Chapter 10
Y vonne rubbed her sore temple, knowing she should probably not even be encouraging a relationship between the two of them because everything hurt—but most of all her heart, her whole chest. It was as if she’d been beaten up pretty roughly, and, of course, she had definitely had some surgery done, with people poking around in her insides. So some healing still had to happen, but it felt pretty much the same way it had before she went into surgery. Yet it did seem to lessen each day. Was she just hopeful or was that her new reality?
Her surgeon had warned her about that, saying recovery wouldn’t happen overnight. It was just such a weird feeling. But every time she saw Dennis, she just wanted to spend time with him, more time than she by rights could pull from him. He had to spend time here with his job, while she was the one who basically was taking up time. She sighed heavily as she thought about it.
“Is there any fool like an old fool,” she muttered to herself. At that, she heard a chuckle and looked up to see Dani.
“Hey.” Dani smiled, then asked, “You okay?”
“I am. I’m waiting for the painkillers to kick in. And I think I’ve convinced Dennis to take half an hour and push me around the gardens.”
“Good,” Dani noted. “It would be good for you.”
“But it wouldn’t be good for the two of us?” Yvonne asked in a wry tone. “I feel as if I shouldn’t even be going in this direction.”
“Why is that?” Dani asked, bringing her a bunch of paperwork.
Yvonne looked at the paperwork and sighed. “Hopefully this is all good stuff.”
“It is. I just need signatures,” Dani replied cheerfully.
And, with that, Yvonne signed the paperwork.
Dani stepped back and added, “You still didn’t tell me why you’re afraid this isn’t a good move.”
“I just feel like, what if what we had before isn’t still there, and what if something is still there, but we want different things now?”
“Sounds to me as if you’re worrying about something that you can’t even begin to worry about yet,” she suggested.
“Maybe, but it feels odd.”
“Sure, you’re opening a door that you closed,” Dani pointed out. “So don’t open it if you want it to stay closed. However, if you’re not sure what you want or if you’re thinking that maybe you want to see what’s there or what’s potentially still available between you two, then that’s a door you must open to find out more.” And, with that, Dani was gone.
As she contemplated Dani’s words, Yvonne slowly ate the meat pie, marveling at how the kitchen here always put out food that was tasty and simple and yet hit the palate. By the time she was done and her coffee was gone, she was tired again. And that wasn’t good because she’d already mentioned going outside with Dennis. But only so much she could do about the fatigue hitting her, along with the painkiller.
She closed her eyes, hoping Dennis would take a little bit longer to look after whatever he had to finish, and just curled up on the side of her bed. She didn’t use a blanket, just snuggled in and closed her eyes for a minute, just,… just a couple minutes to let the fatigue take over. She heard an odd noise to her side, and she woke up with a start, bolted upright, and then cried out in pain.
Almost immediately Dennis was there, his hands on her shoulders, whispering, “Easy, take it easy. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She groaned as she laid back on her bed, her shoulder now killing her. “It’s okay. I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute,” she murmured. “But of course that minute turned into a lot of minutes, courtesy of that painkiller.”
“And that’s what you’re here for,” he reminded her. “You’re here to heal.”
She nodded. “But I really wanted to go outside.”
“How do you feel now about going outside?” he asked, studying her carefully. “Do you think you’re up for it, or will it be too much?”
“Well, if I’m not doing the work to move the wheelchair,” she noted, “it won’t be too much to just sit there.”
“But you don’t know that until you’ve tried it,” Dennis stated. “I guess if we take it slow and easy…”
“Absolutely,” she agreed. “If nothing else, it’ll be a good change of scenery for me.”
“We’ll see.” Dennis brought over the wheelchair for her. “Can you get into this without hurting yourself?”
“It seems as if everything I do hurts me these days,” she murmured. “One way or another, at least.” He frowned at her, but she left her cryptic comment hanging in the air and didn’t want to even discuss it. She just smiled and added, “I’m fine.”
He frowned back at her. “You don’t sound fine.”
“I am, just surgery is never the easiest.”
“No, it definitely isn’t, particularly this one. But the good news is, the surgery solved a long-term problem for you.”
“I hope so. I wasn’t thinking that it would be this long of a recovery.”
He burst out laughing. “What are you talking about? It’s just been a few days.”
“They went in microscopically,” she pointed out. “It’s not as if they put a six-inch slash in my back.”
“I’m sure your back doesn’t care to have the new wound measured either,” he said, with spirit. “As far as your body is concerned, it’s been damaged and hurt and invaded, and any attempt to minimize that agony won’t go over well for a while.”
She just smiled at him. “You could be right.” Once she was sitting in the wheelchair, she looked over at him. “You okay to push?”
“Of course I am. I lift huge sacks of flour on a regular basis,” he shared. “I’m not exactly a weakling.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she replied. “I just meant, are you okay to… to do this, with me?”
“Yes, of course. Now let’s do this.”
And, with that, she closed her mouth and let him take her outside.
*
Dennis wasn’t exactly sure where her odd mood was coming from, but it was starting to set off his mood too. As soon as he got her outside to the beautiful grounds, she sighed happily.
“This is what I was missing,” she whispered.
“And what is that?” he asked.
“Fresh air, Mother Nature. Just a chance to be out here. No pressure, no stress, just life.”
“And this can happen every day for you,” he suggested. “We’re all about figuring out just what you need and getting it for you. It all aids in healing.”
She nodded. “Last time at rehab, I got outside by myself, but now I’m working at asking people to help me get what I need,” she admitted, with a small smile.
“And I think you’re doing very well,” he noted.
She looked at him. “In what way?” she asked.
“Well, you asked to go outside. You asked for breakfast. You asked for lunch and coffee,” he explained. “For you, those are huge milestones. In the past, you would have said, No, I’ll do without coffee because I can’t get down there myself . There’s been many times that you made it to mealtimes very late. Still, I knew you were coming, so I was still holding back food for you. If you got there too late, you wouldn’t get anything hot to eat. So I stayed open much longer to try and give you a chance to get down there, with that stubborn pride of yours.”
Her breath rushed out of her in a gasp. “Wow, I had no idea.”
“Of course not. I never told you.” He smiled as he pushed her onto the pathway and down toward the horses.
“How come so many horses are here?” She gasped. “I just realized that Midnight’s here.”
“I think at the moment we have six.”
“And a llama too. Wow, Dani’s really collecting strays, isn’t she?”
“I don’t think she looks at it as collecting strays as much as she likes to consider herself helping animals in need,” he clarified.
“And that’s much more appropriate, isn’t it? She told me that her husband’s coming to work with Stan. Well, her future husband is,” she corrected.
“Exactly, and that’ll happen faster than we expect too,” he shared. “We’re working on her menu planning for the wedding.”
She laughed. “She did tell me about it. She’s a little chagrined to think that everybody is pitching in for this.”
“Of course she is, because Dani cares, and she wants the money to go to the center, but it’s also good for everybody here to see her take the next big step in her life.” He chuckled. “Besides, we can do this blindfolded. She’s just afraid it’s taking us away from the regular work.”
“Which it would never do,” Yvonne interjected.
“No, it never would,” he confirmed, with a smile.
“She’s worried because she knows it’s eating into your personal time. Still, it’s interesting to watch her be almost that nervous schoolgirl over the whole thing,” Yvonne said, with a smile.
“Well, it’s a big step for her, and she’s waited a long time.”
“She also brought up an interesting thing about that. She looks back on how long they waited, and she wished they had just gotten married right away, instead of all this production that now waits for her and all the time that they lost when they could have been together.”
“Interesting,” he murmured, his mind racing to the times that he’d seen her both sad and lonely. “And I can see that. Ever since they first met again—after all, they knew each other growing up—but there was always a part of her missing.”
“Yes, I think she would agree with that,” Yvonne replied. “So I’m glad that the wedding is happening soon. I think she feels as if she spent more than enough time alone.”
“I’m sure she has. You obviously spent a lot of time talking to Dani.”
“It was on the drive home from the hospital,” Yvonne explained. “It really makes her human in that we forget she’s got her own life on hold for so much of this as well.”
“It’s on hold, but I think it’s been something that she’s been okay with, at least on the short term. Obviously she’s delighted that the waiting period is coming to an end, but then we all are.” He nodded. “We’re all looking forward to the wedding.”
Yvonne sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll still be here or not, but it would be nice to come for the wedding.”
“Then come,” he said immediately.
“I can’t just gate-crash if I’m not a patient here,” she replied, laughing. “And I’m pretty sure you already have more than enough people to feed, and her wedding won’t be something that she extends any more invitations to.”
“We are all invited. All of the staff are welcome to come, plus one,” he stated. “So, if you want, feel free to come as my plus one.”
Yvonne didn’t seem to know what to say. She stared up at him in shock.
But not hearing a yes blurting right from her mouth, he realized that either the shock was too great or it wouldn’t be an answer that he wanted to hear. He turned her around and added, “Think about it. You don’t have to give me your answer now.” He feigned a cheerful tone.