my weight to find a spot that didn’t punish my back. “When I had my contractor rearrange the sinks and remove the bathtub to make the shower extra large, I never thought I would use it for this.” I glanced down at my lap.
“This isn’t forever, Caleb.” She sprayed my arms and chest, wetting my hair last. “Some of the patients I cared for after the bombing lost limbs. One was paralyzed from the waist down. You’re one of the lucky ones.”
“Lucky?” I huffed, almost laughing. “Nothing about this is lucky. It’s fucking hell.”
“It’s going to get better, I promise.” She squirted shampoo on her hand, massaging my scalp before lathering up a washcloth. She started at my neck, rubbing up and down, and moved on to my shoulders. “Lean forward just a tiny bit for me.”
The tightness instantly hit, the stinging triggered next. I stabbed my fingers into the armrests, trying to breathe through it.
“I’m going to take off your bandages and clean your incision.” She held my skin, so the tape wouldn’t pull, removing each side. “It looks fantastic.” She gently pressed the cloth against the area. “No sign of infection. You’re healing perfectly.” She continued to cleanse it. “Would you like me to get a mirror, so you can see?”
“No.”
Her motions halted. “Have you seen your incision?”
I shook my head. “And I don’t plan to.”
“Why not? There’s nothing scary about it.”
My frustration erupted. “Because this fucking wheelchair and the walker I have to use and this relentless pain are reminders enough. I don’t need to see the scar too.”
She came around to the front, bending so our faces were level. “It’s a part of you now. A sign that you withstood a bombing and a ten-hour surgery, and you came out the other side as a hero who had survived something so incredibly tragic.”
“And what did it leave me with? Half the man I was and living with agony until I die. That’s not a hero, Whitney; that’s a handicap.” The emotion was in my hands and throat. “Maybe one day, I’ll face it. Right now, I can’t even stomach it.”
She scrubbed my legs, dragging the cloth to my feet. “I wish you saw yourself the way I do.” She cleaned my arms and handed me the rag. “I wish you could see how far you’ve already come.”
Hope and courage stared back from this beautiful woman’s eyes.
But it didn’t reach me. Inside, I felt nothing. Not even a sense of pleasure when she had been bathing me.
“I’m going to leave. I’ll be back in a minute to wash you off.”
I stared at the sudsy cloth in my hand and wanted to throw it against the goddamn glass, shouting that I needed to get out of this body that I was now trapped in. But that would only cause her to come running back into the bathroom, and I’d be envious that she could move that fast and freely, and then she would have to pick up the washcloth since I was unable to do it myself.
Instead, I washed my balls and anticipated her return, so I could get hosed down and be put back in my cage, like the fucking prisoner I’d become.
Eight
Whitney and I had just finished dinner, and while she cleaned up, I was reading The Boston Globe on my tablet, articles about the bombing still monopolizing the first several pages. No matter how hard I tried to take my mind off the incident and what it had left me with, I couldn’t. The bombing was everywhere I looked.
But it wasn’t on Whitney’s face as I glanced up from the screen, watching her walk in and take a seat on the chair next to me.
“How’s the pain tonight?”
“Steady.”
She’d worn her hair in a braid since my shower, the long tail hanging over her shoulder. She was playing with the ends when she asked, “Do you want to do some exercises before I leave for the night?”
Something had been weighing on me since she had agreed to take this job. Now that she’d seen one of my most vulnerable moments, the timing felt right to bring it up.
“I want to ask you something first.” I studied her face as I spoke, taking in each reaction. “In the note you left me in the hospital, you mentioned that I had saved you. What did you mean by that?”
She sighed. “Oh boy, we’re going in deep.”
“We don’t have to if it’s too much.”
She broke off one of the