Chapter 26 #2
The nurse came in before I could sink any deeper into my thoughts.
Denise was an older woman with silver threaded through her braids and a way of speaking to me that made it clear she didn’t care whether I was in one of my moods.
She pushed the door open with her hip and smiled when she saw my eyes.
“Well, look who finally decided to join the living.”
“I’ve been living.”
“You’ve been pretending to sleep every time somebody walks in here.”
I turned my face toward the window. Denise came around the bed and checked the IV before lifting the clipboard hanging near the footboard. “Physical therapy is waiting on you.”
“They can keep waiting.” I mumbled.
“They said you tried that yesterday.”
“And it almost worked.”
She laughed while lowering the bedrail. “It didn’t work at all.”
“I’m in pain.”
“I know and that’s why we gave you medicine before the session.” She glanced toward me over the top of her glasses. “And before you ask, no, they aren’t letting you skip.”
Denise brought the wheelchair closer to the bed and locked the wheels. The first few times they transferred me; two people had done most of the work while I held on and tried not to scream. Now they expected me to participate and I hated participating.
Every movement reminded me how much my body had changed. My right leg had survived, though it still carried bruising and weakness from the impact. My left ended below the knee beneath a thick dressing and a rigid protective covering they said would help guard the residual limb while it healed.
Residual limb, I thought. They had given what remained of my leg a polite medical name, like that was supposed to make it easier to look at. Denise helped me sit upright. The room tilted briefly as blood rushed through my head, and I tightened my hands around the mattress.
“Give yourself a second,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t get extra credit for lying.”
Once the dizziness passed, she placed the wheelchair at an angle beside the bed and reminded me where to put my hands.
I shifted toward the edge, keeping my weight centered over my right foot while she steadied the transfer belt around my waist. The first attempt got me halfway up before pain tore through my hip and I dropped back onto the mattress.
“Shit!”
Denise kept one hand beneath my arm. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re cussing and that’s different.” She replied. I glared at her and she smiled. “Ready to try again?”
“No.”
“Good. On three.”
By the time I settled into the wheelchair, sweat had perspired across my forehead. My arms shook from supporting more of my weight than they were used to, and frustration sat so close to the surface that I wanted to knock everything off the bedside table.
The therapy gym was brighter than my room and twice as irritating.
Parallel bars ran through the center. Exercise mats covered one side, while walkers, wheelchairs, resistance bands, and equipment filled the rest. Other patients worked with therapists around the room as well facing different obstacles.
Everybody seemed to be trying and that irritated me too.
My therapist, Claire, rolled me between the parallel bars and locked the wheelchair. She was small, energetic, and too cheerful for somebody whose job involved making injured people do things they didn’t want to do. “Today we’re going to focus on standing tolerance and balance,” she said.
“I tolerated standing for twenty-six years. I think I understand the concept.”
Claire didn’t react; she had already learned that sarcasm was the only thing I had left some mornings. “This is different.”
“I noticed.”
She placed the gait belt around my waist and positioned herself slightly behind me. “Your arms will help you push up but try not to hang all your weight through your shoulders once you’re standing. We want you using your right leg and your core.”
My hands wrapped around the bars, and I hated that I was afraid. Standing had once been something I did without thinking. Now my body treated the floor like it couldn’t be trusted.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Claire said.
I pushed against the armrests, shifted my weight forward, and forced myself upright.
My right knee wobbled immediately. Both arms locked around the bars.
The missing weight on my left side threw everything off.
My brain kept expecting my foot to touch the ground and kept sending messages to a limb that wasn’t there.
A sharp tingling sensation ran through toes I no longer had.
I sucked my teeth and swallowed my tears.
“Easy,” Claire said. “Don’t rush.”
“I’m not rushing.”
“You’re gripping the bars hard enough to bend them.”
“I’m trying not to fall Claire.” I corrected her.
“And I’m not going to let you.”
I loosened my hands slightly, but my body remained stiff. Sweat slid down my back beneath the loose hospital shirt. My right thigh began burning after less than a minute.
“This is stupid.”
“It’s hard, I know, but it will help.”
“It’s standing Claire, that’s it.”
“For you, right now, standing is hard.”
The words hit a place I didn’t want touched. My eyes filled before I could stop them. “I know what it is,” I snapped. “I’m the one missing a fucking leg.”
The gym seemed to get quiet around me, although I knew it probably hadn’t. Claire didn’t tell me to calm down. She didn’t say I was blessed. She only kept one hand close to the belt around my waist and waited.
My right knee shook harder. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” She assured me being extremely patient.
“No, I can’t.”
“You’re already doing it.”
I looked down at the empty space beside my right foot. My vision blurred. “I don’t want to do it like this.”
Nobody answered Claire’s encouragement because the voice came from behind me.
“You ain’t gotta want to. Just do it anyway.”
I turned my head and Lev stood near the entrance to the therapy gym.
He wore a black suit with a black shirt beneath it with the first buttons left open at his throat.
The jacket fit across his shoulders too perfectly like it was tailored, and the gold watch at his wrist caught the overhead light when he slipped one hand into his pocket.
His expression looked hurt although he tried to hide it behind the calm way he carried himself. He was just leaving Marv’s funeral.
I had forgotten it was that morning. Lev crossed the room slowly, ignoring the women who looked up as he passed. He stopped near the end of the parallel bars and looked at me like nobody else was there. “You came.” I tried to smile.
He kissed me on the cheek. “Where else I’m supposed to be?”
The words reminded me of what he told me the same day I lost my leg. My arms trembled against the bars and Lev noticed.
“Look at me,” he said.
“I need to sit down.”
“You can sit when she tells you.”
“I’m tired Lev and I’m hurting.” I wiped my eyes.
“I know that too.” His voice didn’t carry pity and that was what I needed most.
Everyone else looked at me like I might break if they said the wrong thing. Lev looked at me like I was still myself, even when I didn’t feel like her. “Keep your eyes up,” he told me. “You staring at the floor like it did something to you.”
A weak laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Whatever.”
Claire smiled. “That’s better, now shift a little more weight into the right leg.”
“I hate both of you right now.”
Lev came closer. “You can hate me after you finish.”
My right knee threatened to fold, and my grip tightened again. “I can’t.”
His expression changed, and not softening exactly, but opening enough for me to see what he was holding back.
“You ran out that apartment after a grown ass man attacked you. You survived Rome hitting you with a car. You survived surgery, and now you telling me some metal bars and one shaky leg got more fight than you?”
The tears burned when they rolled down my face. “That’s not fair.”
“I ain’t trying to be fair baby. I’m trying to remind you who the fuck you are.”
I met his eyes and held his gaze. The shaking didn’t stop, but the panic inside me eased enough to breathe around it.
Claire counted ten more seconds before allowing me to lower myself into the chair.
My arms gave out the moment I reached it, and I sat there breathing hard while Lev crouched in front of me.
“See?” he said. “Still standing.”
“For barely two minutes.” I sighed.
“That’s two minutes more than you wanted to do though.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “How was the funeral?”
His eyes lowered briefly. “It was a funeral.”