Chapter 16 #2
However, this time Keisha circled around and stood in the doorway. “No, and that’s enough of that, Kel. You don’t get to throw accusations at me, then turn and roll away like you always do. That is no way for us to have a discussion.”
“I don’t want to discuss anything with you.”
“No, you don’t, and that’s because you don’t want to be called out for acting like a child.
You just don’t want me to have a life. You’re miserable and have decided that I must be miserable too.
I’m sorry that I can’t give you the life you had.
You did have everything here with Mom, even after Dad got sick.
I don’t know anything about what happened in the accident, but I have done my darndest to make a decent life for you since it happened, and honestly, you don’t appreciate it.
I don’t think you really give a crap one way or the other.
There is funding for you to get surgery if you need it, and there is money for retraining.
There is money for all kinds of stuff to get you set up and moving forward, but you don’t seem to care.
You apparently don’t want to move forward with your life at all. ”
“Why would I?” she bellowed. “This”—she waved at her wheelchair—“this is my life, and nobody wants to live this way.”
“No, nobody wants it, but they aren’t determined to make everybody else pay.”
Kelly gasped. “You mean, for my mistakes? Is that what you were going to say?”
Keisha stood here in astonishment. For few moments, she was unable to speak at all. “No, Kel, I had no intention of saying anything of the kind and never would. I don’t know what mistakes you’re even talking about.”
Her sister snapped her jaw shut. “That’s a damn good thing,” she muttered, then tried to leave the room.
As she tried to get around Keisha, who still stood in the doorway, she banged into the wall, then in absolute frustration, she hit it with a fury that surprised both of them, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, until her shoulders started to shake, and tears formed in her eyes.
Then finally her sister backed up one more time and tore out of the kitchen, making her way past the wall.
Keisha was left stunned and in tears herself, as she watched her sister.
Keisha didn’t know how to help Kelly or what Keisha was supposed to do about this, if anything.
It all just seemed to be way beyond her.
How was she supposed to give her sister any kind of support when Kelly didn’t want anything? Yet she still wanted everything.
The next morning, she made coffee and stepped out on the deck, where she phoned Kelly’s counselor and admitted, “I don’t know how to handle her anymore.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
And, for the next twenty minutes, she dumped all the things that her sister was doing to make her life so difficult.
“She needs to come in and talk to me, for one,” the therapist suggested.
“Yeah, I’ve mentioned that, but she refuses to go to therapy. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do, but she’s determined that I shouldn’t have my marriage. She feels that I chose him over her and that there is absolutely no way she will move forward in life because of the wheelchair.”
“That’s because she hasn’t fully accepted where she is right now,” Adam noted.
“And she’s still not interested in accepting the reality of her life,” Keisha confirmed, frustrated as ever. “Adam, she’s still so angry, and yet she mentioned something about her fault, and I don’t know what that was all about.”
He went silent for a moment. “I don’t know either,” he murmured, “unless it has to do with the fact that your parents passed away and that she couldn’t do anything to save them.”
Keisha immediately felt terrible about her own feelings and groaned. “That could be it. I just don’t know how to deal with her and haven’t really dealt with my own grief because of it.”
“It’s a never-ending cycle,” Adam murmured. “See if you can get her to talk to me. I do house calls, but it’s likely to be a waste of time if she won’t let me in or won’t open up to me.”
“I know, but how am I supposed to deal with it? I can see that I let her sabotage my relationship with my husband already in the past,” she shared, “and I’m not willing to do that anymore.”
“Good,” Adam agreed, “because you can’t just be her caretaker. That is not your only role in life. It isn’t who she would want you to be either, but she’s not capable of seeing past where she is right now,” he shared, his voice calm and sympathetic. “She does need to get some help though.”
“I know, and I’m afraid that she’s making herself sick too—not eating, falling, ramming her wheelchair into the wall,” Keisha added.
“It just feels as if she’s doing anything she can to stop me from doing what I want to do.
She succeeded at that once, and the reality of me going back to Jaxon now has sent her around the bend. ”
“And her reaction makes sense, but it’s not the answer to her problems—or yours. You get to have a life too,” he stated, “and nobody gets to destroy their caretaker if they don’t get what they want.”
“If Kelly and I could get along and if she would be respectful to my husband, it would be a different story,” Keisha noted. “Jaxon won’t mind. Hell, he would be first to support her because he’s experienced plenty of hell of his own.”
“But Kelly’s anger and hatred seems directly related to losing you?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, “and that just makes me feel even guiltier.”
“Which is also partly why she’s doing it,” Adam pointed out.
“So, what then? I’m supposed to just do … what? She won’t go any place where she can get help. She won’t go into a facility either—one where she could have other people around her who are in wheelchairs too—so she could learn to get past some of this.”
“And it’s not even so much that she needs that community,” Adam shared. “She needs psychological help, but I don’t know if that’s anything you’ll give her help with, in terms of adjusting to her new life.”
“But it’s been years, Adam,” she said, “and she’s still just not adjusting.”
“No, because she’s angry, and she doesn’t want to adjust, but that’s not your problem.”
“And yet it feels very much as if it’s my problem because she’s making it my problem.”
“Then you need to limit her ability to do that,” Adam replied.
“And, sure, it’ll feel as if you’re deserting Kelly, and we don’t want you to feel guilty about that too, but she needs to come up with solutions for her own life, beyond just the anger that chases everybody away.
And it’s worth doing right now because, if her ploy didn’t work to chase away your husband, and you’ve chosen to go back to him, effectively choosing him over her, she will get even more depressed.
” He hesitated and asked, “How bad is her mental state?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, frustration evident in her tone. “She won’t talk to me. Kelly is just this black pit of anger.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “That just makes life even harder on you.”
“It does, and that’s not even the problem, as much as not knowing how to deal with it going forward.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment and then offered, “Look. How about if I stop by tomorrow afternoon and see how she handles it?”
“Thank you,” she muttered. “I would appreciate that very much.” And, with that, she ended the call and sat here for the longest time.
When Kelly wheeled past, Keisha realized that her sister had been sitting around the corner, undoubtedly listening to Keisha’s phone call with Adam.
She called out her sister over it. “If you don’t want to hear things that you won’t like, you shouldn’t be lurking around while I make private phone calls. ”
Her sister was silent, then came almost a growl, as if to say, If I had somebody to love me, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
Keisha froze for a moment, then moved inside, staring at her sister, who was now wheeling herself toward her own bedroom. “So, is all this because you think I don’t love you or because you don’t have a partner? I never even considered that maybe you were jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” Kelly snapped.
As Keisha studied her sister, she realized it was very likely the answer. “But you do assume that you’ll never get a partner yourself, right?”
She turned and looked at her, an odd expression on her face. “Do you see anybody lining up?” she asked in a mocking tone. “Nobody wants to be with a paraplegic.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Keisha countered, staring at her sister. “But far more problematic than your physical condition is your mental attitude, especially the anger that you keep spitting out on everybody.”
Kelly laughed. “You have no idea how I feel.”
“No, I don’t because you’re always so angry, and you won’t even talk to me. It didn’t use to be this way, Kel.”
“Sure, but now I’ve realized that you’re not really my sister anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked in exasperation.
“You’re just … his wife.”
And she spat that answer out with such force that Keisha was shocked. “You hate him that much?” she asked, unable to believe that her sister would literally view it that way.
Her sister stared at her and shrugged. “I don’t particularly hate him. He’s just a man, but I do hate what he represents.”
“And what is that?”
“Progress in your life,” she declared, her gaze fiery. “Progress in your life, … when I have absolutely no hope of making any progress in mine.”