Chapter Three
By the time Mike had been in the hospital almost a week, he was taking halting walks in the hallway, using a walker. The only time he was in a wheelchair was when they discharged him from the hospital about two weeks after the accident and sent him to a rehab hospital.
“If we let patients use a wheelchair much, their leg muscles atrophy,” Dr. McAdams explained to me. “And it’s too easy to fall off crutches. A walker is a lot safer.”
Predictably, Mike fumed. “Look like a damned old lady,” he stormed at me.
“Why not at least an old man?” I asked but that only exasperated him more. So did the fact that a walker wasn’t easy to manipulate with one arm in a cast. Mike was even told, sternly, to exercise the fingers that dangled out of his cast. And no shower while it was on—French baths for him. He really groaned at that. My offer to help was met with a withering glance, even though I meant it well—mostly.
Dr. McAdams said the purpose of the rehab was to recuperate and begin recovery therapy. What he had done in the hospital was designed just to keep him from stiffening up, not to rehabilitate him. Now he’d have to learn to walk again, bit by bit, as he could put weight on his bad leg. But Mike itched to get home. He complained that he wanted to be home with us. He wasn’t getting much therapy anyway—an hour a day at most. The indignity of nurses bathing him was getting to him, and he hated the food. But Dr. McAdams remained firm, and I told Mike I’d bar the door if he checked himself out against doctors’ orders.
He finally laughed.
Our routine didn’t change much during those two weeks. I spent early afternoons and most evenings at the rehab place instead of the hospital, but it was actually closer to my office. Yes, I would be glad to have him home, but I was so grateful that he was alive and would walk again that I easily accepted my life divided between the office, taking care of the girls, and visiting Mike.
The brown Mustang seemed to have disappeared. Even Keisha commented on that.
The young nurse and her husband, after several walk-throughs, were interested in Mrs. Glenn’s house. I’d had a couple of other people look at it, so they knew they had to act quickly. They asked for a price, but Anthony had finished the house so quickly, their interest came up just as quickly, and what with my distraction with Mike, I didn’t have the firm price. I’d been giving them ballpark figures. So I sat at my desk punching numbers into the adding machine when I noticed Keisha staring at me.
“What?”
“When’s Mike coming home?”
“End of the week,” I said. “I think I’ll have a party.”
“Hold on to yourself, lady. He don’t need a wad of people around when he first comes home. You remember coming home from the hospital? You feel like a truck run over you and then backed up and did it again. Have dinner with the girls and save the rest of us for a few nights later.”
I’d only come home from the hospital twice, each time with a new baby girl, and there were no people around because that wasn’t Tim’s way. I missed family—well, Mom—and friends. I wanted to show off my babies, but Tim insisted we needed time as a family and I needed to recuperate. Not that he did much for me. I cooked and took care of the girls, and he went about his business, including accepting mysterious phone calls which were, of course, from other women. Thinking about Tim made me suddenly desperate for the two weeks of rehab to be over. I wanted Mike home.
Keisha, as always, was psychic. The night before he was to come home, Mike said, “Kelly, I know how you are about celebrating with friends. But, please, could we do this quietly? Just you, me, and the girls. Maybe we can invite everyone over Sunday night. Only I won’t be able to grill. Joe will have to do that.”
So that’s what we did. I went to Central Market for T-bone steaks—I could grill a steak myself, for Pete’s sake!—baked potatoes and a Caesar salad. The classic “let’s splurge” meal. One steak for Mike, and one for the girls and me to share—they were huge (and expensive). I also got a good bottle of cabernet sauvignon.
Anthony and I had prepared the house carefully. He’d built a ramp from the driveway to the front door—Mike wouldn’t be able to manage even the two steps to the porch. For the immediate future, the back yard was simply off limits to Mike—too many stairs. Inside, we’d measured furniture and doorways, making sure that Mike’s walker wouldn’t get stuck anywhere. The girls and I went to the flower market and arranged a bouquet for the center of the dining table. We put out my best linen, silverware, and china. The sheets on the bed were crisp and clean. Everything was as perfect as I could make it. I’d even called Mom to make sure she didn’t come over until tomorrow.
I haven’t seen many patients come home from the hospital before, except myself, and there’s a euphoria about bringing a new baby home. There was no euphoria this time, and I was unprepared for the ordeal—well, it didn’t seem like an ordeal to me. Getting from the rehab facility to home wore Mike out. He was, to put it bluntly, downright crabby. Fortunately we got home about one in the afternoon, and he took a nap before the girls got home.
They were overly solicitous, hovering over him, wanting to bring pillows, water, whatever they could think of. At one point, Mike rolled his eyes at me, as if to say, “Help!” I assigned them chores, and Mike sat back to watch the news while I put the finishing touches on dinner.
It was strange having to help Mike stand from the chair to the walker, and I thought to myself that I’d develop some great muscles by the time this was over—arms and legs both. He’d learned his lesson and didn’t try to brush me off. Dinner was a success. I toasted to Mike’s recovery and the girls, now having learned to say, “Cheers,” joined me with flutes of 7-Up. They were as delighted as I was to have him home.
Getting the girls to bed was an endless process. They whined, cajoled, and played on Mike’s sympathies. He finally agreed that they could snuggle around him on the couch, and he’d read, though neither one cared what he read. Maggie read her own books these days and usually didn’t like to be read to. Then there was a fuss about who got to sit on the side of his good arm—I made them both sit on the floor in front of him. No sense jostling him as they fought for the prime space. Finally I got them tucked in and began the process of helping Mike to bed.
It was indeed a process, though he tried to be as independent as possible, and I bit my tongue and stood back, letting him bump into a doorway—I won’t quote what he said—and nearly fall over while brushing his teeth. At least his right arm worked, and he could do most things—but it’s amazing how many things take two arms. Homecomings, I decided, were never smooth.
By the time I got him settled in bed with the latest James Patterson novel he was reading, I was so sleepy I was ready to crash. I kissed Mike hard and long, put my book on the floor, and turned out the light on my side of the bed. It had been a big day for both of us.
“Mike? Want me to sleep on the couch? I’m afraid of hurting you in the night.”
“Don’t you dare,” he growled.
We slept tight and close to each other, though I swear I was half awake all night, for fear of crashing into his bad leg or the cast on his arm.
****
Buck Conroy called my office the next morning. With a lot of nervousness, I’d left Mike home alone. I worried and fretted and asked him what he needed until he finally blew up and said, “I need for you to leave me alone. I’m not helpless. I can still dial the phone.” He promised to keep his cell phone with him all the time.
I worried that he couldn’t make it to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, whatever. But I left, got the girls to school by the eight o’clock bell—so far we hadn’t been tardy all semester except the morning we went to the hospital. I hoped we could keep that record the entire year. I was at the office by eight-thirty, knowing I’d go back at ten to take Mike to his first physical therapy appointment for a one-on-one session with a therapist.
Buck called before nine. Without a good morning or any greeting, he launched into what was on his mind: “We haven’t caught Sonny Adams yet. I thought I ought to tell you, but don’t tell Mike yet. He might try to do something foolish.”
“I don’t think he’s capable of doing anything foolish right now. He can barely get from the bedroom to the bathroom. Besides, other than ticketing him for various traffic offenses, such as leaving the scene of an accident, is there a problem?”
“Yeah, there is. Word on the street is that he’s talking revenge. Says Mike killed the love of his life. Of course, she just happened to be the most recent in a string of them, but he’s playing it to the hilt, talking big.”
“She was only nineteen, for pity’s sake. How old is this character?”
“Twenty-four.”
Somehow I’d envisioned forty-or fifty-something. Twenty-four made it a lot different to me.
“You noticed anything unusual at all?” Buck asked.
“Well, there was a battered brown Mustang that followed us home from JPS that first night and then kept showing up in front of the office or at the school. But I haven’t seen it for a while.”
“And you didn’t tell me
why?”
“Because you’d dismiss me as a nervous Nellie.”
“Yeah, right. Good excuse. Kelly, we’ve got to keep Mike, you, and the girls safe. You can’t play these games with me. I respect you…and I’ll try to show it in thought, word and deed. But we’ve got to come to an agreement.”
The very mention of the girls terrified me. “Okay. I’ll keep my eyes open and tell you anything I see. Whoever that was knows where we live, where I work, where the girls go to school.”
“Damn! Why are you always the one who needs a police guard?”
“You’re doing it again,” I said. Then, righteously, “That doesn’t reflect your new attitude.”
He slammed down the phone, but he’d succeeded in scaring me. Keisha came in a bit later—our office day didn’t officially start until nine—and I told her about the car.
She looked serious. “Then you might want to check out that green Nova across the street.”
“Are you for real? Or are you making this up?”
She shook her head. “I saw it yesterday too but didn’t think it was a big deal. But if it’s there two days in a row, it’s a big deal.”
I looked. A green Nova, again slightly battered, with the driver slunk down in the seat and wearing a
gimme
cap pulled low. “Wonder why whoever it is changed cars,” I mused.
“Maybe the Mustang was so old it stopped running,” Keisha suggested.
“Mustangs never wear out.”
“So go out there and ask them why they changed cars.” She was laughing at me.
Instead, I snuck out the emergency door at the back of the building and went to my car, thinking I’d eluded Sonny Adams or whoever was driving that car.
Mike was waiting at home but it took a good ten minutes to get him down the ramp, into the car, and then load his walker. He managed to move along with a kind of hopping movement so that he didn’t put weight on his bad leg. It was an awkward gait, and I didn’t like watching.
We were both silent, lost in our own thoughts I guess. But as I drove east along Rosedale, Mike asked, “Are you aware a green car is following us? A Nova, I think.”
My heart jumped. “Why would anyone follow us?” I tried to downplay his suspicion. “I’m sure it’s just someone headed the same direction as we are.”
“Picked it up when we crossed Allen Street,” he said calmly. “Staying a couple cars back but in the other lane to keep an eye on us. Not a really clever tail.”
“Well, let’s just ignore it. It probably isn’t anything.”
“Take a sudden right without signaling,” he directed. “Then hit a right again on Magnolia.”
“We’ll be late for your first appointment,” I warned.
“I don’t care. We’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
I followed his direction, and when I turned right on Magnolia, the car sped straight ahead, apparently aware we’d detected him—or her. I wasn’t ready to tell Mike about Sonny Adams yet.
“You ever see that car before?”
“No,” I fibbed.
“You’re hiding something from me, Kelly.” His tone was level, but I knew when Mike was deadly serious.
“It was across the street from the office this morning. Keisha pointed it out.” I think I added that because I needed a partner in crime.
Mike said nothing, just stared ahead, and within seconds we were at the rehab facility. “You’re coming in and waiting,” he said. “Then we’ll make a plan.”
He was not, I thought, in a good mood to begin therapy. “I planned to stay,” I said. “I brought work with me.”
And as soon as you’re out of earshot, I’m calling Buck Conroy.
As it turned out, I never got that chance. The first session was gentle stretching, and the therapist wanted to show me routines that I could do with Mike at home. He followed every direction, sometimes doing more than he was told, at which point the therapist told him to slow down, and only do what she told him.
“Straining yourself will slow down your healing process, not hasten it,” she warned.
At the end of an hour and a half, she gave us a packet of printed instructions and said she’d see us in two days.