She didn’t want to think about the Henry-shaped hole that would be left in her life without him in it. He had brought so much laughter and joy these past few years.
She loved being with him, no matter what they did. Taking a walk on the beach with his dog leading the way. Working in her garden together. The quiet, simple winter evenings when she would pop a batch of popcorn and they would watch a movie with the kids.
Otis scampered over and put his front legs up on the recliner, holding his furry little face close to her. He was so very gentle around her, careful not to nudge her or wander across her path when she was using the walker or the crutches, as if he knew she was fragile right now and needed only love and support from him.
Why couldn’t Henry take a lesson from the dog? She sighed.
“Do you need to go out?”
Otis gave her a look she clearly interpreted as an affirmative answer. Taking him out had become her biggest exercise during the day, the one time she made a concerted effort to use the crutches. He was trained to use a puppy pad but seemed to like a certain patch of grass in one corner of her yard.
It was good for her to have to move, even when it was hard. All the literature Dr. Adeno gave her said she should change positions at least every forty-five minutes.
She carefully went through the ordeal of standing up with the walker, then laboriously headed through the kitchen to the back door. As slowly as she moved, it was a good thing the dog seemed to have a patient bladder or there would be accidents throughout the house.
The pain had eased over the past week. It was always there but more like a dull throb than the piercing agony of the previous week.
She had become good at ignoring it and she was more grateful than she could say that she had spent the past four years since her diagnosis building muscle tone. If not for that, she feared she would have suffered a far more debilitating injury.
Otis was eager to go out, dancing around in front of the door.
“Give me a minute,” she told him. With the crutches under her arms, she reached to open the door and he was out into the fenced backyard in a flash.
The words of the PT seemed to ring in her ear, that the harder she pushed herself, the sooner she would be able to return to her life.
She wanted to be back at work. She missed the garden center so much, she ached. The doctor had said maybe if she felt strong enough, she could return to part-time work after another week or so. With that in mind, she pushed herself to walk back from the kitchen at the rear of the cottage all the way to the front door. Still feeling good, she opened the front door, thinking she would sit out on the porch to rest for a moment before she had to go let the dog back in.
Outside, the afternoon was glorious, with high puffy clouds in an otherwise spectacularly blue sky. She breathed in the sea air and listened to the gulls wheeling and diving, then began to make her way to one of the porch chairs.
She made it to the chair, then started to shift her weight so she could back down into it. She knew in an instant something was wrong. One of the crutches caught on an all-weather area rug she had put out here and started to slide in the wrong direction.
Her balance was off. She didn’t know if it was the MS or the crutches or the hip injury. She only knew she was going down and wasn’t going to hit the chair.
She shifted at the last minute so her other hip took the brunt of the fall to the porch floor. Pain still smacked her hard, stealing her breath and bringing tears to her eyes. Shocked and dazed, she gave in to the tears and the pain as bruises that had begun to fade from her original fall off the ladder reminded her they were very much still there and still sore.
Gradually, she knew she was going to have to get up. She couldn’t lie here on the porch in a crumpled heap all afternoon. Especially