Dan kicked the cane, sweeping it out of Rick’s hand and sailing a few feet down the street. Then he gave Rick a shove, just like he’d given Liz, and in just one second, Rick was flat on his ass.
“Hey! What the hell?”
“How about you fight with someone who isn’t afraid to hit back? How about that?”
“Funny,” Rick said from his place on the ground, “I think you might have a little advantage there, friend.”
Dan grinned. “That right?”
Dan bent at the waist, leaned over and began unlacing his boot. He pulled it off, leaving a thick white sock. He straightened, unfastened his belt and dropped his jeans to mid-thigh and there it was, the silicon sleeve of a prosthetic limb right shy of his boxer shorts.
Dan lowered himself to the ground slowly, carefully, then pushed the pin to release the suction on the sleeve to free his stump. Since the ankle of his prosthesis didn’t bend, he had to work the artificial limb up through his pants’ leg and lay it on the ground. With the help of his hands, he pushed himself up on one leg, balancing with some difficulty. Once standing on one leg, he pulled his jeans up again, zipping and belting them. He pulled the empty pants’ leg up and tucked the end in the front pocket of his jeans. And with all the grace of a ballet dancer, he was solid on one leg. Totally solid.
On the porch, Jack muttered, “Holy Jesus.”
“I wondered about that,” Paul said. “That unsteady knee of his isn’t his. Well, I mean, I’m sure he owns it and all…”
Dan balanced nicely. Years of practice had left him quite proficient. “You think the playing field is level yet?” he asked Rick. “Because I can’t take off the other one.”
“Holy shit,” Rick said, raised up on his elbows.
“Tell you what, you keep yours and we’ll go a few rounds. I’m no little girl. And I’m just as gimpy as you. How’s that?”
“I am not fighting with you, man,” Rick said.
“You ought to be ashamed, treating that girl so bad,” Dan said calmly. “I don’t know what’s got into you. If yelling at her isn’t bad enough, you put your hands on her. And not in a sweet way.”
“It’s not your business,” Rick said, but some of the hostility was gone.
“Thought I explained about that,” Dan replied. “I don’t stand around and watch a man get tough with a woman and look the other way. You have to answer for it. For being one mean, weak dick. You want to answer to me or to her?”
Rick just stared up at him. “How you stay upright like that, man?”
“Practice.”
“How much practice?” Rick asked. “How long have you had it?”
“Been a few years now. I got mine in Iraq, too. And I was just as screwed up as you. Time we got this all straight, boy. You’ve whined and whimpered about long enough now.”
Rick shook his head. “You don’t even wobble around.”
“One of the neat little tricks I wish I’d never had to learn.” Dan reached in his pants’ pocket. “Do you know where to find Liz?”
Rick nodded.
Dan threw his keys at him, hit him in the chest with them. “Go find her. Beg her to forgive your sorry ass. That, or go a few rounds with me.”
“Hey! I can’t drive!”
“Why not? You gonna get rides the rest of your life? It’s the Ford truck with the camper shell.”
“It’s my
right
leg!”
“Then accelerate and brake with the
left!
Jesus, have you been in a coma all this time? Aren’t you even thinking about how to get on with your life?” Dan put out his hand and with the help of that and his own hand pushing himself up, Rick got off the ground. “And for God’s sake, be careful. It’s the only truck I have. When you find her, don’t be too surprised if she breaks your other leg. If I were her, I would.”
Standing, and in considerable awe of the one-legged man he faced, Rick said, “Listen, I know you mean to help, to teach me a lesson, but I’m not screwed up on purpose….”
“I know that, son. But you can get better on purpose. You ever want to talk about it with someone who’s been there, I can do that. But not right now. Right now, take care of that girl.”
“What am I supposed to tell her? Because we both know I’m not good enough for her.”
“Then I suggest, right after you beg her to forgive you, you thank her. Because she’s just crazy enough to think you are. Now, my beer’s getting warm. We about done with this circus?”
Rick tossed the keys in his hand. Then he turned and went to fetch his cane, carefully bending to get it off the ground.
Dan stood in the street until Rick had backed the truck out of its parking spot, accelerating too fast, breaking too hard, almost taking out the vehicle it was parked beside. Dan winced. It wasn’t as though that old truck didn’t have plenty of scrapes, but if the kid drove it right off the mountainside, he’d be real sorry he staged this whole production.
He bent to lift his prosthesis and boot. He started hopping back toward the bar. Before he got far, Jack was down in the street, draping Dan’s arm across his shoulders.
“Fancy,” Jack said. “You should be an acrobat. You have some serious skills.”
“Half the time I am an acrobat.”
“Where’d you send Rick in your truck?” Jack asked.
“I told him to go find Liz and beg her forgiveness.”
“And if they just duke it out again?”
“Aw, don’t worry. She can probably take him. Now, I need a bathroom or someplace private to drop my drawers and reassemble. I don’t want to show Hope my shorts.”
But driving turned out to be okay. He was a little clumsy on the gas and brake for about ten minutes, so he headed for Valley High, though he knew she wouldn’t be there. He just wanted to practice, to be sure he wouldn’t end up in a ditch.
Twenty minutes into his driving experiment, he decided to go looking for her, and it was not because Dan told him to. The second she ran away from him, he knew. He wasn’t getting out of this business the way he’d planned. He felt two choices staring him in the face. Either he had to make peace with his leg and his life or he had to go away somewhere he could be alone forever. Where no one would ever remind him of all his bad experiences, all his losses. When he thought of making things right, he felt the sting of tears in his eyes, but when he thought of being alone forever, his throat closed so tight he couldn’t breathe. He had both reactions, to facing those two alternatives, within a matter of less than sixty seconds.
He drove out to a place in the woods where they used to park—no one was there. He drove through some vineyards in the valley, passed a couple of big trucks on a two-lane road, a daring move for a one-legged driver. The sun was starting to sink behind the mountains to the west; he’d have to get the truck back before long. The crazy fool, giving him a truck! Wasn’t he worried that Rick would just take off and never come back?
He drove aimlessly for a while, wondering how that guy was an amputee and nobody had even known it. Or maybe some people had known, but not Rick, because he was in his own head all the time. It was the act of driving, the freedom of driving, that made him wonder about some things. Like,
had
he expected Jack to drive him everywhere for the rest of his life? One of the first things they taught him in PT was to have a bar installed in the bathroom, something to hang on to, steady himself. It was definitely time to do that now. He’d fallen twice and took a lot of baths sitting on the edge of the tub. He hated baths.
He didn’t expect to find Liz. He’d go to the store later tonight or tomorrow and find her, talk to her. Or, failing that, he’d either get Jack to drive him to Eureka or borrow Jack’s truck. He had no idea what he’d say, but…
But would he work? Go to school? Hunt? Fish?
She’d killed him with what she’d said. She wished she was
dead?
He thought back, way back, to when she was lying in that bed at Doc’s, writhing in pain as she tried to give birth. He’d held her small, sweating body close to his chest, promising her he’d never let her go. They knew the baby was dead, but there were times during that nightmare that he remembered thinking that if he lost her as well, his life would never mean anything again. And back then he’d still been a little confused about whether he loved her enough to make a life with her, and yet he knew losing her would kill him. It was the same right now—he’d told her they couldn’t be together, but the thought of her dying ripped his heart out.
What had he done to her? And why was he kidding himself? He’d never stop loving her.
He found himself headed for the river and once there, he saw her car. He shook his head—he should’ve known. It was the last place they’d been together. He parked, swallowed his fear and got out. He used his cane, careful of rocks and holes, and made his way to the river’s edge. She was leaning back against a big boulder, half sitting, half standing. “Liz,” he said to her back.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Go away,” she said.
He walked toward her. “Liz, I’m sorry.”
She looked back at the river. “Just go away. I refuse to fight with you. And I can outrun you.”
He laughed softly in spite of himself. “No kidding.” He went to stand in front of her. “I’m sorry, Liz. I am out of my mind.”
“So I noticed,” she said with a sniff. She turned away from him to swipe at her damp cheeks.
“I don’t want it to be this way,” he said. “Between us, I mean.”
She looked back at him. “Well, Rick, I have to admit, I don’t have a clue how you want it to be. You told me to go away and I tried. You made it real clear you didn’t love me anymore…. All those phone calls…I thought maybe…”
He gave her a second. “You thought what, Liz?”
She looked down and took a breath. “I thought after a while you’d start to think like your old self again and you’d appreciate it—that I never gave up on you. That I loved you no matter what.”
“I did, Liz. Appreciate it. I just thought you’d be wasting your life on someone like me.”
She stiffened slightly. “Because of your leg? Your stupid leg?”
“It went past the leg,” he said. “I thought that I brought bad luck. That a life with me would be full of bad experiences. I mean, you and me, we’ve had our share. You know?”
A huff of laughter escaped through her tears.
“What?” he asked.
“I thought it was me. I thought if it wasn’t for me, everything in your life would be all right.”
“Liz…”
“Well, didn’t I get pregnant right away? I had just barely gotten my period back then. And then I let our baby die. And then because that hurt you so bad, you went to the Marines….”
“Holy Jesus,” he said. He reached for her, his arms going around her waist, pulling her hard against him. “How could you think that? You didn’t make any of those things happen!”
She held on to him, putting her head against his shoulder. He felt her shrug. “As much as you did.”
“Holy God,” he muttered, “we are so screwed up.” He felt her arms tighten around him, holding him as she sobbed against his shoulder. He ran his hand down that wonderful silky hair. “Hey, hey,” he said softly. And it all came back to him, how it felt when he held her, comforted her. “Come on, baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said. In the back of his mind he wondered why he wasn’t able to do this three months ago. It was so natural, so right. It felt so good to be the man.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you to hold me,” she said.
“I’ve held you before. Right here, in fact,” he reminded her.
She shook her head against his shoulder. “There wasn’t an ounce of love in that,” she said.
He pulled away from her a bit, lifting her chin with his thumb and finger. “Nothing like that’s ever going to happen between us again, Liz. I promise.”
“What
is
going to happen between us?” she asked softly. “Are you just trying to make me not mad at you, but then go back to that business that we can’t be together anymore?”
He smiled at her and kissed her cheeks one at a time, softly, gently. “We have to be together. If we just bring each other a ton of bad luck, we’ll need someone to hang on to through it.”
“God,” she said, laying her head against him again, crying. “I didn’t want you to ever see me cry again,” she sobbed. “I hate being a wimpy girl.”
“You’re not. I wish I was as strong as you. I don’t know why I couldn’t get it together. Jesus, I just couldn’t get any of it, you know? You better understand something, Liz—I’m never going to be like I was. I’m never going to be that kid that just grins through every ugly thing. That part of my life got blown up.”
She leaned away from him. “Really? And you think I didn’t get blown up, too?” She shook her head. “Jack said, when a soldier gets wounded, everyone who loves him gets wounded.”
“Jack,” he said, as if he just thought of him. “Aw, Jesus, Jack.”
“What, Rick?”
“Oh man. Did he ever say anything to you about me?”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like he was counting the minutes till he could put me down like a sick dog?”
“Jack? Of course not. He’s been worried, I know that….”
“If you think I treated you bad, I treated Jack worse. God, I don’t know how to fix that up.”
“You better fix this up first,” she said with an assertiveness he was unaccustomed to in her.
“Huh? Didn’t I?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to go back and forth on this, and just because you feel guilty about yelling at me doesn’t mean we’re okay. We have problems, you and me. Like you said, we’re so screwed up. I want to get out of this mess and be as much like regular people as we can. When the baby died, the school counselor got me a therapist who helped me with that and after a while, I could talk about it without being angry, without crying. That’s what I want for us, Rick. I don’t want to always be scared that you’re going to leave me any second.”
“We’ll work at that,” he said. “We’ll do a lot of talking. But I gotta—”
“I have the same therapist now, getting me through this thing with you. I want you to go with me.”
He shrugged. What was one more counselor? “Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“He’s nice. He’s helped me so much. He’s kind of goofy, but you might like him. Never mind what you think of him—just go along. The work is going to be you and me, getting on track.”
“Did he tell you that? That if we got back together, we should have counseling?”
“He did,” she said with a nod. “And I think he’s right. No way I could have gotten through the past few months without him. If it hadn’t worked for me before, I probably wouldn’t insist on this, but I’m a believer now.”
“Sure. Okay.”
“And promise you won’t make fun of him. Just put out of your mind that he’s strange and listen and talk. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rick agreed. “What’s so strange about him?” Rick asked, thinking about adding another weirdo into the mix. But what the hell, his weirdo had worked out.
“Well, he’s funny looking. Tall and skinny with big ears and a long, hooked nose. And he thinks he was abducted by aliens.”
Rick pulled back, holding Liz’s upper arms. His face was frozen in shock for a moment, then a huge laugh erupted from him. “You are fucking kidding me!”
“Oh, I see how it is—you can use the F word whenever you want…”
“Jerry Powell? Liz, that’s who I’ve been seeing!”
“Come on,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “That’s the nutcase that got me this far. Honest to God, sometimes I hate that psycho—but I have to admit, it’s helped, though I sure couldn’t tell you how.” He laughed again. “Yeah, I’ll see Mr. Spaceman with you. Can we merge our appointments so I don’t have to put up with him three or four times a week?”
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” she said, shaking her head.
“Liz, it’s the rules. He doesn’t talk about patients.” He couldn’t stop laughing and it felt both strange and familiar at the same time. He used to be a laughing fool. Lately he’d found it hard to find humor in anything. “What a kick. Come on, Liz, I gotta get the truck back.”
“The truck?” she asked.
“Yeah. Guy at the bar—Dan—he loaned me his truck.”
“You
drove?
”
“How did you think I got here?” he asked.
“I figured Jack was waiting on the road.”
“Nah. Old Dan, he picked a fight with me. He didn’t like how I was treating you and he was right. Also, he took off his leg. I had no idea he was an amputee. That showed me.” He shook his head. “People have been talking to me for months, and they weren’t all able-bodied like our whack job Powell or Jack—I was in group therapy with amputees who made it all look easy. But something about today changed everything. I’m going to figure out what after I try to apologize to Jack and return the truck.”
But he knew what. Several factors collided. Jerry got through to him, made him see that he was unsuccessful in escaping his old life. Then Liz fought back, giving him every punch he deserved. Then Dan took off his leg and balanced perfectly on one.
Perfectly,
like he didn’t even need the prosthesis. Then he held Liz the way she was meant to be held, with tenderness and love. It was all coming together. Took too damn long, but it was coming together.