Wildest Dreams (Thunder Point #9)(72)

“Ah, jeez. Can’t you tell I have a lot to get used to? That I’ve never had a man in my life?”

“Well, now you do.” He pulled her closer. He kissed her again. “I think you’re afraid of not having all the control. You like control.”

“Survival,” she said.

“Oh, I know,” he said with a laugh. “That’s something I understand.”

They spent the next hour making out like teenagers. “I have to get back to Winnie,” she finally said. “I promised her I’d be back at three-thirty.”

“Think about what we talked about. We don’t have to be embarrassed to say we like each other, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll practice that.”

As she walked back to Winnie’s house, she was talking to herself, reminding herself that men and women checked each other out, spent quality time together to see if they were compatible, and people around them knew. Sometimes it was a misstep, and they didn’t end up together, but sometimes that was for the best. Yet sometimes... Yes, we’re dating... Blake is such a lovely man... That didn’t sound too scary.

She’d begin by practicing on Winnie. She entered the house quietly. Mikhail was asleep on the sofa in front of the TV, arms crossed over his chest. All those nights in the chair in Winnie’s bedroom during the night probably left him tired. She tried not to disturb him as she went to Winnie’s bedroom.

She gasped.

Winnie sat on the floor. She looked dazed and her lip was bleeding. She hung on to the leg of her walker with one hand.

“Winnie!” she said, crouching beside her. “Mikhail!”

Winnie touched her lip, then her cheek. “Damn,” she said.

Mikhail was in the doorway in an instant. “What happens here?” he demanded.

“I guess I fell. It was the damnedest thing—my leg just wasn’t there. I was just getting my walker and one leg...”

“Mikhail, call Dr. Grant and tell him Winnie took a fall.”

“Help me stand up, Lin Su,” she demanded.

“Just wait. Is your leg numb? Tingling?”

“It wasn’t asleep,” Winnie said. “It just wasn’t there.” She began rubbing her leg through her slacks.

“I’m going to gently move your leg,” Lin Su said. “I want to look at it, see if you’re injured. Do you feel it now?”

“Barely.”

Lin Su slid the pant leg up so she could examine the leg and found the ankle to be slightly swollen.

“It’s happening,” Winnie said, her voice weak. “I’m losing more function.”

“Try not to worry. We’re prepared. I think you might have injured your ankle. Let’s see what Dr. Grant says.”

“He’ll be here in half hour, maybe less,” Mikhail said.

Lin Su gave Winnie’s cheek a soft stroke. “I won’t leave you again,” she said.

Winnie laughed. “Are you going to give up your entire life for me? We know this is going to get worse.”

“I’m going to be here when you need me,” Lin Su said. “I won’t have you falling because I’m not here.”

“I fell because I thought I could stand, not because you were gone. You could have been right beside me when I went down.” She touched her rapidly swelling lip. “I hit my face on the damn walker. Now I’ll look like the wrath of God!”

“Mikhail, help me lift Winnie to sit on the bed. Then I’ll get ice for your lip. The swelling won’t last long.”

* * *

An hour later Scott Grant was examining his handiwork—Winnie’s ankle was wrapped in an Ace bandage. By this time Troy and Grace were back from their doctor’s appointment and Charlie was home from school. It was a small crowd, gathered around Winnie’s bed.

“I don’t think we need an X-ray,” Scott said. “It’s not very swollen, there is no pain...”

“There’s also very little feeling,” Winnie said.

Scott thumped her calf. “Feel that?”

“I can feel that but I couldn’t feel my leg and went down without warning,” she said.

“It’s not numbness, Winnie. It’s muscle failure. You’ve experienced fatigue of muscles in your extremities—clumsiness and sometimes twitching. Now, with some progression, there is muscle failure. Your leg wouldn’t hold you up. Other extremities will follow, hopefully as slowly as your condition has progressed to this stage. You’re no longer weight bearing on this leg. I’m afraid your brief freedom with the walker is over. Now it’s the wheelchair.”

“But if I work on it! Physical therapy. Maybe I can strengthen it!”

He took her hand in his. “Winnie, the prognosis is not good. There are still a lot of mysteries about ALS, but there’s one thing we know—it’s not reversible. You can no longer depend on this leg. And soon, I’m afraid, it will be both legs. I think we’re going to have to make a few adjustments.”

“Like what? What more can we do?”

“For starters, you need to buy or rent the appropriate bed, one you can move up and down so you can be transferred to the wheelchair without a major accident. Grace wisely adjusted your bathroom—higher toilet, assistance bars, the right kind of chair to use in the walk-in shower...”