Chapter 5 #2
“Funny how I never really noticed people coming and going, until you were the one coming and going. As a resident here, going through rehab, I have workouts every day, whether the weekend or not. So time off wasn’t really something I thought about or considered, even for you.
And then, all of a sudden, I realized you were gone, and I guess I overstepped my bounds. ”
She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him. “And what does that mean?”
He grimaced. “I was… thinking that you were off with a boyfriend.”
Her eyebrows shot up. So Shane was correct. She shook her head at that. “No, not only was I not off with a boyfriend, I was off with two girlfriends. I don’t have a relationship right now, haven’t had one in a while, and I’m definitely interested in making new friends.”
He looked at her sharply.
She smiled and nodded. “So, let’s start with half of a sandwich.”
“Is that like half of an olive branch?”
“If you extend the other half, then yes.”
He smiled at her. “Done.”
*
Zander had to smile for the rest of the day and kept on smiling for the next few days. Even Shane noticed it.
“Well, obviously you have something good happening in your life,” Shane noted. “Care to share?”
Immediately Zander shook his head. “Nope, definitely not sharing.”
At that, Shane’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, even more curious.”
Zander glared at him. “No, nothing curious at all.”
“That’s interesting,” Shane murmured. “Maybe I’ll just ask Nelly.”
At that, Zander’s glare upped in wattage. “Or you could just not ask her,” he snapped.
Shane chuckled. “Or I could not ,” he replied. “That’s always an option too.”
Zander studied him hesitantly to see if he was serious, but it seemed as if he was being sincere. “It would be appreciated if you didn’t,” he said.
“Good enough,” Shane stated. “Still makes for a pretty interesting day though, doesn’t it?”
“It makes for something very interesting,” he muttered. Then he shrugged and added, “Whatever, she’s a nice lady.”
“She is. She is, indeed. And considering that a wedding is in the air, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a whole lot more relationships happen around this place,” he shared, with a chuckle. “Nothing quite like a wedding to stir things up.”
Zander nodded at that. “Honestly, somebody had to tell me what was going on because I wasn’t even aware of how this,…
what all this was about,” he admitted. “I certainly heard lots of chittering and chattering, but I wasn’t aware it was about Dani and her wedding, not until somebody sat me down and told me about it. ”
“Yep,” Shane confirmed, “and we’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Everybody thought they should have gotten married earlier, but they wanted to wait until he was done with school.”
“I can understand that to a certain extent, but, wow, what if something had happened, and you lost all those years?”
“They were together every moment that they could be,” Shane explained. “Anyway, Aaron’s just been gone to school a lot, so that didn’t necessarily change anything.”
“Good point,” Zander noted. “Just because you’re not married legally doesn’t mean that you don’t appreciate and spend every moment of your time with that special person.
And, for the longest time, I never thought I would ever get married,” he admitted.
“I have to admit, seeing all this wedding planning stuff has kind of,… well, it certainly makes you think, doesn’t it? ”
“It certainly does,” Shane agreed. “And it’s something my partner and I are discussing. However, this is Dani’s special day, and we all want it to go off perfectly.”
Zander laughed at that and thought about it over the next day, as he drank his green drinks and went through his therapy and went on to working with Shane and doing everything that needed to be done.
Because Dani’s wedding did make Zander think, and it was all about Dani having her day.
However, as soon as Dani had her day, Zander bet there would be a whole rash of other weddings happening too.
He mentioned it to Nelly when he met her for lunch several days later.
She laughed. “I had the same thought. I think a lot of people are just waiting for Dani to get through the process and to have her special day. Everybody seems to be waiting for that. However, before her relationship with Aaron, who was one of the first patients here, Hathaway House always had this rule about no fraternizing with the patients,” she shared in a teasing tone.
“Ha.” Zander smiled. “You weren’t here back then, so how would you know?”
“Believe me that I looked into it to see just what the rules were,” she shared blithely, missing the expression on his face as she mentioned that. “And I was told quite clearly that it was okay now, but years ago? Well, apparently it was quite frowned upon.”
“I would imagine in a lot of places it’s still frowned upon,” Zander guessed.
“Yes, I’m sure it is, but things are a whole lot different here.”
“Hathaway House is really different on many levels,” he murmured.
“I didn’t really believe it at first. I’d heard so much about this place, and that’s why I applied, but I didn’t really know if it was as good as all the hype until Xavier came through here, and he kept me posted on how he was doing.
That’s when I realized that, one way or another, I had to get here, and I had to have this same type of miracle for myself. ”
“And you’ll get it,” she declared. “We just need you to build and to gain at a slower pace than Xavier did.”
Zander nodded at that comment. “Very different constitutions, very different injuries, very different everything,” he admitted. “And I think I’m calmer now about the whole thing, I just hadn’t really realized—” And then he fell silent.
“Hadn’t really realized what?” she asked. “You can’t just leave it like that.”
He chuckled. “No, it’s probably not fair, yet it feels weird to say anything.”
“Now you really have to fill that in,” she stated curiously.
He shrugged. “I just really never thought about my future, other than how I would get through to the next meal or to the next day,” he shared. “Now it feels very different. It feels as if I have to look forward in a completely different way.”
“I don’t know that have to is true in any way,” she pointed out. “If you’re ready to start looking at your future, then sure, fly at it,” she stated, “but to say have to doesn’t really fit, does it?”
He frowned as he thought about it. “Maybe not, but it does feel that way.”
“Okay then, go with that.”
He chuckled. “You mean, if I feel like I have to , then just go with it?” he teased. “I guess everything here is a case of handling each day, day-to-day.”
“It is absolutely day-to-day,” she stated, “for me too. My patient roster goes up and down on a daily basis. And sometimes I think something should happen, but then the doctors step in and change something. So what I think will happen doesn’t necessarily happen, and things blow up from there,” she said, with a shrug.
“It’s a learning curve, and I’m okay with that because I’m learning too. ”
“And that’s very important,” Zander noted. “And the fact that you’re learning and growing and improving your own skills, I think that’s also huge.”
“It is,” she murmured. “And I don’t really know what I’ll find on a day-to-day basis, but I’m okay with that.”
“Good,” he said, with a smile. “Sounds as if you’ve got it together.”
She chuckled. “And, if that’s what I sound like,” she muttered, “man, do I need to change how I speak because I do not have it together in any way.” He looked at her in surprise.
She shrugged. “Just like everybody else here, I’m learning to be a better person.
I’m learning better ways to respond to patients, learning to modulate my voice if something doesn’t go my way,” she acknowledged, with a laugh.
“We all try to do our best, but it’s not that easy.
We’re all living in a confined space, and sometimes it’s a little hairy.
And right now there may be an increase in a few short tempers, although I can’t say anybody’s short-tempered.
Yet, as the wedding draws closer, there are more things to plan and more things to get done.
A bunch of people are trying to do special events for both the bride and the groom—showers and things,” she shared.
“And, of course, everybody wants in on all of it.” She gave him an eye roll.
“I’m pretty sure Dani will be more than happy when this is over with. ”
“Of course she will,” he agreed warmly. “And I’m sure she’s enjoying every minute of it.” And then he stopped and corrected himself. “Well, maybe not every minute of it, but she will enjoy the end result and the memories, especially when this is all over.”
Nelly stared at him, nodding. “I think that’s a really good way to look at it, even to look at your time here.
You’re building memories. And you’ll take those memories with you, good ones, bad ones, ones that you had to stretch and grow yourself, ones that made you stop and wince because maybe you didn’t do quite so much stretching and growing as you could have. ”
“Oh gosh,” he muttered, with a groan. “I don’t even want to think about those.”
She gave him a fat grin. “Exactly. So I think those are even more important sometimes, but, just as we’re helping Dani build memories for her own experience here,” she shared, “I think that’s really important that she gets to have the experiences for later, for the memories down the road, when she’s been married ten years and when she’s got four or five little rug rats running around,” she added, laughing.
“Oh, wow, I never even thought of that,” Zander admitted, “but it could be her life, couldn’t it? She and Aaron will probably have a growing family after this.”
“Well, they’ve waited this long, so I would imagine so, yes,” Nelly agreed.
“But I haven’t talked to her directly about it, so I have no clue.
We’re just happy that this is finally happening.
I haven’t been here all that long, so it’s certainly not something that I’m in the know about.
Yet I hear lots of people have felt this was a long time coming.
And everybody’s pretty excited,” she shared.
“But it’s not for a while yet.”
“No, not for a while, but honestly, that not for a while part will happen so fast that not for a while will become Oh, it’s tomorrow .”
He burst out laughing and then nodded. “You could be right.”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” she stated. “It’ll be calm, calm, calm, and then it’ll be chaos.”
“Hey, sometimes it feels as if it’s chaotic here now,” he pointed out, laughing.
And she agreed. “But nothing compared to what’ll happen leading up to the wedding,” she declared.
“I suspect that, right before the wedding, all kinds of things will get really dicey, as we work with new patients, while everybody’s working and planning on things in the background.
Then, all of a sudden, this utter calm will descend on us all because it’ll all be done, with everything taken care of, and then it’s just fun times. ”
“And we’re all here as part of it?” he asked. “Right?”
She nodded. “My understanding is absolutely everybody is invited as part of the festivities, with the wedding outside. Anybody who’s capable of attending can attend. And those who don’t want to have anything to do with it don’t have to. They can stay in their rooms.”
“I wonder if anybody will stay in their room,” he pondered.
“It may bring up a lot of heartache for those people who may not have a family anymore,” she noted. “And there could very well be heartache for those who have family but aren’t here with them.”
“Oh, I never thought of that either.” Zander stared at her. “You’re right. That could be emotionally difficult.”
“Well, we’re prepared—or are preparing for all of it,” she shared, with a smile. “So there’ll be both good and bad reactions, even to a wedding.”
“Right, so the important thing is that everybody feels as welcome as they can be.”
She looked at him and grinned. “See? You’re already getting the hang of this.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how much of a hang of any of this I’m getting,” he acknowledged, “but I am sleeping a bit better.”
“And sleeping better is how we want to start,” she stated. “As soon as you can sleep better, then waking up feeling better is the next step.”
He snorted. “I’m not sure about that, but I feel as if it’s starting.”
“Good.” She nodded. “Then we’ll get you through the day where it’s not so exhausting to do one thing but instead you do a couple things, and then it just moves on from there.”
He smiled at that. “You make it sound so easy.”
“And it definitely isn’t,” she conceded. “I know that. Been there, done that, and it’s not. I see it happen time and time again.”