Purple Hearts(62)

“You can if you want to.”

Luke sighed, as if he were tired of talking. “Sure, thank you for offering.”

My sympathy was running out again. I was trying, I was giving him a lot to work with, I was making it easy, and he was pushing me away. “Is there something wrong?” I offered.

“Nothing’s wrong. Thank you.”

That politeness again. It was like a screen. I tried again. “Is it money?”

“Nope,” he said, almost too quickly.

It wasn’t like we were best friends or anything, but he was so different from the Luke whom I had Skyped with, who had stories to tell, or even the Luke who’d sat next to me at the hospital cafeteria, the eager listener, or the person who made me feel like my ideas were magic. “All right, so, then, what’s going on?” When he didn’t answer, I raised my voice. “What do you need?”

He groaned, turning jerkily to face me. “I need to have never gotten myself into this situation in the first place. How’s that?”

“Well, I can’t help you with that one.” I grabbed my purse from the couch, heading toward the door. I needed out of this den of sadness, what used to be my haven. Where I was now apparently a situation.

“I didn’t mean you.”

“Right.” Before I slammed the door, it slipped out. “Enjoy wasting away.”

As I stomped down the stairs, I didn’t know if the guilt in my gut was stirring because it was a mean thing to say, meaner than his silence, or because I knew that no matter what I said, no matter whether he would respond in anger or just ignore me, I would always have the upper hand. I would always be the one to move on with my day, to try to forget and move forward, to slam the door and stomp down the stairs and get in my car and go. Because I could.





Luke


Cassie was practicing that song again. She kept getting caught up on one part, where the notes jumped from low to high. It made it hard to concentrate on what Yarvis was saying as he sat across from me on the couch, his feet in a spot where, not eight hours ago, I’d pissed myself.

“You catch any of the game?” Yarvis asked.

Bum bum bum be dun, ba ding. Ba DING. Ba ding ding DING.

“Damn it,” we could hear her say.

I didn’t know which game he was talking about. No TV here. And faulty Internet. And even if I could watch sports, it pissed me off to watch clips of people running and jumping like it was nothing. “Um, no.”

Yarvis had come over for a check-in, though it was supposed to have happened three weeks ago. He’d given us only about an hour’s notice to get rid of the blankets and pillows on the couch, put the overflowing bag of my stuff out of sight, throw away the sweatpants I’d pissed in because I couldn’t get to the bathroom in time. I was supposed to be able to hold a certain percentage of my weight by now, but I hadn’t been doing the exercises. So I could hold zero percent, and fell. That was when I’d hated having cloud head. Regular head knew I should have just yelled to Cassie to help. Cloud head told me no, it was the middle of the night, I’d be fine.

Bum bum be dun dun.

I wasn’t fine. I’d peed on the floor. That was the tough part about cloud head. Cloud head was calmer, but maybe a little too calm.

Ba ding DING ding. “Damn it!”

“Cassie, are you going to join us, or what?” I called to the other room, my voice sharper than I’d intended.

“In a second,” she called.

She walked out in the same band T-shirt she wore yesterday, her hair falling out of her ponytail. “Hi,” she said, breathing deeply, as if she were about to take a big leap, bracing herself. “Sorry for the delay. Good to see you.”

Yarvis looked back and forth from me to Cassie as he scooted to make room for Cassie on the couch, puzzled. “How are we?”

Out of obligation, I reached for Cassie’s hand. It was limp in mine. “Good,” I said.

“Great!” Cassie said, her enthusiasm flimsy.

“Well, good,” Yarvis said, putting on an amused smile. “I’m here to check on Luke’s progress. And,” he said, pausing to pull out another folder from his shoulder bag, “bring you the next stage in Luke’s PT, since it appears you haven’t taken the time to go to the VA.”

Cassie shifted in her seat, letting go of my hand to bite her thumbnail. I avoided his eyes.

“Did you find help elsewhere?” he continued.

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing, hoping he wouldn’t get too curious.

Cassie took her thumbnail out of her mouth, her brow furrowed. “Yeah, I mean, we’re doing what we can. It threw us off when you didn’t show for the first week.”

Yarvis let out a whistling sigh. “And I’m sorry about that. There’s only two of us for hundreds of families.”

Cassie leaned forward. “Two social workers? For a hospital that big?”

At Yarvis’s surprised face, Cassie tensed. She checked herself. She put her hand back in mine.

Yarvis continued, “Resources are scant. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m on your side. Veterans need to be made a bigger priority. There are serious mental and physical health repercussions for entire generations if they don’t get the help they need.” He leaned in for emphasis. “But you all have to at least try.”