Purple Hearts(61)

“Luke?” Cassie called. “Can you hear me?”

“No, I don’t need the bathroom,” I responded. I needed to defeat my own thoughts. I could be a new version of old Luke. “I mean, no, thank you,” I corrected, reaching for another pill.





Cassie


I stayed in the shower longer than normal, turning up the hot water to pelt me raw. Luke was always there, hurting in the quiet, a dark cloud in the house. I felt bad for shoving him on Rita, but after two weeks in the same house, his moods were beginning to affect mine. I had started to write sadder songs, which didn’t quite fit. I had a chance at a record deal, for Christ’s sake. I should have been pushing out hits, or at least joyous, forward-moving songs, songs that bloomed with possibility. I had even started to get annoyed with Toby, as if he should act as a punching bag for my frustration with Luke.

Mom would have known what to say to lift my spirits, but she had no sympathy for me. When I called, her voice was strained, a cold kind of friendly, like a how are you to the guy who delivers her mail. She would make an excuse to get off the phone before I could tell her much about Luke. She knew just that he was home, and injured. Nothing about how hard it was, how bad things were with him. I’d gotten myself into this mess, I could almost hear her say, and I could get myself out.

The muscles in my back and arms were aching from holding Luke’s weight. He was supposed to be able to put some weight on the leg by now, but he could still get to the toilet only if I helped him from the doorway, where the wheelchair wouldn’t fit. This morning I had slipped on the wet floor, and my head missed the edge of the sink by centimeters. I had to be more careful.

I thought of the broken plate. He had to be more careful. Doubt was creeping into my thoughts every day, but I pushed it away. If it was this hard to care for each other when no one else was around, think of how difficult it would be to make it seem like we were a couple in the presence of a real nurse.

And I still needed his health insurance and the extra thousand dollars a month.

I thought about how strange it was that after two weeks, he hadn’t asked me to get him anything. He ate whatever was put in front of him. He made sure to never be on my laptop whenever I came home. No requests for certain foods, no new clothes, no boxes from Buda he wanted to retrieve.

Maybe that was the problem.

All he had was the space that I had set up. My books, my records, the dusty trinkets from vacations Mom and I had taken. My schedule, my nonathletic arms to lift him. I should get him a plant, or something, I thought. Something living to be around other than me and Rita.

I stepped out of the bathroom, glancing at where he had wheeled himself next to the window. He turned to me, but quickly looked away, a tennis ball in his clenched fist. I disrobed in the bedroom, and got ready for work. I’d said I would go in early today to do liquor inventory, get some extra hours.

On my way out of the room, my eye caught a strange sight on my pillow. Two orange dots I’d never seen before. I looked closer, picking them up. They were small, cylindrical, and made of foam. Earplugs.

I smiled.

Luke had gotten me earplugs. Or rather, he had asked Rita to get earplugs for me, so I could sleep through the night without waking up to his muttering through the thin walls.

The hardness I’d felt toward him dissipated. The pain was not his fault.

On my way out, I noticed his head had collapsed. He must have fallen asleep.

“Luke?” I said.

No answer.

I approached him, reaching for his shoulder. The muscles near his neck were still hard, knotted now from controlling the wheels. I noticed his buzz cut was growing out into a dark amber color.

He should get a haircut. And maybe I could help him do some leg bends for a few minutes.

“Luke,” I whispered, nudging him. He didn’t move.

Fear cascaded suddenly, fragmented what-ifs jumping to the front of my brain. What if he took too much pain medication by accident? And what followed almost brought tears to my eyes: What if he did it on purpose?

“Luke,” I said louder, shaking his shoulder harder.

He snapped awake, craning to look at me. “What?” he said, his eyes hard.

“Oh, um.” I took a step back, relief flooding. I was worried about you, I wanted to say. “I just wanted to thank you for the earplugs.”

“Yeah,” he said, resting his forehead on his hand.

“Sorry I haven’t really been around.”

He turned his sleepy eyes on me. “You don’t have to say sorry.”

“I know, but.” I wanted him to know that I could tell that something was wrong. Maybe he needed to talk. Rita wasn’t exactly an ideal conversationalist. “So, um, how’s the physical therapy going?”

“Very good, Cassie, thank you,” he said.

What was with this weird, polite tone? I almost preferred him sullen. At least that was closer to his real self.

I resisted the urge to bend over and pull his chair so that he was facing me. “Has Rita been okay at helping you up, or would both of us be better?”

He bounced his tennis ball. “It’s fine.”

“So you did your therapy this morning?”

He was quiet. “Yeah.”

“Have you gotten hold of your brother?”

“A couple of times. But I didn’t want to invite him over to your house.”