Chapter One #2
its new reality. And your mobility is more restricted than it needs
to be, and we can work with your prosthetist to change that. So,
no, a full recovery isn’t realistic. But you’re young, and you were
reasonably fit before the accident… we can absolutely get you to a
better place than where you are now.”
“A Better Place.” Beneath
the anger, there was something too raw, too uncomfortably
honest in Gage’s
expression. “That’s what my mom calls Heaven. Is that what we’re
shooting for?”
Paul fought to get the conversation back on
even ground. “That seems a bit ambitious.” Yeah, keep it light.
Don’t engage.
But Gage apparently hadn’t gotten the memo.
“You think I can’t make it to heaven? I don’t deserve your
seventy-two virgins and permanent hard-on?”
Paul sighed. “Well, that’s Islam, and I’m
Sikh. Totally different religions. And I’m not sure it’s the most
respectful aspect of Islam to focus on, either.”
“You think I need to
be respectful to
Islam? How the hell are they being respectful to me?”
“Mr. Gage.” Paul had called him “Sean” one
time, at their first appointment, and the reaction hadn’t been
good. “You’re not here to discuss religion, or current events, or—”
Or bigotry or racism or whatever other ugliness came out of the
man’s mouth “If you get started on your exercises, I can watch and
make sure your form is still good. And there are a couple new
movements I can show you that will help strengthen your core so
your balance is at its best when you start working with your
prosthetics.”
“At its best.” Gage spoke
the words like they were a curse, but he got down to work on his
exercises and didn’t complain for the next ten minutes. He didn’t
say a damn thing for the next ten minutes.
“I’m not sure you’re telling me when things
are too much,” Paul finally prompted. “There’s going to be some
discomfort that we can’t avoid…” He caught himself. Discomfort?
Really? “Pain. Some of these exercises hurt. But if they hurt too
much, you should—”
“I can handle it,” Gage said. His jaw was
clenched so tightly he should probably have been wearing a mouth
guard to protect his teeth.
“I know. But it’s not just about you being
mentally tough. Pain is a signal that your body thinks it’s being
pushed too far. Sometimes your body is wrong, but sometimes it’s
right. If you tell me when it’s really, really hurting, we can
evaluate whether—”
“I can handle it.”
“You could make
things worse if
you push too hard.”
“Worse?” And the painful, raw honesty
was back in Gage’s expression. “What the fuck could be worse than this? My
fucking mother is
waiting for me downstairs because I can’t drive a fucking car
myself, can barely wipe my own ass, can’t do a goddamn thing for
myself, my friends—fuck, the only friend who actually wants
anything to do with me is a fucking fag, my brother and sisters
only put up with me because they feel sorry for me—three little kids who
acted like I was their goddamn hero for their whole lives and now
they’re helping me into bed, helping me into the fucking
shower, and they’ve
hidden all the fucking meds so I can’t even kill myself and get it all over
with…”
“And your physiotherapist isn’t just brown,
he’s also gay.”
It took a moment. Then, “Fuck. Seriously?”
Gage stared at him. “You’re a fag, too?”
“Truly, I have been cursed.” The asshole
would catch the sarcasm, Paul was sure. “But I still find ways to
make life worth living, even without the blessings of being
straight and white.”
“You think white men have
it good?” Gage
started. Then he stopped. “Fuck. I—there’s no point getting into
all that with you, is there?”
“No point in trying to convince me that
straight white men are an oppressed underclass? No, there really
isn’t.” And it was far off the point, anyway. “You’re still seeing
your counsellor? You’ve mentioned the suicidal impulses to
him?”
“Suicidal impulses. That’s what you’re
calling it? A fucking impulse?”
“Does that make it sound too flippant? Too
light? I can see that. And I’m sure it’s horrible, from your
perspective. But it’s also incredibly common. I’d say at least half
of the amputees I work with mention those ideas at some point in
their treatment.” And Paul sympathized with every one of them. But
Gage didn’t want sympathy, at least not from Paul. “They get over
it. They’re going through a big change, and it’s hard, but they’re
tough and they get through it and eventually things get better. Not
the same as they were before, but better than they are now.”
“And what if things
before were already
shitty?” Gage asked, but he didn’t pause long enough for Paul to
think of an answer to the question. “Fuck. Yes, I’m still seeing
the fucking counsellor. So I don’t need to talk about all this shit
with you. What’s the next fucking exercise?”
They made it through the rest of the session
without any more outbursts, and when Gage was too shaky from his
exertions to make it back into his wheelchair on his own, he let
Paul help him. A breakthrough, or one more defeat for a man who’d
already faced too many?
He watched Gage wheel himself out of the
clinic, clearly letting his rage give him power despite his
exhaustion, and then realized Anna was watching, too.
“He’s so angry,” she said.
“It’s a hard time.”
“My little sister went to school with him and
his crowd, and she said they were assholes then, too.”
“You were talking about him with your
sister?”
Paul didn’t think there’d been an accusing
tone in his voice, but Anna held her hands up defensively all the
same. “She brought it up. Remember, you’re in a small town, now.
His mom talks to someone at the grocery store, or someone sees
their car parked outside, and everyone knows what he’s up to. Not a
lot of privacy outside these walls.”
“Interesting.” Paul realized
how tired he was, how much he wanted to go home to his safe bed.
But he tried to rally. “So does the whole town know how things went
with that guy on Tuesday? ‘Cause I don’t think you’ve told
me about him,
yet.”
Anna’s blush suggested he’d asked the right
question. She busied herself with tidying equipment and tried to
sound casual as she said, “It went pretty well. It was just
supposed to be coffee after work, but it turned into dinner. And
then a walk to look at the Christmas lights downtown.”
“And you happen to live downtown….”
“He walked me to my door and
that was all!” She grinned. “Well. Not all. It was a pretty excellent
goodnight kiss. I’m seeing him again tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe you hadn’t told me about
it.” Shit. “Can’t believe I forgot to ask.”
She shook her head in mock exasperation.
“Yeah, you’re always so selfish! Thinking about your job and how to
help patients when you should be chatting about my social life.
Bastard.”
“I’d like to think I can do both.”
“Do both and still have energy left for
whatever’s going on with you and Bobby?”
Paul kept his gaze on the towel he was using
to wipe down the mats. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess you used to tell me
about fights sometimes, but you’d also tell me all kinds of really
nice stuff you did together. I feel like lately, you just… don’t
talk about him at all. And you seem kinda… sad? No, not even that.
I don’t know. Resigned, maybe? Am I totally hallucinating the whole
thing?”
“Hallucinating?” No, probably not. But it
felt too soon to put any of it into words. Too soon to even really
look at any of it himself. Too soon, and maybe too final. “I guess
things aren’t great. But they aren’t terrible, either. Isn’t that—I
think that’s normal, in a long-term relationship. The infatuation
stage is over and we’ve just sort of settled down into our
routines. It’s not bad. Is it?”
“If you’re happy, it’s not bad. Are you
happy?”
He didn’t have an answer, so he scrubbed at
an invisible spot on the mat instead.
After a few moments, Anna
sighed. “I don’t mean to be nosy. You know I’m just a worrier. Just
because things are going smoothly doesn’t mean I can’t pick away
and find something that might someday
go wrong, somewhere. Don’t let me project my
issues onto—”
“I think I’ve given up,”
Paul blurted out. He’d never said the words before, never even let
them form fully in his mind, but as he spoke them, they felt true.
“That’s why we don’t fight anymore. I mean, it’s not like
he’s wrong about
stuff, exactly. And I’m not wrong, either. We just have different
perspectives. So what’s the point fighting about things that can
never be resolved?”
Anna’s frown made her
opinion clear. “You can compromise, can’t you? I mean, you
fought about where to live, right? Or—not a fight, but a
disagreement. He works in the city, you work up here, so you
suggested a compromise. You said you could find a place halfway between the two.
But—you live in the city, Paul. He wouldn’t compromise, so he
won.”
“Our families are in the city. And I drive in
the opposite direction of traffic at rush hour, so it’s not that
bad.”
“Your families are in
Brampton, and you live downtown. You have to drive right past your
family and add another forty minutes before you get home. Honestly,
Brampton would have been a good compromise for living between your
jobs. But you commute for an hour and a half each way, in
good traffic, and Bobby
can walk to work.” She stopped abruptly and held up her hands.
“Sorry. It’s none of my business, obviously.”
“It’s Bobby’s business,” Paul tried. “And
that’s a cultural thing. There’s a network of Sikh entrepreneurs in
the city, and he needs to be part of that. We need to socialize
with those people in order to maintain his contacts.”
Anna nodded, but with enough hesitation to
signal acceptance rather than agreement. They were silent for a
while before she laughed and said, “My mom almost died when I told
her I was maybe dating a lawyer! Seriously. I haven’t seen her this
excited about a guy since I broke her heart when I told her you
were gay. She’s practically sending out wedding invitations.”
He felt his shoulders lower and made sure he
matched her light tone as he replied. “And you like him? It’s not
just post-kiss hormones talking?”
“Hey! Don’t knock the power of hormones!”
“Never.”
They kept the chatter light as they finished
their tidying and then retreated to the office to start bundling up
for the winter weather.
“Did you drive, today?” Paul asked. Anna’s
car was so unreliable that she’d largely given up trying to use it
for commuting. “It’s already dark out—I can drop you at home.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m going to do errands on
the way. Unless you want to go to the drugstore with me… and I warn
you, I’m going to be buying tampons.”
“I’m not afraid of feminine hygiene
products.”
“Well, maybe you should be.”
“What does that mean?”
Anna’s grin was pure mischief and silliness.
“I can’t tell you. I would be betraying the sisterhood.”
“Fine. Keep your secrets. But I can still
drive you if you want. I can wait outside at the drugstore to
preserve my modesty. And the secrets of the sisterhood.”
Anna shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s not even
that cold out, and I’m not afraid of the dark. Go home to your
handsome man.”
“I’m going to his mom’s house.”
Anna gasped. “Will there be samosas? You need
to bring me some! I mean, I’m sure they’re better fresh, but even
day-old, Bobby’s mom’s samosas are tastier than anything I had
planned for lunch tomorrow.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
“Please?”
It was almost guaranteed that Bobby and Paul
would be going home with tubs and tubs of leftovers. Easy enough to
pull some samosas from the bounty and bring them to work,
especially since Bobby didn’t generally care for food that wasn’t
fresh-made.
And it made the evening a bit more appealing,
somehow, to think of it as a samosa-retrieval mission instead of
one more in a long string of nights with Bobby’s extended family.
While Saachi-the-spoiled was regaling everyone with minutiae of her
performance, Paul could reconnoitre the buffet table. While Bobby
lectured on the economy and the importance of being fiscally
conservative, Paul could offer to help in the kitchen and make sure
the plastic containers were ready to go.
Damn, he actually wished
there was something more difficult about the mission, wished
Bobby’s mom wasn’t so intent on sending her first-born son home with enough food
for a large family. It was nice to have a little distraction, but
it would be even better to have a larger distraction.
And if that was a sign of
something? An indication that maybe there was something not quite
right in Paul’s relationship, or his life? Well, then, he had a
whole new issue he
needed to be distracting himself from. And stealing some
freely-offered samosas probably wasn’t going to be quite enough of
a challenge.