Brooding Angel

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Sure.” Clancy dropped one hand to her lap. Her voice was dull. “I understand.”

  Stupid to think he would come home quickly to her. He was probably regretting getting involved to this extent already. Regretting getting involved at all.

  He heard the change in her voice, as if a light had just gone out. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “No hurry,” Clancy muttered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She hung up before Mitch could say anything else to her.

  * * *

  He didn’t see her at first when he walked in a little after six. Apprehension nipped at him as he scanned the room. He upbraided himself for his reaction when he saw Clancy, her back to the door, looking out the window. It was the side window in the living room, which faced an open field.

  The same field he had stopped in just before coming home. He wondered if she had seen him.

  Clancy heard the door opening and took her time turning around. He’d been late—just a few minutes, true—but in those few minutes, she’d thought he wasn’t coming. That he had reconsidered the arrangement and had decided not to return. Just as he had the last time.

  Anger and fear had filled her, overwhelming her. Draining her. She couldn’t go on like this. Better to not feel anything than to leave herself open to hope and then come face-to-face with the flip side of the coin, despair.

  She was about to tell him that she was going to bed, that she was just too tired to attempt anything he might have in mind, but when she looked, he wasn’t there.

  The front door was wide open, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  “Mitch?”

  “Be right there.” His voice floated to her from outside.

  The next moment Mitch came in, the top of a long, wide cardboard box balanced against his shoulder as he dragged it in. She couldn’t begin to guess what was in it, but it was obviously heavy, from the way he was straining.

  “What’s that?”

  He leaned the box against the wall and went out to bring in a second. “I went to see McAffee’s brother-in-law today.”

  That didn’t tell her anything. “McAffee?” She raised her voice so that he could hear her.

  “My partner.” Depositing the second box next to the first, he went out to bring in the next. There were five boxes in all, not counting the weights. It hadn’t been easy, getting it all here. He’d unloaded his car and brought all the boxes to the door before opening it. “His brother-in-law’s a physical therapist.”

  She stared at the mounting collection. “And he sold you equipment?”

  “No, but he sold me on an idea. I rented the equipment.” Mitch closed the door and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He wondered if she had moved the screwdrivers and hammer from the kitchen drawer. That was where she’d kept them before.

  Crossing to the drawer now, he discovered they were still there. Mitch placed the tools on the counter. “I’m setting up a home gym for you.”

  Clancy shifted her eyes from the towering boxes to Mitch, her expression incredulous. Had he lost his mind? “Where?”

  “Where else?” That was a stupid question. “Right here.” He thought about putting off assembly until after dinner, then decided against it. If he waited, she would use the opportunity to tender excuses.

  He was crazy. It wasn’t a tiny apartment, but it was a long way from large. Especially now. “There’s no room for all this.”

  He glanced around. Some adjustments could be made. “We’ll make room.”

  She shook her head. “I never knew you were this stubborn.”

  “I am.” The box farthest from him listed a little and looked as if it was going to fall on top of the others. He braced it against the wall, then looked over his shoulder. “About some things.”

  Well, that was his problem, she thought, refusing to attach any other meaning to his words. Clancy stared at the obstacle course.

  “Just how am I supposed to move around here?” She hit the wheelchair armrest with the flat of her hand. “In case you’ve forgotten, I can’t slip by the way you can.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.” His voice was solemn, echoing the guilt he felt. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to arrange it.” He tried to remember which box contained the assembly instructions. “I’ll set it all up for you and show you how to use it.”

  Throughout the latter half of the afternoon, Clancy had struggled to resign herself to this metal prison of hers. Now he was trying to raise her hopes again.

  Why was he doing this to her?

  “Can’t you get it through that thick head of yours that I can’t walk?” she shouted at him. “That I probably will never walk again?” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “You just wasted your money and your time getting all this stuff.” She waved a hand at it. “Now why don’t you just take it and...”

  He wasn’t listening to her. John had said that the most important thing he could give Clancy, more important than the weights and the exercises, was hope. Encouragement. It wasn’t something Mitch was accustomed to doing, but he would give it his best shot.

  He took out a small, rectangular box and placed it in her hand. “Here, I also brought you something else. Something we don’t have to assemble.”

  Clancy looked down at the box. The shape didn’t lend itself to ready identification. And it weighed nothing. “What is it?”

  He stepped back and nodded at it. “Why don’t you open it and see?”

  She had absolutely no idea what she was going to find. Pressing her lips together, Clancy slowly removed the lid. Inside the box was one dandelion, just barely intact, a white halo resting against the handkerchief he’d laid inside the box to protect it.

  Overcome, uncertain, Clancy raised her eyes to Mitch’s face. His expression gave nothing away. But his eyes were kind.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Make a wish.”

  Swallowing, Clancy lifted the dandelion out and closed her eyes. A tear seeped through just before she made her wish and blew on it.

  Tiny tufts of white drifted away.

  Mitch took the box from her gently and laid it on the coffee table.

  “Mitch?”

  He didn’t want to hear any words of gratitude. Didn’t want things said that he would hear later in his mind. He turned from her abruptly.

  “Okay, I’m going to find the directions. You can read them to me while I put this thing together. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

  Clancy didn’t answer. She just nodded as she looked at one tiny seed on the carpet.

  Chapter Nine

  Clancy set the four-page booklet of directions aside on the coffee table and looked at the metal frame that had taken Mitch the better part of two hours to put together. It was six feet of metal—parallel bars set approximately two feet apart, bracketing a flat platform. It looked like a stationary treadmill, waiting for her to pull herself across it.

  Drag herself across was more like it, Clancy thought disparagingly as she glanced down at her legs. There was still no sensation below the top of her thighs. She supposed that she should have been very grateful that the numbness didn’t extend higher. If it did, there would have been a myriad of complications compounding the difficulties she already faced.

  Life had gone from being a bowl of cherries to a bowl of pits in a single turn of the wheel.

  Mitch looked in her direction as he laid the screwdriver down on the dining table. His palms were red and they throbbed a little from the pressure he’d applied when tightening each screw. He had taken extra care so that nothing would weaken or collapse while Clancy was using the equipment.

  He’d already done enough damage as it was.

  She had grown quiet now that she wasn’t reading directions to him and speculating as to their true intent. Looking at her, Mitch could read her thoughts as clearly as if they had been written down in words on a chalkboard.

  She didn’t want to use it.
/>   “You’ve got to give it a chance, Clancy,” he reminded her.

  She nodded and sighed. He’d brought her a dandelion. The least she could do was try. Clancy looked at Mitch innocently. “I didn’t say anything.”

  He didn’t need words to understand her. At least, not about some things. “No, but you were thinking it.”

  His answer brought a smile to her lips. “You read minds now?”

  He recalled the way she used to love to tease him. Something distant stirred within him, wanting to resurrect other memories. Other times. He kept it at bay.

  “Part of police training. Keeps us one step ahead of the evildoers.” He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans and then nodded toward the culmination of his labors. “Want to give it a try?”

  She didn’t feel like failing tonight. Clancy shook her head. “No. Maybe tomorrow. Aren’t you hungry?”

  Food was the last thing on his mind. He was far more interested in getting her to use the equipment. There were weights to build up her upper-body strength even further and an overhead door pulley to do the same. There were exercises for her to do that he wanted to go over with her at length.

  Right now, he wanted to see if her arms could support her if she attempted to stand. He knew it was too much to hope that her legs could at this time. It was still too soon.

  “I’ll eat later.” He suddenly realized that she had probably waited for him to arrive before having dinner. “Unless you—”

  Clancy shook her head. “No, I can always eat later.” An inspiration struck her and she looked at him. “How about pizza?”

  Mitch was thinking in terms of building up her strength and her energy level. “Junk food,” he said, dismissing her choice.

  For just a moment, her eyes seemed to twinkle the way they used to. “Oh, I don’t know. Tomato sauce, cheese, crust. That equals vegetables, dairy products and grains in my book.”

  He decided that there was no harm in it. “Pizza,” he agreed. “But first...”

  She knew what was coming. “The torture rack.” She regarded it the way a novice tennis player might view a top seed across the net.

  “This isn’t meant to torture you,” he insisted. He moved some of the empty boxes.

  “Easy for you to say.” She sighed and turned her chair toward it. “All right, what do you want me to do?”

  “Here, position your chair at this end.” Mitch pushed her wheelchair to the end that stood facing the room. The other end was against the wall for lack of space and to give her a goal to reach.

  Clancy studied it. The way he’d arranged it also minimized the chances of her falling. He had thought of everything.

  Standing behind her, he eased her up out of the chair. “All right, now put your hands around the bars and rest your arms on them.”

  Nervous anticipation hummed through her as she complied. Clancy could feel the unsteadiness taking hold. “Mitch?”

  He could hear the fear in her voice. “Right behind you, Clancy. Just give it a try.” He spoke to her slowly, softly, as if she were standing on the ledge of a building and he were coaxing her back.

  Her shoulders aching, Clancy supported her weight on her arms, holding tightly to the bars on either side of her.

  “Now what?”

  His hands were only inches from her waist, but he had withdrawn his hold. “Now try to stand.”

  She couldn’t do it, she thought. She just couldn’t do it.

  “Clancy.”

  He said her name as if it were an order. An order she knew in her heart she couldn’t follow. Nascent pride forced her to try.

  Clancy raised her chin and squared her tense shoulders. Very slowly, she eased her fingers out of the death grip she had on the bars. But even before she splayed her hands along the metal, releasing her grasp, Clancy felt her legs collapsing under her. They were unable to sustain the weight she was attempting to put on them.

  His reaction was instantaneous. Mitch had her in his arms before she even came close to hitting the floor. He swept her up and held her against him. She was shaking. With fear.

  With frustration.

  “I can’t,” she cried, anguish pulsating in her voice. “I just can’t do it.”

  He held her to him, feeling her pain, absorbing her sorrow. He felt so impotent.

  His voice gave away none of his own feelings. “But you will. We’ll do this every day, and one day you’re going to let go and stand.”

  She turned her face up to his. He saw the tears she was fighting not to shed.

  “You’re sure?” It was a question, a plea for assurance. If he told her that it would be so, some small part of her that hadn’t been crushed in the accident, that hadn’t accepted defeat, would believe him. Believe him and cling to the words.

  There was no hesitation on his part. And no hint of the turmoil he was feeling. Turmoil because he was promising something he wasn’t certain would come to pass. Turmoil because he wanted to kiss her again, the way he had this morning. The way he had once, before his common sense had forced him to go away.

  “I’m sure.”

  Clancy smothered a sob that threatened to rise up. She buried her face in his shoulder. “That makes one of us.”

  For just a moment, he gave in to his needs. Gave in because for now he could disguise it as comfort. Mitch leaned his cheek against her hair. His eyes closed as he absorbed the sensation.

  “I don’t want you to give up, Clancy.”

  She raised her head and looked at him. He had never been one to surrender, but had never believed in the Easter Bunny, either. He dealt in cold, hard reality. Why was this so different for him?

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not going to.” Backing up, he eased her into the wheelchair again. “I’m not going to give up on you, Clancy. I’m going to see you walk, no matter what it takes. Do you understand? I’m not leaving until you can walk.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I hope you brought along a lot of changes of underwear.”

  Mitch laughed then. “Let me worry about my underwear.”

  He thought of the arrangement he’d made with McAffee. The man had just installed a small hot tub in his backyard. When they had been leaving his brother-in-law’s office, McAffee had told Mitch that he and Clancy were welcome to use it anytime. The hot, churning waters would do her good.

  Mitch nudged aside some plastic packing foam with his foot. “I know someone who has a hot tub.”

  Why was he telling her this? Was he trying to put her on notice that he had a social life beyond charitable acts dispensed to car-accident victims?

  “That’s nice for you.”

  “It isn’t for me,” he said, correcting her. “We can use it on weekends. And a couple of evenings during the week.” He saw it as a trade-off. McAffee was going to use the opportunity to burrow closer into his life.

  “We?” What made him think she wanted to put on a bathing suit? Or even leave these four walls the way she was?

  “Yes. The hot tub’s for you.”

  She still didn’t understand. But she could just envision it. Being carried to and from the water like a small child who hadn’t learned to walk yet. Or an invalid.

  Not like an invalid. You are an invalid.

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’m not up to socializing.”

  “The hot water will be good for you,” Mitch told her gruffly. “It will make you buoyant. Besides, it’ll feel good.” His tone left no margin for argument.

  He was taking over, she thought. Marching in and taking over her life. Well, he couldn’t. Once she would have given in to him willingly. But not now. Not for this reason.

  She dragged her hand through her hair. The braid was coming undone. Clancy struggled to calm down. Mitch was just trying to help.

  She shrugged, giving in. “Maybe it would be nice to feel some water for a change.”

  Her words reminded him of something. He glanced at the small box he hadn’t opened yet.
Pushing more of the debris aside, he pulled the box forward.

  Dismay washed over her as she watched him rip open the side of the box. There was a picture of a woman in the shower, perched on a bench that extended across the lip of the tub.

  “More?”

  He took a white plastic bench out of the box and leaned it against the wall. “The therapist said you needed these, remember?” Mitch opened another, much smaller box. This one held a long, hoselike attachment that could be used in place of a shower head.

  She could wash her hair.

  Clancy touched the shower attachment gingerly, as if it had suddenly materialized in answer to a prayer. Or was that Mitch? she abruptly wondered.

  She raised her eyes to his. “Now all I need to do is get into the tub.” She supposed she could manage if she aligned the wheelchair just right. If she had it next to the sink, she could use the towel rack to pull herself up onto the bench.

  Mitch didn’t see the problem. “I’ll put you in the tub.”

  She could feel the color creeping up her neck. “You?”

  She was embarrassed, he realized. Embarrassed around him. The thought hadn’t occurred to Mitch. He looked at her now, surprised.

  “Clancy, I’ve seen you nude.” The look in her eyes told him that that didn’t change the way she felt. She was being silly, he thought. He shrugged. “You can wrap something around you, a towel, whatever makes you feel better about this.”

  “Nothing is going to make me feel better about this,” she snapped before she could stop herself. Sometimes it felt as if there was just one humiliation on top of the next. Her emotions were being stretched first one way, then the other. How long before they broke apart?

  Mitch took her sudden outburst personally. He was sure Clancy was talking about them. About how she’d felt when he had walked out. He couldn’t blame her for the way she felt, but he wasn’t going to let that get in the way of what he knew he had to do.

  “I won’t look,” he assured her. Turning away, he began piling the empty boxes and pieces of discarded cardboard near the door.

  Something in the way he said it made her smile. Clancy could envision Galahad taking an oath to remain pure as he rode throughout the countryside, searching for the Holy Grail. “Mitch’s code of honor.”