Robin kept glancing at the purchases she’d made a couple days ago. She was getting ready for work, but her gaze kept falling on the bag with the two journals in it. She didn’t know why, but something about them had caught her eye. She’s been in the dollar store, amazed that items of such quality were at such a cheap price. It had been almost like fate calling to her. She wanted something like this for herself to work through some of her own issues, realizing that it had been a long time since she’d had a relationship. Also noting that she was still, although she didn’t mean to, looking at every man and judging him. Until Iain.
After meeting him, talking to him, she found that things in her life had focused in on this time, on this person, and she realized that she needed to be the best that she could be too. And that was likely way too New Age–sounding for anyone. She groaned and finished brushing her hair, braiding it up nicely and then walked over to pull both journals out of the bag. They were nice and simple, almost masculine looking, but had enough of a feminine touch to make her smile. She left one on the table and reached for the matching fountain pens that she had bought too.
“This is way too quirky,” she muttered. “His and hers, when there isn’t even a him and a her yet is a little bit pushy.”
But she tucked the journal into her scrubs pocket, grabbed a fountain pen, and stuffed it into her other pocket. Then she headed into work. Sometimes, in life, one had to take a chance. She may have already pushed it too far with Iain that last time they were together in the pool, but she realized that was just part and parcel of this journey. If he wasn’t for her, then fine. If she wasn’t for him, well, maybe not so fine. But still, it’s something that she would live with. At least she hoped she could.
She worked through her morning, kept busy with a steady stream of clients and animals, from clipping toenails to changing the tomcat’s way, to stitching up another cat that had gotten into a scrap, and then a dog with a boil to be lanced. By the time she was done, she called out to Stan and said, “I’m heading to lunch.”
“I’ll leave here in another ten minutes or so,” he said, distracted. “I’ve got a bunch of paperwork I need to finish up.”
“That’s because you’re the boss,” she said, laughing.
“Don’t remind me,” he groaned.
Still smiling, she headed upstairs to the cafeteria area. She had both the journal and the pen in her pockets still. And she was still of two minds as to whether she should give it to Iain or not. She didn’t want to push him or to make him feel uncomfortable, and she was likely to do both.
In the cafeteria, she took a long look around. So many people were here that it was hard to see if Iain was around or not. She walked over, got into line, and, when she got up to Dennis, she asked him, “Have you seen Iain yet?”
He was busy serving people ahead of her, but he glanced back, frowned, then shook his head. “You know what? I don’t think I have.” She nodded and grabbed a large salad, but he shook his head and handed her a plate with a rack of ribs.
She nodded with joy. “I’ll never say no to your ribs.”
“You better not,” he said. “You’ll make me overhaul all my recipes again.”
At that, she laughed joyously. “You have the best recipes.”
“Me and Grandma,” he said with a nod. “We’re forever trying to outdo each other.”
“Keep it up,” somebody said behind her. “Because we’re the ones getting the benefit of it.”
Dennis’s big grin flashed. “Yeah, that’s why I do it.”
Robin moved down and grabbed a cup of coffee and a glass of water and then sat outside in the shade. She’d been craving this heat, and now it was too hot for her. She sat in her corner up against the wall and ate quietly, loving the food, especially the ribs. When she was done, she sat back and sipped her water, looking at her cold coffee. “I should remember to not get the coffee at the same time,” she muttered.
Dennis had been working his way through the tables, cleaning up dishes, when he heard her and said, “I’ll get you a fresh cup.”
“You don’t have to serve me,” she said, pushing her chair back to stand up.
“But if I don’t serve you,” he said with a smile, “I’ll be serving somebody else. And there’s nothing wrong with serving you, so let me do this.”
She frowned at him. “Don’t you have help to clear all this?”
His grin widened. “But it’s not about having help,” he said. “I enjoy this. I enjoy having the time and the opportunity to talk to everybody. Collecting a few dishes won’t hurt me. Not only that but it also keeps me humble.” And, with that, he took off.
She sat back down, wondering, because he did have a great attitude to life, and they could all learn something about that from him. When he returned with a fresh cup of coffee, she murmured, “Thanks.”
He looked at her quizzically. “Something on your mind?”
“Just contemplating the convoluted way that we look at life.”
“Ah,” he said. “Those kinds of questions.”
“Do you ever get hung up on them?”
“I try not to,” he said. “Hung up is not an easy way to live. You’ve got to keep things flowing. Otherwise you’re stuck, and you can’t move forward. And we’re never stuck for the reason we think we are.”
“I’ve heard that phrase used regarding anger,” she said. “Like we’re never angry for the reason we think we are, but I’ve never really understood that. I guess what you’re really saying is, we have to dig deeper to find the true reasons for our actions.”
He grinned and nodded. “Something like that.” Then he took off again.
She sat here, wondering what her reasons were for buying the journals. She really just wanted to give Iain an outlet that, if he didn’t want to talk to her, and he didn’t want to talk to his psychologist, Iain could hopefully work out his own problems himself. And, with that, she stood, her coffee cup in her hand, and headed toward his room. When she knocked on the door, she got no answer. But the door itself didn’t appear to be quite latched because it pushed open ever-so-slightly. She pushed it open a little bit wider and called out, “Iain, are you there?”
Still no answer. She poked her head around the door, but his bed was empty. She walked in, placed the journal and the pen on his bed, and then walked back out again. He wouldn’t necessarily know it was from her, but she could always send him a message later. On that thought, she frowned, walked back over, picked up the pen, and on the first page wrote a simple note, saying, This might help you work your way through things. And walked out. She hated to admit it, but, as she left, her footsteps increased in speed so that she was almost running. No almost to it. She was running away.
When he got back from his session with Shane, he found a little leather-bound book and a pen on his bed. He looked at it as he slowly stripped off his hot and sweaty clothing. He wanted a shower and then to head out for some food. It had been a rough morning and an even rougher weekend. He couldn’t help but feel like he was pushing Robin away, and that made no sense to him because he really wanted to be friends with her and potentially see if they had more than that between them.
Of all the women he’d met in his life, she was the only one who had shown any interest in who he was now. And that meant everything to him. To create a relationship in a place like this meant seeing each other with all the ugly bits and pieces showing. And also a lot could be said about a woman who could like who he was now. And maybe, if he was lucky, even fall in love with who he was right now.
It had to be a good thing because she’d be seeing him for who he truly was, instead of the image he may have projected before. And no doubt he was a very different person now than before. He’d still been a good man regardless, but he’d been cocky and sure of life, sure of what he was doing. At least he tried hard to project that image. Whereas now he’d had his feet knocked out from under him. Literally.
After his shower, he made his way back to his bed with his crutches, a towel wrapped around his hips and a second one in his hands to dry off his hair. He sat down on the side of the bed, groaning with the effort.
No doubt something was going on inside him because he could feel himself resisting Shane, resisting everything he was pushing Iain forward to.
Whether it was Iain’s belief this was all a waste of time, he didn’t know. He was dealing with so much pain, and he was at this point in time where it didn’t seem like there was any progress, so why bother? And yet Shane was so encouraging and seemed so cheerful and happy about Iain’s work that it’s almost like a disconnect existed between Shane and Iain. Or at least between him and the reality of his body.
Iain didn’t see any change, didn’t see putting his body through all this for no change whatsoever, whereas Shane said he definitely saw an improvement. Iain couldn’t see it, and he was so caught up in the pain and the torture that he was going through on a daily basis right now that it was hard to see anything optimistic. He wanted to believe Shane, but how was Iain supposed to do that?
He picked up the notebook, then opened the front cover and read the note. His eyebrows shot up. “Well, you definitely bought this for me,” he murmured. He looked at the fountain pen and smiled at the old-fashioned tool. It brought back memories of school days where he’d taken a calligraphy course for an easy elective class, something that he’d really enjoyed at the time. But he wasn’t much of a writer, so he hadn’t really found a whole lot of purpose in it.
Putting the two gifts on his bed, he dressed slowly and grabbed his wheelchair, knowing that, in his mind, it was a cop-out, but everybody else would say, You have to save your energy for another day. Then he headed down for his lunch. As soon as he got into line, Dennis was there.
“Robin was looking for you earlier,” Dennis said. “She has already gone back to work now though.”
“I had a rough morning,” Iain admitted. He looked at the food and sighed. “It all looks so good. But I don’t have too much strength or energy to eat.”
“You can always have one plate now, and, if you need more, you can come back,” he said. “What can I get you?”
Today was Chinese day because he saw noodles and stir-fry and ribs maybe, but how did that work? Still, he went for the ribs and a big plate of stir-fry.
Dennis nodded with a big grin. “Now I approve of these choices,” he said. “They might seem like they don’t go together, but you’ve got something for the soul and something for the body here.”
Iain looked at him in surprise. “I kind of like the way you separated those.”
“Separated and yet joined together,” Dennis said. He handed him the full plate. “You need a hand?”
“No,” Iain said. “I’ll be fine.” And moving slower than normal, he headed his wheelchair over to the closest empty table. There, he put down his plate and dug in. He was halfway through the vegetables when he realized he’d left the ribs on the plate for later. His body did need the nutrition.
Dennis arrived soon afterward with a large glass of water and a glass of milk. “I don’t think you’re getting too much calcium these days,” he said. “So you can get that down.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “I do like my milk. And I guess, if I’m not eating yogurt or cheese, milk is the easiest way to calcium, isn’t it?”
“Any reason you don’t like cheese or yogurt?”
“I like them both,” he said. “I just don’t tend to eat very much of them.”
“You might want to think about changing that,” he said. “I get that you’re building muscle and nerves and trying to regain your strength, but your bones also have taken a huge beating.”
“Well, I don’t have a problem drinking milk,” he said. He picked it up and had a big gulp. He really loved the taste as it slipped down his throat.
“We can add one to your meal every time now,” Dennis said.
“That would be good,” he said, and Dennis disappeared at that. Iain finished off his vegetables and tucked into his ribs. By the time he was done, he pushed his plate back ever-so-slightly and just relaxed. The drive had been to get here before the lunch hour closed, and, now that he’d accomplished that, he could feel the fatigue setting in. Particularly with a full belly.
He had appointments this afternoon—not with Shane, thank God—but with one of the doctors and maybe his psychologist? That would never be an appointment he looked forward to. But still, it was something he couldn’t get out of. He slowly made his way back to his room, picked up the notebook, smiled, and realized he hadn’t had a chance to say thank-you but tucked it into the pocket on the side of his wheelchair along with the pen. Then he grabbed his iPad and checked his schedule. With that on his lap, he headed toward the office where he was expected.
As he wheeled in, Dr. Broker looked up, smiled, and said, “How is Iain today?”
“Tired, sore, partially wondering why I’m still here,” he said.
The doctor looked at him in surprise; then he glanced down at his paper file and flipped through a few pages and said, “Tell me about it.”
Just like a dam had been broken, Iain explained how he’d come for this new beginning, and yet, when there was no progress and still wasn’t any progress, he now realized that he needed to make peace with what he had and move on from there. So, it felt like he needed to cut short his time at Hathaway House.
“And yet everybody else seems to think you’re making great progress,” the doctor said, sitting back and playing with the pen in his hand.
Iain’s eyes studied the pen as it twirled around and around.
“But I’m not seeing the progress,” he said quietly.
“What are you seeing?”
“Somebody who needs to face the reality of his situation,” he said. “Realize that this is it. I need to accept what I am and go on from here.”
“And what are you?”
And this was just one of the reasons why Iain hated coming to these visits. The constant questions, the constant searching, the constant looking for answers and realizing that the answers he had were not necessarily the same answers everybody else had. “A disabled man who needs to find a way to lead a fulfilling life.”
“Okay,” the doctor said. “And what do you say about everybody else having seen progress?”
“All I see is pain,” he said. “Every session with Shane hurts.”
“He can ease it back,” the doctor said quietly. “We don’t want you in so much pain that it becomes a problem.”
“It’s not,” he said, “but it does feel very much like I don’t need to work that hard.”
“So, if it’s not hurting too bad, and you’re still attending all his sessions, and he’s seeing progress, what do you think the problem is? Or is it a case of you can’t see what’s right in front of you?”
Iain snorted at that. “That’s quite possible,” he said. “Do we ever?”
The doctor smiled. “Sometimes we don’t see very clearly at all,” he said. “It’s interesting that I have such positive reports from everybody but you.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I did have somebody mention that maybe I had a bit of an inflexible attitude.”
At that, the doctor’s eyebrows rose, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “And do you think so?”
“I didn’t think so,” he said, “but maybe. Maybe I just had it locked in my head that the surgery would be the be-all and end-all and put me back on my feet. When I realized that it would only partially put me back on my feet and that both my legs were still weak and that I was still suffering, then I just locked down on that.”
“What will you do to ease that?”
He just gave him a flat stare. “I have no idea.”
The doctor nodded slowly. “Do you have a journal?”
He stared at him in surprise. “Somebody just gave me a notebook and a pen to do something along those lines.”
“Maybe instead of judging yourself, just open up your mind and open up to a page and see what comes up? See how you feel about your whole situation. See if you really feel like this. See if this is a blockage or if this is something you’re trying to avoid.”
He frowned. “What could I possibly be trying to avoid by doing better?”
“Success,” the doctor said bluntly. “So many people sabotage their own world in order to avoid becoming a success. Success is scary.”
“Success would be to get my body back,” Iain said harshly. “How is it I could possibly be afraid of that?”
The doctor looked him straight in the eye and said, “And that’s what I want you to tell me when you come back here next week.” With that, his phone rang on the desk. He picked it up and answered it.
Iain didn’t even hear the conversation. He slowly wheeled himself back out and headed to his room. That was just another one of the reasons he hated these conversations. Nothing was ever clear; nothing was ever laid out. He was very much a person who, if he was told two plus two made four, then it made four.
But this kind of mental crap just seemed like an endless gamut of right and wrong answers, and it was a minefield. He didn’t want to walk a minefield anymore; he wanted to know that what he was doing was right and correct and would lead exactly where he wanted it to. The trouble was, he no longer knew where that was.
Before he came here, he’d been all about making that last surgery a success. And when it hadn’t been, he’d come here thinking that this would be the answer. But he quickly realized it wasn’t the answer either. This is just who he was, where he was, and what he had to get used to. So, what the hell did the doctor mean?
Confused, irritated, and frustrated, Iain made his way to his room and realized that, with all the appointments he had had this afternoon, it was already four o’clock. He wanted desperately to have a swim, but he was edgy and didn’t want to be around people.
By the time he made his way to the bed, he crashed and stared at the window. Was he afraid of success? Was being a failure more comfortable? What a horrible thought. What did being a failure mean? In a place like this, he got a lot of attention, he got a lot of help, he got a lot of assistance, and he got a lot of service from others. Was he such a poor human being that he was more concerned about receiving attention than doing things on his own?
He was used to being severely independent. What had happened to that? And was it success or really the fear of failure again? Because what if he was a success and then failed at that too? When he heard the words in his mind, he winced. He slowly picked up the journal, looked at it, groaned, then reached for the pen and started writing.