No Direction Home (Sweet Home Colorado) (9 page)

“
Arachnoiditis? Sounds like spiders. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

She laughed
. “Most people haven’t—I hadn’t either. Once I found out what was wrong with me, I tried to find out what was in store for me.”  She tensed at the recollection. “It wasn’t pleasant news. First of all, it was hard to find anything about the disease, because it’s so rare.” 

“What is it?
” he asked.

  
  She gazed into his eyes that were a startling blue, as blue as the summer sky and relayed her story. “It’s an inflammation in the spinal cord which causes clumping of the nerve roots which results in chronic pain—constant excruciating pain that never goes away and only gets worse over time.” 

He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it
. The man was gentle, warm and tender. Someone she could easily confide in. He made her feel safe and secure. Was this all part of a game? How could he be an ex-con? At the moment she didn’t care. She leaned back in his arms, relaxing and soaking up the sensations. “The strange thing is there are over eighty-six million people suffering with chronic pain and nobody talks about it.”

“That’s amazing.
”  He held her close. “How did you get back on your feet?”   

“As time went by, the pain became worse
. I was trapped in a useless body depending on heavy duty drugs to survive,” she added with a slight smile of defiance and plunged on. “My ex-husband put me in a nursing home and left me for another woman.”  She glanced at the stars and drew a deep breath and forbade herself to tremble at the memory.

“That’s where I became hooked on morphine.
”  She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze straight on. “I hated the drugs the doctors made me take, but I had no choice. The pain in my back and up and down my hips and legs was excruciating, unbearable.”  He squeezed her hand instantly giving her courage to go on. “The drugs didn’t stop the pain, but they took the edge off so I could tolerate living with it.” 

She couldn't believe she was giving him all this personal information, but he was easy to confide in and seemed to want to know
. And she wanted to lay her cards on the table—if they were to be friends, he needed to know what he was getting into. Could they be friends?

“You’ve been through a lot.
”  He squeezed her hand tighter. “I wish I could’ve been there to help you. I know Nana was worried sick about you, but she didn’t go into any detail about what you were going through.”

“I didn’t
tell her. I didn’t want anyone to know my life had fallen apart. Nana had just been widowed and I didn’t want to cause her more pain.”
 
It had been a pride thing and she had carried the hurt alone, deep in her soul. She clenched her jaw to kill the sob in her throat. The memory still had the power to inflict emotional pain. “Cindy and Nana kept in touch, but I couldn’t reach out to them until much later.”  She sighed.  

“Then what happened?
”  He asked with concern ringing in his voice as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to his side keeping her warm.

“I had lost my husband, my work, and worst of all my independence
. I was literally an invalid, a lost soul in pain. My days consisted of staring at the ceiling and asking ‘why me?’  Before I went into the nursing home I even considered suicide.”  She gasped. She had never told anyone her secret shame.

She remembered holding a bottle of pain pills in her hand, debating whether to take them all and end the suffering
. But instead, she prayed for help and got it. God had brought Dr. Brown to help her. She rediscovered her faith and was able to move on. “That’s when I found my faith in God.”

“Thank goodness
. I don’t know what I’d do in a situation like that.”  He tightened his grasp and hugged her to him. "I'm so sorry for all you've been through."

She pushed him back, her smile steady and her voice gentle
. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I could handle the pain, but I couldn’t handle the pity I saw in people’s eyes when they looked at me.”       

“I’m not feeling sorry for you
. I’m empathizing with you. I know pain, not the kind you experienced, but pain. It hits us all where we live, here in our heart.”  He recaptured her hand and pulled it to his chest. She could feel his steady heartbeat under her palm. She became instantly fully aware of her surroundings and her closeness to Seth.

“Go on
. Tell me the rest. You don’t look like you're in much pain these days. How did you get from there to here?” 

Glancing at his face, she could see he was actually interested and really wanted to know
. She could no longer deny herself his touch as she relaxed in his arms. “Looks can be deceiving.”  She clinched her hand in her coat pocket.

“I prayed, night and day, day and night
. Because of the drugs, it was getting to the point where I couldn’t remember anything. Someone would talk to me and five minutes later I couldn’t remember what they said.”

A tear slid down her cheek at the realization at how far she had fallen
. She brushed it away with her fingertips before Seth could see it. She swallowed and continued. “The life was being sucked out of me. I had to fight back some way, so I started writing in my journal. It saved my sanity.”  While she spoke it dawned on her, writing had saved her life. Maybe if she wrote a book about her experience it could help those people still suffering.

He squeezed her hand encouraging her to continue
. He seemed to be a caring person really wanting to hear her story. Criminal or not, just to be able to open up and talk about her problems with another person was doing wonders for her. The thought barely crossed her mind before another followed. Maybe he was innocent.

“Tell me the rest.
”  He urged her to keep talking.

“One day, a doctor from a rehabilitation center came to see me
. He had heard about me from one of my regular pain management doctors and said there was help for someone like me and told me about the Medtronic Spinal Cord Implant. He said I was a perfect candidate for the procedure.”  She’d never forget that day. Out of the darkness a small glimmer of hope had appeared.

“Though it required me to get off the drugs and have back surgery, I agreed
. I didn’t know how I would stand the pain without the drugs, but this was my last chance at living a somewhat normal life. I had to try."

Seth eased his arm around her shoulders
. “You’ve been through a lot. Was anyone there to help you during this time?”  “Dr. Brown, my neurologist and the pain management rehabilitation team gave me my life back. After our talk, they had me transferred to the rehabilitation center the same day. Eight weeks later, I was off the drugs and had the surgery. Those people saved my life. They brought me back from a very dark place and gave me another chance.”  She sighed. “The pain never leaves me, but now, I control it with lifestyle changes instead of it controlling me.”

“You’re an amazing woman.
”  He leaned in and brushed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Her heart swelled with a feeling she had thought long dead and she smiled
. His tenderness touched her. “Me? Amazing? Not hardly, but the technology is something else. I thank God every day for the doctors and scientists who created the spinal cord implant.”

“Yes, you
—not the technology—are simply amazing. You were the strong one, going through that by yourself. What was wrong with your husband?” 

Looking into his eyes, his expression showed he’d like to cut his tongue out and take back those words
. She glanced away from his intense gaze to see another shooting star trying to find the right words to explain. This part wasn’t easy to talk about with a man. She cringed, fighting her own battle of personal shame, but she wanted to tell him everything. “When I became ill I couldn't take care of his needs. It was too much for him. The fact I couldn’t be a normal wife and might end up in a wheelchair turned him off and he found another woman.” 

She shook her head and moved slightly away from him
. Now he knew her secrets and probably regretted being with her. “I don’t blame him anymore. I’ve moved on from the emotional pain caused by his actions. I have too many other things to deal with on a daily basis.” 

“He was wrong.
”  He held her close making her feel comforted and safe again. “He was a fool and should’ve stood by you and helped you through your ordeal. Don’t judge all men by him. There are good men in this world.”

For an instant, her vow not to become involved shattered with his words
. She knew he was just being kind, but she enjoyed being close to his strong body, wondering if there would ever be anyone who’d love her enough to stick by her like he put it. “I’m sure you’re right. However, I don’t need anyone. I have to make it on my own.”  She had been hurt physically and emotionally, but now she could stand on her own two feet.

He gave her a doubtful expression
. “I’m sure you could, if that's your decision. You’re a strong woman. It took a lot of courage for you to fight your way back.”

Yes
.
Lots
of
hard
work
.
"Well, thanks for listening. But now I want to hear about you. You’ve heard my story, you know my darkest secrets. Tell me yours. I know very little about you.”  Maybe he would tell her why he was an ex-con. Maybe it wasn’t a game maybe she was wrong about him.

“There’s not much to tell
. I was born in Houston, Texas. Most of my relatives still live there, but my favorite aunt lives in Montrose, Colorado.”

“Do you see them often?
”

“Not the relatives in Texas
. My grandfather disowned me when I got into some trouble.”

“Disowned you?
”  She was shocked. “What did you do?”  Nana wouldn’t disown her for anything short of murder. Had he killed someone? A shiver crawled up her spine. Had he fooled her with his kindness?

“I don’t like to talk about it
. He hesitated. "But I’ll tell you. I’m sure you’ll hear about it if you haven’t already. It might as well come from me,” he said turning back toward the stars.

He tapped his free hand against the door panel, trying to find the right words
. “I was living in a small town near Houston at the time. I had married a girl my family didn’t approve of—she didn’t measure up to the standards my family had set for me. I guess it was my way of breaking away from them.”

“What kind of standards
? I don’t understand.”  A sliver of moonlight caught his eyes when he glanced at her. Her heart beat in an unsteady rhythm while she listened attentively to him speak. This is what she wanted—to find out once and for all what he had done to become an ex-con.

“Well, I had just graduated college and we eloped and were married
. Grandpa wanted me to have the marriage annulled. He said there were bigger and better things ahead for me."

"Like what?"  She didn’t understand.

"I had been working on a plan to change oil machinery into an irrigation system. I was going to revolutionize the market.”  He laughed. “Big dreams for a kid, but the bottom had fallen out of the oil market and here all these ranchers were stuck with this machinery they couldn’t use. Anyway, his plans for me didn’t include a wife from the wrong side of town. I didn’t do as he asked and he disowned me—simple as that. I’ve been on my own ever since.”

Now it was Grace’s turn to comfort Seth, but why hadn't he told her the whole story
? She gently cradled his hand. “What about your parents? How can a family disown its flesh and blood? I don’t understand. No matter what I did as a kid growing up, Nana would never disown me."

He grinned
. “Nana is a special lady—she has a heart of gold. My family is cut from a different cloth. They go by the philosophy ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ and Grandpa set the rules. I can remember a lot of whippings I received because I had a mind of my own.”  He shrugged. “But it worked out for the best. I don’t want my child raised that way. I’ll discipline her when it’s needed, but I won’t run her life.”

“Jamie is such a sweet child
. She’s easy to love.”  Grace wished once again she had a child like Jamie.

“Thanks, but she has a mind of her own and does need discipline from time to time.
”  Seth's expression softened when he spoke of his daughter.

“Of course, every child does.
”  Grace frowned. “When I was younger I always wanted to have children, but when Lee and I were married there wasn’t time.”  

“You can still have children
. You’re not old.”  He laughed. “You talk like you’re old as the hills.”

She smiled back at him
. “Some days I feel really old. When I overdo it, I pay the price with pain. And the fact I still might end up in a wheelchair tends to make me think otherwise.”

“You shouldn’t, I know a lady back home who has always been in a wheelchair and she manages her family of seven boys just fine
. That’s a cop-out.”