“Clothes. I’d really appreciate something besides a hospital gown. It’s kind of hard to look good in one of these things.”
“I’ll bring you some clothes if the doctor says that’s okay. And Grandpa is bringing a bunch of stuff to you today, razor, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, that kind of stuff. He should be here before too long.”
“Sounds good.” I eyed her suspiciously, my gaze zeroing in on the diamond ring on her finger.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m just wondering how things are going with you? I’d like to hear some of what’s been going on in someone else’s life for a change. What’s up with Greg?”
She smiled sweetly. “Greg is amazing. Things have been going really well with him. Very well, actually.” She was glowing.
“And?” I prodded.
“Well, we were planning on getting married in August. We’ve picked a place in Greer that we thought would be nice for the ceremony. But now that you are back with us, I think we’ll postpone things until you can participate with us.”
“Have you talked to me about this before?” I asked, even though I already knew what the answer would be.
She nodded. “Yes, Greg and I both came to sit with you. He’s even come to visit you alone.”
“I’m excited for you, Mom. He seems like a great guy and you look really happy.”
“I am really happy, now that you’re awake.” Squeezing my hand tighter, her eyes watered. “I’ve missed you so badly, son. I thought I was going to lose you just like your dad. I didn’t know if I could bear that.”
“I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
A small smile creased her mouth. “Good, I’m glad.” Glancing toward the clock, she sighed. “I guess I’ll go out and see if I can find out when the doctor will be in. If it’s going to be a little while, then I’ll go get your new phone. Your old one didn’t survive the accident, I’m afraid.”
“Where’d my truck end up?” I asked, hating that the gift from my Dad had been destroyed.
“One of the local junk yards took it. There’s no hope of reviving it, I promise you that.”
“Yeah, Nikki told me it was messed up bad.”
“We’ll get you healed and then see what we can do about getting you something else to drive.” Standing, she bent to kiss me, again, and started for the door.
“Hey, Mom?” I called after her and she turned to glance at me. “Is Turk still alive?”
She smiled and nodded. “He is; only he’s been fishnapped by your grandpa. He was determined to make sure he survived to be there when you came home. Grandpa never gave up hope.”
That almost made me teary. I loved that he took care of my fish. “I’d like to have him brought here, if that’s okay. I don’t know what the rules are in this place.”
“I’ll find out,” she replied. “Did you know you’re in the same facility as Nikki’s grandma?”
“Really?” I glanced around at the room again, suddenly seeing the similarities. “I didn’t know, but I’d like to go see her sometime.”
“I think she’d like that, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Several doctors had been called in to consult on my case. They were calling my recovery a miracle. After being put through a myriad of tests and exams, I was pronounced to be in relatively good health, as least as far as my brain was concerned. I’d been given the okay to start physical therapy and begin rebuilding my body.
Standing with the help of Grandpa, my hands gripping the sink for support, I stared into the mirror shocked, finding it hard to believe that this was considered anywhere in the realm of healthy. I barely recognized the face that stared back at me. My cheeks were hollowed out, my eyes sunken with dark circles beneath them. The rest of my body was looking pretty bad, too. I’d heard the term skin and bones before, but now I was living it.
“I need lots of Grandma’s fried chicken. Like yesterday,” I said.
Grandpa chuckled. “I think your doctor might have an issue with that. They want to keep you on these light, soft foods they’ve been giving you, while your system gets reintroduced to eating.”
“Smuggle the chicken in then. I’ll eat it on the sly. No one will be any the wiser.” Even though he was helping to hold me up, I was shaking like a newborn baby under the strain.
“I see you’re still as impatient as ever. Come on, let’s sit you back in your wheelchair before you fall.”
I didn’t argue. Between the shower and this, I was exhausted—even though I’d been sitting down for the shower while he did most of the washing. It was insane. The thought of running down a football field seemed like something I’d never achieve again, at this point. At least I’d been allowed to put on one of my own t-shirts and a pair of basketball shorts today. That did wonders toward making me feel a little more like myself. Hospital gowns were simply not my style.
“Do you feel up to trying to shave your face this time, or do you want me to go ahead and do it for you?”
Glancing down at my trembling hands, I determined my answer immediately. “As much as I’d like to say I can do it, Grandpa, I’m afraid I’d cut my own throat.”
“Don’t feel bad, son. It’s going to take some time for you to get back anywhere close to where you were before all of this. You basically have to retrain all your muscles to do everything they used to do. It’s not going to be an easy road. As a corpsman in the Marines, I saw a lot of cases like this, though some were not near as lucky as you are. Those brave men worked so hard, trying to reclaim parts of themselves that used to come naturally.”
“Did they succeed?”
He draped a towel around my shoulder before shooting a large amount of shaving cream in his palm and applying it to my face. “Many of them did, but there were some who couldn’t handle the strain either. Some even committed suicide.” He began shaving my face with a straight blade like they used in a barbershop. I’d have definitely slit my throat if I tried to use that thing.
He continued speaking. “I’m not telling you these things to scare you. I just want you to be prepared for the reality of the situation. This may be the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your life.”
I didn’t reply, since I didn’t want to get cut, but I disagreed. Losing Nikki had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life. True, I hadn’t really lost her, but those memories, the version of the story in my mind, would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Even now, this many days later, I still had to pinch myself every time she walked into the room. I loved seeing her, touching her, everything about her. The only thing I hadn’t loved was the fact that she seemed to be holding back from me. I was positive that she was simply worried about me, trying to handle me carefully, but it was driving me crazy. I wanted to be able to sweep her off her feet and carry her out of this place. I wanted to hold and kiss her like I used to.
“All done,” Grandpa said, wiping my face with the towel before helping me stand at the sink so I could wash some of the residue away.
Staring into the mirror once more, I wasn’t sure if I liked the whiskers gone. My face looked even skinnier than it had before. Carefully, I sank down into the chair. “Think we can do anything about this mop on my head? I look like a hippie, my hair is so long.”
“Well, a good buzz cut is about all I can do. Do you want that, or do you want someone else to give you something different?”
“I think I’ll wait. Not that I don’t mind a buzz cut, but I think it’ll make me look even thinner. I’m already having a hard enough time recognizing myself.”
Nodding, he wheeled me back out into my room and I noticed my bed had been remade fresh and clean in my absence and someone had also hung the bar contraption over the top.
“This bed they have you in is special,” Grandpa said, as he helped me back into it. “I don’t know if they told you about it, but it’s made to roll you and shift you around. It prevented you from lying in one spot too long and ge
tting bedsores.”
“Who even thinks of all this stuff?” I asked. There were all sorts of medical terms and equipment I’d never heard of before that had been introduced to me in the last few days.
“You know what they say, necessity is the mother of invention.” Pulling me up from the chair, he helped me get situated on the bed once more. “You want the covers over you?”
I shook my head. “Not right now. I just want to sit here and . . . breathe.” He patted my hand and sat down in the chair next to me. “Thanks for bringing Turk,” I added, glancing over to where the fish was now stationed on the table near my bed.
“It was my pleasure.” He smiled softly, a kind of reflective smile that I didn’t see on him often. “Sorry I didn’t get him here earlier. There were a few things needing my attention at the ranch.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, just some broken pipes in the irrigation line. Nothing too horrible, I just needed to get it taken care of so we wouldn’t lose any crops in those areas.” His eyes drifted to where Turk was swimming around in his bowl and chuckled. “I swear even that fish is glad to see you. He’s not been this active while I’ve had him.”
Laughing slightly, I watched. “Turk’s my bro. And before you ask, no, this is not the head injury talking. I just like the fish.”
Grandpa smiled. “I know. I’ve been waiting for the day that you’d tell me you wanted him.” Despite his tough, military exterior, I still saw the moisture that crept into his eyes.
“Mom told me you were the only one who never gave up on me.”
He nodded, swallowing hard. “It’s not right for a Granddad to lose his grandson before going himself. It goes against nature, if you ask me. I’ve seen too many young people taken before their time. There was no way I was letting you slip away too. This family has had enough heartache already.”
The room fell silent between us as I carefully pondered my next words to him. Emotion welled up suddenly in my throat and I found it hard to speak, having to force myself to push through it. “When are you going to tell the rest of the family that you’re dying?”
His gaze snapped sharply to mine and I was surprised to see a moment of fear flash through them. I’d never seen fear in my grandpa’s eyes, and it was a bit unnerving. He rubbed his forehead briefly before dropping his hand into his lap. “You heard me.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m guessing I heard a lot of things. While I can’t explain every single second that happened in my life while I was asleep, I’m finding that a lot of the big things have correlated, in some way, to reality.” He didn’t say anything, his lips pursed together in a flat line. It was easy to see he was displeased with the shift in conversation. “In my world, you died from brain cancer after not letting any of us know. One day you were there, and the next you weren’t. I have to say, that sounds kind of cowardly for the tough grandpa I always knew.”
“I’m not being cowardly. I’m trying to protect the ones I love,” he retorted sharply, before rubbing his hand over his mouth.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not protecting us. How would you feel if one of us was sick and we didn’t tell you? We’re your family and we deserve to make our last memories with you special, with no regrets left behind. We deserve the chance to tell you goodbye properly.”
Grandpa sat quietly, unspeaking, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about what I’d said to him. There was no way I was going to keep this a secret from everyone else.
After several long moments, I spoke again. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you, or bulldoze you over; but if you won’t tell them, I will. I just spent what I thought was years of my life mourning the people I thought I’d lost. I never got to tell my dad, Nikki—even you—goodbye; and I’m sorry, but it sucks. I can’t, in good conscience, put someone else through that horror. And that’s what it is—horror. You think you’re protecting people, but you’re not giving anyone time to prepare.”
Glancing up, he made a sound that was something between a snort and a wry chuckle. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea how much. Let people help you. You’ve taken care of us all this time, let us return the favor.”
Narrowing his eyes, he stared at me. “What happened in that dream of yours? You seem . . . I don’t know, different. Maybe stronger is a better word choice.”
Leaning my head back against my pillow, I stared at the ceiling. I’d been thinking nonstop about all this stuff since I’d awakened. “I learned that nothing is more important than the people you love, and that life is way too short to sit around and wait for something to happen to you. You’ve got to make those things happen. I learned that sometimes, when life seems so bleak that you can’t stand to face it, there is still a door to happiness and second chance, somewhere.
“I’m not going to waste my time doing trivial things. I’ve been given a chance I never thought I’d have—the chance to live the life I really wanted, over again. You’re part of that life and I want to spend the time I have left with you doing things we both love—together. I think everyone else who loves you should get the same opportunity.”
He sighed, heavily. “I guess I never thought of things from the perspective of others, but I see your point. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to your mom and Grandma.”
Even though he’d chosen to see my side of things, I still didn’t feel much better. “Have you explored all your options?” I asked, my heart tightening at the thought of losing him.
Nodding, he stared at me. “Traditional medicine has nothing to offer. I’ve talked to a naturopathic center that has had good results with cancer treatment. They said they didn’t know if I could be cured, but they thought they could help to treat it and perhaps extend my time of living. It’s not covered by insurance, though. I’d have to put the ranch up as collateral. I don’t want to do that because I want to make sure it’s here as an income source for the family. I’m leaving half to Caroline, and I changed my will so half will be left to you.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. “I don’t want the damn ranch, Grandpa. I want to spend all the time I can with you. If I have to spend every dime on this planet just to have you live a week longer, it will be worth it. Do the treatment. Let’s hope for the miracle.”
Staring at me, he smiled softly and tears leaked over the rims of his eyes, trailing down his cheeks. “Chase, I already got the miracle I’ve been praying for. I got you back.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Grandpa didn’t leave after our extremely emotional talk. He was still around when I turned on the television and began flipping through some of the sports channels. He seemed content to just sit beside me and watch too, which made me feel good.
A commercial popped on advertising a NFL collector’s edition football highlight video and it made me think about my team I’d been playing with when the accident happened. “So, what happened with the football team after my accident?” I asked, suddenly realizing I didn’t actually know. “Did they make it to State?”
“They struggled pretty bad without you in the beginning. It was really emotional for a lot of the guys after what had happened to you. Then they had to find their groove with Chad, your replacement, which caused some hot tempered moments here and there, but eventually they started clicking again.” He glanced over at me. “They had arm bands made with your number, 23, on them and wore them the rest of the season.”
“Seriously?” I laughed, feeling surprised and slightly overwhelmed. I never thought these guys would do something like that for me.
Grandpa nodded. “Yep. Coach Hardin got you a hat and one of the State Championship rings. I have them for you at the house.”
“Really? He brought me that stuff? Why? I didn’t even play in the rest of the games.”
“You were just as much a part of the team as any of the others, Chase. You may not have finished the season, but you’re the one who got them off to a good start. You work
ed hard and you deserved it.”
Raising a shaky hand, I brushed my hair away from my eyes, feeling the scar that now marked me there. “I’m sorry I missed it—and the rest of my senior year, for that matter. I’ll be too old to play next season, even if I do go back to finish school. Of course, with my knee the way it is, I probably wouldn’t be able to, anyway.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Have the doctors or anyone talked to you about sports?” he asked, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
“No. Why? Is my knee too messed up to play anymore?” That wouldn’t be a surprise to me at all, if my dream was any indication.
Pausing, he appeared to be measuring his words carefully before he finally spoke. “I think they feel it will heal okay, but that’s not what they’re worried about.”
“What’s wrong then?” A sense of dread started to pool inside me, what else didn’t I know?
“With a head injury the magnitude of what you sustained, the doctors have said you need to stay away from contact sports, or there is a risk of reinjuring your brain and ending up with permanent damage.”
“For how long?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing. I’d never even considered this. I mean, I was awake now and had passed all the tests they’d done on me—didn’t that mean I was healed?
Leaning forward, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want you to worry about this right now. You have other things you need to be concentrating on. More important things.”
“How long?” I demanded to know the answer.
He paused, sighing heavily, before he shook his head. “For the rest of your life, I’m afraid.”
The air whooshed from my lungs and I leaned my head back against the pillow. I stared at the ceiling, realizing I must’ve known some of this already. I’d been living with something similar in my mind. But that still didn’t make things hurt any less. My reality in both worlds was clear. I was losing football—sports period, in this case. My athletic career was over—permanently. There was no coming back from this.