by Dale Mayer
He hated the fact that he was still dealing with space issues while in wheelchairs, but it had been his choice, so it was what it was. He ate slowly, enjoying the food, but realizing, of course, he’d forgotten his water. It just seemed like everything was so much effort today. Even though Shane had done a heck of a job, everything appeared to be a lot more difficult. And maybe Gregory was just being forgetful from being so tired, but he looked over at the water several times and realized he couldn’t avoid it. He rolled back and headed toward the drink section.
While he was there, he grabbed a bottle of water and then a cup of coffee. That made rolling his wheelchair a little harder, but he was determined to make it, and one wheel rotation at a time, he made his way to his table. Triumphant, he placed a full cup of coffee beside his plate and then opened the bottle of water. The trouble was, he drank it almost immediately.
Suddenly Dennis was there with a second bottle. “That was good work,” he said in admiration. “I don’t think I have ever seen anybody bring a cup of coffee over quite the same way.”
Gregory shot him a look. “Right. I probably looked absolutely ridiculous.”
“Nope, not at all,” he said with a big grin. “It was good.” He looked at Gregory’s food and said, “How are you enjoying it?”
“I love it,” he said, “but that’s why I needed the water. It’s a little spicy.”
“We do like spicy food here.”
“That’s great,” he said, “but some of it should come with a warning label.”
Dennis smirked. “If this is too hot for you, I can get you something else.”
“No, this will do just fine,” he said, forking up another mouthful.
Dennis took off, leaving Gregory to finish his lunch in peace.
By the time he was done, he checked his watch and realized he was already late. Shane was likely waiting in the physio room for him already. But at least Gregory had dressed with that in mind. Moving slowly, he headed out to the hallway. There, he stopped and saw Meredith coming toward him. He frowned at her. “Are you looking for me?”
“Only to make sure that you’re doing okay,” she said gently.
And he hated that gentleness, that Hey, I know you’re injured, and I know you’re hurt, and I just want to make sure you’re fine kind of thing because, like she’d said, it still was her job. And something about that struck him so wrong. It was just enough to piss him off.
He nodded stiffly and said, “I’m doing just fine, thanks. Shane was a good idea. Thank you for messaging him.” And then, without another word, he turned the wheelchair in the direction he needed to go and rolled down the hallway, leaving her staring behind him.
He could feel her eyes burning into his back. When he reached this PT room, he tossed a quick glance back, and, sure enough, there she was, still staring at him.
Chapter 8
Meredith tried to keep herself busy for the next few days and to not hover over Gregory. She didn’t know whether it was the female part of her or the professional nurse part of her, but she figured it was likely a gentle mix of both. She also knew that that’s the last thing Gregory wanted. He needed to move on with his life without feeling like somebody was affecting his progress. And that was fine with her. She had enough work to do. One of the other nurses had fallen sick, and Meredith was doing double duty right now. At the end of her day, she was tired and exhausted.
As Wednesday rolled around, she really needed to take some R&R just to feel better herself. As she quickly made her way through the day, she was busy without even minutes to spare until her shift was over. When she finally handed off her case files and clocked out for the day, she headed home to her on-site apartment, quickly changed into a bathing suit and headed back to the pool.
She was so tired that she didn’t think she could do any laps but knew she needed to, just to destress. Nothing like physical exercise to wear some of that off, and she quickly dove in. She swam laps—one, two and three—and by the time she stopped at twenty, she realized she hadn’t done as many as she needed to, but she already felt better. She did several more laps at a much slower pace. Instead of trying to plow through the water cleanly, she gently floated along the top and moved lightly.
A few more laps later, she took several deep breaths and floated to finish destressing. Finally, her body chilly, she headed over to the stairs. When she got out and wrapped herself with a towel, she noticed a few patients sat here, watching.
She smiled at them. “You could go in, you know?” she teased.
“We don’t belong in the mermaid category,” Bernie said. He was a big, burly man with a huge gut that they were working to reduce, and he was missing both legs. But they were missing very high up, so prosthetics would not be easy, if even possible.
She just smiled and said honestly, “With that tummy of yours, I’m sure you’d float anyway.”
He grinned at her. “Like a beached whale or a turtle,” he said.
She laughed. “Have you already had dinner?”
He patted his belly. “What do you think?” he asked. “You know me. When there’s food, I’m never late.”
She smiled, looked over at Stan beside him and said, “How are you doing? Surprised you are aren’t still downstairs with the animals.”
Stan, the vet, just smiled and gave her a tired nod. “I’m fine,” he said. “Long day.”
“Surgery?”
“Yes, plus I got two female cats and about eight kittens in today. The kittens aren’t old enough to be fixed yet,” he said, “but we did the moms, and then we had to round up fosters for the kittens. But everyone had to be chipped and inspected and examined and fixed,” he said. “Fixed as in shots and ears checked, and a couple had ear infections.”
She nodded. “Kind of sounds like my day,” she said. “Hannah is sick for the second day now, and I’m just worn out doing double shifts.”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Stan said. “We can do everything just fine from Monday to Friday, bumping along quite happily with a regular workload, but then something happens, and our workload doubles.”
She chuckled. “That’s about it,” she said. “In my case, staffing issues. I know Dani was trying to get somebody in temporarily to help but wasn’t having luck. Then Hannah thought she’d be back today, but she didn’t make it. But if she’s not here tomorrow …”
“A pretty nasty flu is going around the place,” Stan said. “If she caught that, she could be down for a week.”
“A week?” Meredith cried out in mock horror. “If that’s the case,” she said, “I’ll need Dani to get someone in to help. It’s okay for a day or two, but, after that, it gets to be an issue.”
“Of course it does,” Stan said. “I was wondering about getting a second vet in here.”
“You mean, until Aaron comes?”
“Exactly,” he said with a grin, “and that, of course, will still be a few years out.”
“True. Neither of our issues have an easy answer.”
“Yours shouldn’t be that hard to solve. Maybe you can talk to Dani after dinner,” Stan said. “You’re looking pretty tired.”
There was such concern in his voice that she smiled at him and collapsed on the chair beside him. “I am,” she said.
“Just work?”
She shot him a veiled look and shrugged.
He nodded. “I heard something about you and Gregory.”
“Gossip travels fast around here,” she said with a half smile, wishing he didn’t know anything about it, but, of course, he did.
“Exactly,” he said, “the gossip is notorious. But remember that we’re all friends. Nobody wants to see you hurt.”
“Might be a little late for that,” she said. “Well, maybe five years late.”
At that, Bernie wheeled away in this chair, calling back, “Private stuff. I’ll leave you two alone.”
“Thanks,” she called out. She looked over at Stan and said, “It’s hard to see Gregory and not
wonder about the ‘what ifs’ in life. We’ve never mentioned our history. It’s like a great big black hole that neither of us wants to get sucked into.”
“Understandable. You don’t know where a conversation like that will leave you. Still, you need to know where you stand inside first. If you can’t determine that, then any further conversations would just confuse the issue. Learn what’s in your heart, then find out what’s in his. A lot of time has passed, and he’s been through a rough time.”
Stan stared out at the open deck. “He’s lost a lot in his life. Not only his career but his health. He has years to recover and faces an uncertain future. He also lost you. And, although we’re sorry for what he’s been through, we can’t do anything but help support this next part of his journey. He’s stronger than he knows. You have to be too.” Stan’s piercing gray eyes locked onto hers as he said in a low tone, “Particularly if you want to keep him in your life.”
“I know that mentally, but I still want to rail at him that, if he’d chosen me over the military way back when, then he wouldn’t be in this situation. Yet I also know that would be the worst thing I could do, denying him what makes him him. Yet it hurts me so to see him suffering,” she said, her shoulders sagging, “He’s struggling, like really struggling sometimes.”
“Everyone here does,” Stan said, his voice still low so it wouldn’t carry across to others around.
“I didn’t want to see him go off to war again,” she muttered. “I feel very selfish about it now, but I know I couldn’t have lived with the constant fear and worry about him getting hurt. Even after he left, I still worried and felt fear. It took a long time to stop doing that.” She waved a hand toward the rehab center sprawled around them. “And then to see him here like this?” She shook her head. “I know it’s selfish, but I’m glad I wasn’t there at the time. Yet I feel bad that I wasn’t there for him.”
“It would have been incredibly difficult,” he said. “At least at this stage, you’re seeing him already on the mend. You’re seeing him on the road to recovery.”
She nodded. “That’s it exactly,” she said. “I’ve seen him turn the corner, and I know that it’s still hard for him, and, of course, there’s added pain because of our own breakup. But, at the same time, it is showing me a side of him that I’d never seen before. I’ve seen men come here broken and, at the end of their stay, stand up and walk forward into their new lives, making me feel so proud to have been a part of their journey. To watch them step into their futures, when they didn’t actually think they had one when they arrived.
“Most arrived broken, hating their lives. Their hearts had been devastated at what had happened to them. Very few are happy and upbeat. And I mean, very few. They’re challenged here. They’re given tasks and end goals, and yet, through it all, they learn abilities and gain strength and find an inner sense of who they really are. And, in a way, I feel like I missed something very important for Gregory from the time that he was injured until now. Because he was in much better shape than a lot of people when first checking in here,” she finished.
“I don’t know him all that well,” Stan said, “but he appears to be fairly well-adjusted. And that’s a surprise. Of course, we have lots of that here, but, as you said, he came in already in really good shape.”
“And yet, our rehab has been a shock for him too. I think he became a little too complacent, thinking he already had this. I’m not sure his last VA center was the best place for him. He’s one of those guys who can fool you into thinking that he’s doing everything, and it’s all working well, but he’s actually taking shortcuts. So some of the very important steps that are necessary weren’t taken, and now, well, you know what our PT guys are like. Shane won’t let Gregory off the hook at all.”
Stan chuckled. “No, Shane is quite a hard character, but he’s fair.”
“He’s beyond fair,” she said. “But he’s also extremely good at what he does, and he already worked out Gregory’s character on the first day. It is unfortunate though that, between the two of them, Gregory was overworked from his very first PT session, so that he was quite sore that night and into the next day. The thing is, he wasn’t in anywhere as bad a shape as I’ve seen time and time again. But, for Gregory, I think he was more than shocked that he was in such poor condition as to not survive his first PT session with Shane. And that’s not easy for Gregory to accept.”
“Even harder,” Stan said, nodding his head, “Gregory arrived with a false self-confidence. Shane abruptly woke him up from that to see where Gregory really was, and now he’ll have to work.”
“But, at the end of it,” she said, “he will be where he wanted to be.”
“And yet, something about that concerns you.”
“I think I’m holding him back.” Meredith sighed.
“What’s your relationship like right now?”
“Professional,” Meredith said. “I’m keeping it that way. We haven’t discussed five years ago. We’re ignoring it, but that means it’s always there between us.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t want to get in the way of the work he has to do here. When he first arrived, and we were a little friendlier, he didn’t seem to think he had any work to do, so he was much more relaxed. But now it’s different, as if he’s got more locked up inside.”
“Of course he has, because he has a true challenge to face. It’s not something you can help him with, and you’re right. Maybe in that instance, you’ll actually feel his pain because he knows he has to do this, and he has to do it well. And, on top of that, you’re there watching him. No matter whether it’s as an ex-lover or as an old friend, no one wants to come up short.”
At that, she stared at Stan. “In what way would he come up short?”
“Well, think about it,” Stan said, as if it was blatantly obvious. “Five years ago he was whole and physically fit—and God only knows what else you saw in him—but he isn’t those things anymore.”
“No,” she said slowly, thinking about it. “He used to have a big smile and a huge sense of humor. But what hasn’t changed is he’s still strong, loyal, and committed.”
“But those are what he would consider as soft skills. You know those job applications where you have to give your actual skills, but they want those other skills? Right now Gregory’s looking for the measurable real skills—the ability to walk, the ability to be independent, to look after his own physical needs. He wants to know that he has a purpose in his life and that he can hold a job and can support a family.” Stan smiled sadly at her. “No matter what the other person in the relationship is doing, it’s always important that the men know that they can handle looking after their family. Women can become the major moneymaker. They can become the CEOs. They can become all kinds of things in this world,” he said, “but it’ll never change that a man wants to know he can be strong enough, capable enough to be the breadwinner.”
“I guess the men are still hunter-gatherers at heart, aren’t they?” she mused.
“We so are, and, considering we’re both exhausted”—he grinned—“why don’t you quickly go get changed, as much as I like the view, and we’ll get dinner.”
“How about I just throw on my sundress?” she said. She picked hers up from where she’d dropped it to the side with her towel and tossed it over her head, letting it float lightly over her body. She reached out a hand and said, “Come on. Let’s go eat.”
He reached up, grabbed it, squeezed her fingers and let her hand go. “Let’s go.” As they walked over to the edge, he said, “Don’t look now, but somebody’s been watching us for the last twenty minutes or so.”
“I saw him,” she said with a smile. “Do you think us holding hands bothered him?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Which is why I dropped yours. Now let’s eat.”
It was hard to watch somebody who you cared about being friendly with another man. The handclasp was one thing, but at least it didn’t last too long. The
thing that bothered Gregory the most was the fact that it was obvious Meredith and Stan were close. But then, why wouldn’t they be? They’d both worked at Hathaway House for years; they were bound to be friends. Gregory wondered painfully if that was all they were.
There was an obvious age difference between them, but it wasn’t so much as to raise eyebrows. Meredith had always been mature for her age, and she was absolutely perfect, so, of course, every man in town wanted her. The thing was, she had chosen Gregory at one time, and he’d been so honored and so delighted, … until it came time for him to leave. He hadn’t come up against that issue before because he hadn’t really cared enough before.
But, with Meredith, everything had changed, and it had hurt big-time. And how could he even begin to contemplate a relationship with her now? She’d already seen him when he had been so much more, when he had walked away from her, so why would she want anything to do with him now?
Yet he was here, full of hope, winging it on a kiss and a prayer.
Honestly, it was heartbreaking. He knew he shouldn’t be even thinking about it like that, but it wasn’t easy. As much as he wanted it and was delighted and had actively taken a path that would have put Meredith right in front of him, it was hard to know what to do next, especially with the current rude awakening to the truth about his physical condition.
Hathaway House had a lot more to offer than he had ever expected.
She deserved so much more. If he was smart, he would have just walked away from the military years ago, and he’d have spent the last five years with her. Not only would he have had the last five years but he’d be whole now because he wouldn’t have been blown up by the damn IED.
He stared out at the pool, knowing that Stan and Meredith would come upstairs and would walk past him at any moment. As they approached, she smiled at him, but Stan asked, “Have you eaten yet, Gregory?”
