are nice, big dogs.” Absently he snapped his fingers and, to his credit, Ralphie did look up apologetically at Anna before he deserted her.

  “You don’t have to baby-sit me anymore tonight, Mitch. My dad should be home soon, and I’m fine now.” Anna shut her eyes. She could feel the anger rising up, trying to strangle her again. It wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t let go until someone got hurt. And she didn’t want to do that again. “Please, leave now.”

  “You’re getting angry—why? Because I wouldn’t talk about myself?”

  “I’m not getting angry,” she lied. “Tired.”

  “You’re breathing is shallow, Anna. Like you’re angry. And look at the way you’re gripping your armrests—angry. So tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

  “Are you trying to be my shrink?” she snapped. “Trying to put me through some kind of anger management? Because if that’s the case, get out. You’re here to work on my legs, not my attitude.”

  “One has a direct bearing on the other. It’s a natural thing, Anna. You’re mourning a loss, hating something, everything, the nearest target, and you don’t even know why, do you? It scares you, and the more it scares you the angrier you get because you can’t control it. Am I right? You’re angry because I wouldn’t tell you why I quit medicine.”

  “No,” she snarled. And that was the truth. Irrational as it seemed, she was angry because of the parameters he’d set on their relationship. “I don’t care why you quit. And you’re right. This is not about you.”

  “So tell me why you’re hating me right now. Two minutes ago you weren’t.”

  “Not hating you, Mitch. Hating the fact that I don’t have any choices, and hating even more that everybody else does. You tell me what’s what and that’s it. End of story. It’s not about why you quit, Mitch, it’s about you locking me out of that conversation, you deciding the boundaries of our association. I’m in there somewhere, or at least I’m trying to get in, but you won’t let me. Nobody will let me.”

  “Control,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Lack of it.”

  He did understand. Or claimed to, anyway. Knowing that caused her anger to start dissipating. She was searching for that peak again, trying to find her way out of the valley. Trying to find that control.

  “The big angers are easy to deal with,” she said. “You know, angry at the world, God and yourself. But most of the time you can set them to some greater philosophical purpose or, if you’re lucky, reason them away. It’s the little angers that sneak up on you that do the real damage. Like the one that just got me. Or like if something’s out of my reach and I’m frustrated because I can’t get it, then Dad walks in at that moment. He gets the brunt of that anger, and it’s sharp and vicious. It’s intended to hurt because I hurt.

  “Then eventually there’s the denial. You go through the this can’t be happening to me stage, and ignore pretty much everything that is happening. It’s way too much to comprehend. Your brain’s stuck in the past, where your body used to be. I mean, even now, in my dreams, I’m not…” She stopped and shook her head. “I still walk in my dreams, Mitch. And run and dance. That’s the only place I’m still me. Then when you finally do let it sink in that parts of you aren’t you anymore, you get so scared, and things that have never bothered you before suddenly terrify you—like a stupid piece of blank paper.” She smiled, then took in a deep breath. “I’d never thought about where I’d be ten years from now because I always figured that my future was pretty settled. Work, marriage, kids. But now, when I think about next month, or even next week, I break out in a cold sweat.” She smiled sheepishly. “Panic attack. And there are the little things you’re suddenly afraid of. I’m claustrophobic. I used to go spelunking, but now I panic in a crowded elevator.

  “You go through all these strange things in your head, and you keep asking yourself, Why me? What did I do to deserve this? You get angry when the answers don’t come, because you know there’s got to be some reason for all this to be happening to you. God just doesn’t let someone like you end up like this without a reason.”

  Anna slid back into her wheelchair and relaxed. Her rigid shoulders loosened, the pinched expression on her face softened, and all the residual anger disappeared from her eyes.

  “Some of my patients used to ask me the very same questions,” she continued, “and I’d pat them on the hand and offer empty platitudes. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry. But now I’ve had six months to think about it, six months to be mad as hell, six months to feel sorry for myself, and I’ve decided there is an answer, and it’s pretty simple. Sometimes life sucks.” A look of triumph crossed her face.

  “My exact sentiments.” Mitch laughed.

  “So now all I’ve got to do is fit my philosophy to my attitude, which, in case you haven’t noticed, sucks, too, and I’ll be fine.”

  “Your attitude sucks?” Mitch teased. “I never realized.” He’d known all along that what he’d seen earlier hadn’t been the real Anna Wells, the one Lanli had described to him when she’d asked him to do this. The real Anna Wells was emerging as a beautiful butterfly from her cocoon, right before his eyes, and he liked her much more than he’d ever thought he would. More than that, he desperately wanted to help her stay as that butterfly, but he wasn’t sure he could do it. There were so many other failures in his past—those who’d expected what Anna expected from him, and those he’d let down. Sports and rehabilitation medicine had seemed like such a good idea when he’d chosen it, but so many crippled bodies later, so many wasted bodies that should have been cured and weren’t, he’d lost heart for the practice.

  “So why did you come here tonight, Mitch? I never did ask you.”

  Such a tough question to answer when he didn’t know himself. So he hedged. “I thought maybe I could finagle some overtime pay.”

  “Or maybe you thought I was a damsel in distress, doing some pretty good distressing?”

  Mitch stood and walked to the entry hall. Picking up the piece of white paper from the hall table, he took a hard look at it then turned back around to face Anna. “Aren’t you?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  MITCH was up to his elbows in scrub buckets and mops, cleaning Anna’s kitchen floor, when Frank finally wandered in at one-thirty. The floor was still slimy from Ralphie’s cookie bender, way too dangerous for Anna to navigate, Mitch had decided, so he was swabbing under the table as Frank gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek and whispered, “Am I walking in on something I shouldn’t be? Because I can leave.”

  “Not unless you consider mopping the kitchen floor a clandestine scene.” Anna knew what her dad was implying, and she hoped it had escaped Mitch. Not likely, though, judging from the deer-in-the-headlight look she saw in his eyes. He had been there one day, for the sole purpose of getting her butt out of the wheelchair, and her dad was already hooking them up. None too quietly at that.

  Frank chuckled. “You asked that young man over in the middle of the night to clean the floor? Well, either he’s a fool for showing up or he’s smitten.” After his retirement and years of business suits and judicial robes, Frank Wells had discove
red immense pleasure in the casual dress of a baseball cap. He tossed the one boasting the name of the Cincinnati Reds onto a peg on the hall wall and grinned. “Want me to tell you what I think this is about?”

  “No,” Anna said, before he could. Her dad was over-protective now, and if he found out about her little panic episode, there was no way he’d ever go out again. “And before you make things any more uncomfortable than you already have, Mitch came by to talk about my training.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s all, so don’t go getting ideas. OK?”

  The grin stayed on Frank’s face, and he arched his bushy gray eyebrows. “No ideas when a good-looking man’s mopping your floor in the middle of the night? You take all the fun out of things, Anna.”

  A pink blush crept to Anna’s cheeks. “Dad, I’m engaged to Kyle.”

  “That worm’s done nothing but squirm deeper into the mud ever since the accident, and you know it. And don’t try to justify his actions because you can’t. He’s cut you off in every way except taking that ring from your finger and mark my words, Anna, with the kind of money he paid for that pretentious hunk of rock on your hand, he’ll be coming after it pretty damned soon.”

  Anna glanced at the diamond on her ring finger—her Christmas gift from Kyle. Three weeks before the accident. She’d been stunned by the size of it, and had even suggested he trade it in for something smaller. Of course, he’d wanted the biggest and best for her. And this ennobled piece of coal was definitely the biggest.

  Now she wished he would come and take it. It symbolized something that didn’t exist anymore. Maybe never had. “Don’t worry about Kyle, Dad.”

  “What makes you think I’m worried about Kyle, sweetheart? There’s nothing in this world that could make me worry about him. No, it’s you I’m worried about, still holding out hope for marrying that bum. You need to be setting your sights on someone like Mitch. He’s a man you can depend on, coming out here in the middle of the night for whatever reason you choose to tell me.”