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“No, you’re not. You’re holding your breath exactly like I told you not to do. You want to walk?”
“Of course I want to walk.”
“Then breathe, Mr. Lowell.”
“What does breathing have to do with me standing on my damn hip?”
“Besides blood circulation, relaxation, keeping your muscles from tensing, and delivering oxygen to the area that needs more time to heal?”
I shot my new male nurse a nasty look and he laughed.
He fucking laughed.
“Look, I get it. I tore my rotator cuff playing football in high school and the recuperation was a bitch. And I didn’t want to listen to my physical therapist either. But it elongated my recovery by months because I was stubborn. Don’t do that. Put your ego aside and listen, and in a few more weeks you’ll be walking unassisted.”
“Weeks?” I asked.
“Yep. That’s what happens when you fight the system, Mr. Lowell.”
Zander was a good nurse. He also had no issues giving me my space. He was part-time, and came by in the mornings for three hours. He would check on me to make sure nothing had happened, we would start the day with my physical therapy, then he would check on my medication, possibly take some blood, and be on his way. Which left me with a lot of time to explore my freedom and a lot of time to think about Grace.
I wondered how she was doing.
I knew she’d taken her old job back. Working as a florist. And part of me wondered if I could get regular deliveries going to see her again. Maybe I could request who delivered the flowers and it would give me a chance to explain things. But I’d always find a way of talking myself out of it. Whether it was stumbling to get into the shower or a random episode of shooting pain that cascaded up my side, there was always something to remind me of the fact that I wasn’t quite whole again.
Wasn’t quite me again.
I passed the time standing unassisted at my desk and Skyping into work. Alicia was doing a fabulous job managing the project in the Caribbean and things were now back on track. The contracting company that attempted to contract out the work we hired them for had been replaced with a better, more substantiated company. They were getting ahead of the weather and sometimes even working through the nights to get done and meet timetables. I told Mike to make sure they were compensated fairly for their time because I wanted to build a rapport with them.
I wanted to dominate the islands with my luxury hotels and I wanted to have a great team of contractors at my side to do it with.
I had meetings with the investors where I stood over video and projected my strength and recuperation. And I saw my company’s stocks match the relief my investors were feeling. My company, after months of uncertainty, was finally back on the rise. Clients were reinstating their contracts and going forward with plans that were halted at the beginning of all this shit and I finally felt like things were settling into a good and decent rhythm.
But there was still the issue of Grace.
My physical therapy with Zander went from painful to tolerable. It went from my wheelchair to the floor. Then from the floor to the wall. Then from the wall to hanging onto his shoulders. After seven weeks of struggling to walk and stumbling around my apartment and projecting strength after crashing back down into my chair, I was walking unassisted. I still had a bit of a limp and standing on my tiptoes still hurt like a bitch, but I was there. I was putting on clothes without falling and cleaning myself up without help. I was even standing at the stove for two hours cooking without my hip throbbing in excruciating pain.
I had finally done it.
“Zander.”
“Yes, Mr. Lowell?”
“What are we doing after my physical therapy this morning?” I asked.
“Blood draw, then nothing. Why?”
“Am I cleared to drive?”
“Not even kind of. I told you working on standing on your tiptoes would be the last thing we would work on. The strain on your hip alone from such a precision technique will take us at least another three weeks to work through.”
“Then I’m going to need you to drive me somewhere,” I said.
“Sounds fine to me. My next appointment isn’t until one. Where are we headed?”
Zander helped me with my physical therapy, then I got washed up and dressed. I pulled out a crisp, clean suit, then began the process of picking out a button-down shirt. The pin-striped navy suit paired well with a steel gray shirt, and the black tie I’d picked out went with the shoes I ultimately dragged out of my closet. I smoothed my hands over my outfit then grabbed for my wallet and keys.
Today I was going to see Grace.
