At least I could breathe again.
“You fucking hear me?” he screeched again.
“I hear you!” I replied quickly and louder than I meant to. “Just…just leave her alone, all right?”
I glanced to my left and saw his slow, calculated smile.
“Now you're seeing some reason,” he said. His hand went back to the steering wheel. “Next, your new PT is Steven Chase. He's very innovative with his ideas, and he's achieved some fantastic results. He's going to work you hard, and you're going to start making some real progress.”
“I thought I was making progress,” I countered.
“Bullshit. You still can't even move your legs reliably. You should be. He's going to fix that.”
I honestly didn't know what else could be done, considering the hell Danielle had been putting me through over the past weeks. Though he hadn’t said much about Steven Chase, something about his words made me nervous. I had the feeling I was going to miss Danielle.
“I don't want to hear any bitching or complaining from you, either,” Dad said. “You're going to work your ass off, and if you aren't making progress, you're going to answer to me. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said softly.
“You just need a little more encouragement,” Dad said after a few more minutes of silence. We had just reached the stretch of road right before our house. “I've got everything set up for you in the guest room next to my study. Everything is on the first floor, so you can get to the kitchen and whatever. Steven is going to set up equipment right there in the living room. It will be a lot better than being at that place.”
I wasn't sure if I agreed or not, but I nodded anyway.
I was still trying to cope with the idea of not being able to see Nicole. I wondered how in the hell I was even going to tell her what had happened. Dad ran his hand through his hair and then turned into our long driveway, expertly maneuvering through the tree-lined, hilly course.
“You know I'm just trying to do what's best for you,” he said. His voice had gone back to calm and smooth again. “You want to get better as quickly as possible, don't you?”
“Sure,” I said meekly.
“That's my boy! I knew you wouldn't be shut down by this shit. You're going to be fine.”
He parked next to the house and brought a wheelchair out of the garage for me. It was nicer than the one at the rehab center; I had to give him that. It was a little easier to get from the car to the chair, but I was already so worn out by the time I had myself in it, I could barely move my arms enough to spin the wheels. The yard was muddy, and after the second time I got stuck, I couldn't get myself back out. Dad screamed at me a bit but ended up pushing me the rest of the way around the house and in through the mudroom off the back of the garage.
I barely looked at the guest room—completely outfitted with a hospital bed—before hauling myself onto the mattress and passing out.
I think Dad might have still been yelling.
Shakespeare once said “None can be called deformed but the unkind.” Somehow, I didn't think Dad saw himself that way.
Now I had the feeling I was going to consider the last two months easy.
CHAPTER 28
FINAL MINUTES
Since the day Mom died, Dad had been more than one person.
I mean, he’d always assumed many roles in his play of life—even before she was gone—they just got more dynamically opposed later. The most prominent one just kind of lived his life, encouraged me to play ball, and went to work and shit—that was the one who was around more often than not. There was Mayor Malone, who was very suave and convinced everyone to vote for him—he mostly came out just at election time and during public functions. And then there was the guy who just…couldn’t cope with what had happened.
The last one—that was the one who could be brutal. He’d yell and scream mostly, and sometimes he would lash out at me because I was the one who made him the way he was. He was usually only around for short periods of time, and then he’d go away for a while until some stress trigger brought him back out again.
But now…now something was different.
The way Dad was acting now was mostly like that guy, but there was something else in there—something unfamiliar. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. I started noticing it at the hospital and the rehab center first, when he lost his cool in front of the other people there.
It was almost as if the brutal one had somehow increased his ruthlessness and maybe, just maybe, went a little off the deep end. The first full day I was home, that was most apparent.
When I woke up in the morning, my first thought was what am I doing in the guest room? Waking up always seemed to bring confusion, but disappeared quickly, and I was reminded that I was crippled in the same way a breadknife reminds the loaf that it’s the greatest thing since itself.