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I could only answer her with a nod, because if this wheelchair was a permanent thing, the only way for me to be an amazing dad was to not become one in the first place.
TWO WEEKS. FOURTEEN days. 336 hours. 20,160 minutes. 1,209,600 seconds.
I’d felt every last one of those seconds, all 1.2 million of them. Before, two weeks in the summer had passed so quickly I’d been afraid to close my eyes for fear of waking up to find the leaves changing colors, but now, trapped in a wheelchair, those minutes and seconds toyed with me, skewing my sense of time and its passing.
Jesse and Rowen were back in Seattle, taking care of things and packing up stuff to bring back to Montana for the remainder of the summer and into the fall until little Sterling-Walker came into the world. Jesse wanted her to deliver in Seattle, where they could be surrounded by hospitals, but Rowen wanted to have their baby in Montana. She’d assured him that a hospital in Missoula was just as capable of delivering a baby as any one in Seattle. I didn’t know if Jesse bought into his wife’s thinking, but at any rate, h
e was on board with the plan.
Josie had been busy helping her parents on the ranch. With both of them aging, the chores had become harder and took more time. Mr. Gibson had a few ranch hands to help him, but none of them were as solid in the saddle or knew as much of the job as Josie, so she’d spent plenty of days from dawn to dusk with the guys, working the cattle.
Which left me alone with Mrs. Gibson or an empty house. At first, Josie had attempted to stay behind to keep me company, though she’d tried not to make it seem obvious—which had only made it that much more so—but after enduring a few long lectures from me about living her life just as she had before or else I would move out, she’d thrown up her hands in surrender.
Most days, at least a few times each one, I found myself ruing those words when I found myself rolling down the same quiet hallway or checking the same empty living room.
At one point in my life, I’d thrived on solitude and its blanket of comfort. I’d preferred it over companionship because, from what I’d learned from my parents, companions eventually bailed. Solitude was my protection. Of course, my friendships with Josie and Jesse had shifted that view somewhat, shifting it again when they’d coupled up in high school, and ultimately shifting it for good in the last couple years. I didn’t seek solitude as I once had. I didn’t prefer it to companionship.
Being in a wheelchair didn’t give me much of an option though.
Most of my friends were around my age, which meant they worked hard during the days and played hard after. Doing anything “hard” was beyond my functioning level, so even though I’d been invited to several get-togethers and bonfires on the back forty or out to the honkytonks on a Friday night, I’d passed. Mainly because I didn’t want to lessen anyone else’s night by making them feel obligated to hang at my side, but also because the thought of being around a bunch of rough and rowdy Montana kids—when I’d been the roughest and rowdiest not long ago—was just too damn depressing to even think about, let alone actually experience.
At first, Josie had encouraged me to take part, but after a handful of no ways from me and her working her ass off taking care of the ranch and me, she was frequently staggering into bed at nine. She didn’t have the energy to face everyone else either.
It had been a month since the accident and almost three weeks since I’d taken up residence in the wheelchair. A month since I’d been initially paralyzed from the neck down and three weeks since my legs had stayed that way. I didn’t try to think it, and I sure as shit didn’t voice it, but I knew with every day that passed with me a prisoner in this chair, the likelihood of it becoming permanent grew greater. Each passing day only further secured my future of spending my life paralyzed.
Whenever Josie guessed I was getting a bad case of the self-pities, which was more frequent than the times she picked up on, she reminded me of how lucky I was to be alive and to have regained movement in my arms and chest. I knew she was right. At least, part of me acknowledged that, but the other, darker part of me just couldn’t buy into it. Sure, I might have been able to shave my own face and brush my own teeth and slip on my own hat, but in terms of the definition of a man, I came up as empty in that department as if I’d still been paralyzed from the neck down . . . or even if I’d been dead.
I was no good to anyone anymore. At least not really. No one might have come right out and said it, but that didn’t change the truth that I’d become an inconvenience to those closest to me. The very people I cared about and wanted to be able to express that care and concern to were the ones plagued with the responsibility of attending to me.
Mrs. Gibson made and brought my meals to me every day, never once complaining and always with that gentle smile. Some flower plucked from her gardens sprouted out of a small vase on each one of my trays. I’d tried making my own breakfast of eggs and bacon a few mornings ago, but it turned out I probably shouldn’t have started with something so ambitious and gone with cereal instead. The experiment had ended with me dotted in hot bacon grease and a pile of cracked-open eggs oozing on the kitchen floor. I couldn’t even make myself a fucking meal.
Mr. Gibson and Jesse had seen to getting my truck brought back from Casper, and even though I’d been relieved to have it back, seeing it parked in the driveway and collecting dust turned into more of a daily torment than the pride and joy my truck had been before. When I’d caught sight of a weed tangling up inside of the wheels yesterday, I’d charged down the ramp, ripped out the weed, and torn it into a dozen tiny pieces as if it had been enemy number one.
At the conclusion of my mini tirade, I’d found Mrs. Gibson watching me from the kitchen window with an expression of concern. I guessed that her concern was more for her daughter than for me, but at least so far, I hadn’t heard either of Josie’s parents whispering across the dining room table about me being a good-for-nothing parasite leeching off Josie’s goodwill.
But I guessed that day was coming, and I didn’t want to be around when it did. The Gibsons were good, hard-working people who’d taken their time warming up to me but had finally come around. Whatever their feelings for me though, their daughter came first. When they finally came around to admitting to each other and to Josie that I would only be a cinder block tied to her ankle and dragging her down her whole life, I wanted to be prepared to agree with good grace and back away.
Josie had seemed content to float with her head in the clouds for the last couple of weeks when it came to my physical limitations, but I didn’t have that luxury. Instead, I’d been confronting worst-case scenarios and nightmares. I didn’t have a choice.
I loved her. Because I did, I had to do what was best for her.
Every day that passed, it became more and more evident that I wasn’t what was best for her anymore.
That became overwhelmingly obvious when I’d been wheeling myself around the barn in an effort to get some fresh air and see how the wheelchair held up on the uneven terrain. Maybe if I’d had a monster-truck-modified wheelchair, I would have been okay, but I wasn’t exactly sporting the Cadillac of wheelchairs. The first small patch of mud suctioned to the wheels and brought me to a screeching halt.
I could have called out for Mrs. Gibson—the house wasn’t far from the barn, and she always seemed to have one eye and ear trained on me—but I wasn’t going to let someone else drag me out of this mess. I would do it. Even if it took me until midnight.
I’d only been working to free the chair for a few minutes, and had already broken out into a sweat, when I heard a familiar voice coming from inside the barn. Josie had left earlier with her dad and the other hands and said she wouldn’t be back until lunch. It couldn’t have been much past ten though. She was talking to someone, although I couldn’t make out anyone else’s voice. I stopped fighting with my wheelchair so I could focus all my attention on listening.
“Garth won’t tell me anything. I don’t even know if he’s talked to you since we left your office a few weeks ago.” Josie’s voice was higher than normal and more breathy sounding. It almost sounded as if she were on the verge of having a panic attack. I still couldn’t make out another voice though. “I need to know, Dr. Murphy. I need to know what’s happening and what’s going to happen.”
My heart came to an abrupt stop. It stayed that way for a few beats too—long enough for pain to start manifesting in my chest. She was on the phone with my doctor, practically begging him for information on me. She’d come across as so cool and put together when I was with her, but when she was alone, when she was her truest self, she was falling apart as much as I was. I should have known—even my brave, fearless Josie had weak spots in that seemingly impenetrable coat of armor.
A person could be stronger than the next, but that came with the burden of their weak spots being weaker too. I was one of Josie’s weak spots, just like she was one of mine . . . but she was the beacon of my strength too. I didn’t need to have it confirmed to accept that I’d ceased to be that for her.
“Screw confidentiality. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with being left in the dark and fed a bunch of shit like I’m some mushroom.” She took in a breath so deep that I could hear it through the barn wall. “I need to know what’s going to happen,” she finished in a voice so small I almost couldn’t make it out.
She was right—I hadn’t talked to Dr. Murphy once since we’d left his office. I’d deleted plenty of voicemails from his office requesting calls back and checking to see if I’d like to schedule an MRI or get a referral for therapy. Sometimes facing reality was hard enough without having to figure out a way to navigate through it.
