She read them off from the information in front of her.
“If you say so. I don’t know what the names are, but, if they’re almost done too, it won’t matter unless they are antidepressants.” He shrugged. “Like you said, I don’t take them,” he said, his tone hardening. “I think my body has been through enough. I don’t need more chemical inducements to interfere with what should be a natural process.”
“And what is that natural process?”
“Adjustment,” he said instantly.
“Adjustment of what?”
“My life. My physical body. The fact that maybe, if I’m lucky, there will be no more surgeries. The fact that I’m here. The fact that I’m spending time with my sister for the first time in ten years. The fact that—” He shook his head.
“Go on,” she said gently.
He glared at her.
She smiled. “Whenever you’re ready.”
He stared down at his fingers. Even his pinky finger had needed surgery to straighten up the bones.
“Just adjustments,” he said quietly. “From what was before, to what was, to what I’ve just completed, to whatever it is that’s now.”
“And then there is whatever comes after this,” she said.
He raised his head and looked at her thoughtfully. “It’s hard for me to see that far out. For the longest time all I saw was surgery upon surgery upon surgery. Now I’m here, and I understand that this is recovery.” He stared out the window. “But I don’t know what I’m recovering to.”
“Does it matter?”
“It should matter,” he said, his voice dropping even further. “Going through all these surgeries and physical adjustments, so much pain, where I’m heading to really should matter.”
“So why doesn’t it?”
He stared down at his hands again, wondering at her line of questioning.
“If it should matter and it doesn’t, why not?” she persisted.
“I think because I can’t see it,” he said, slowly raising his gaze to study her.
She had a dark blue gaze that saw way too much. But then she saw everybody who was already here, and, as such, she had seen way too much of other people’s ailments, and he was just one more. “I’m surrounded by other people struggling to deal with their health,” he said. “It just seems like so much more of the same.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he said, “I don’t see any progress. I don’t see anybody dancing around the hallways. I don’t see what was for somebody who’s now doing much better.” The words had just burst free of his chest.
She stared at him in surprise, then nodded ever-so-slightly. “That’s a really interesting point,” she said. “Of course I see the progress in many people, but then I saw them when they initially got here. I’ve also said goodbye to an awful lot of people who have been here and have improved to the point that they have gone on to completely normal lives. But, of course, you, as a patient, only see the other patients as they are today.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Though you talk about all these people who have improved so much, I don’t see them. They aren’t here for me to see that kind of change. I don’t have any friends here. I don’t have anybody who was in terrible shape before and now is looking so much better. So, for me, it’s just all these nebulous possibilities that you guys keep talking about. And honestly? I don’t know if I sincerely believe it, or if you’re just plain lying.”
“Do people lie to you much?”
“People lie all the time,” he said flatly.
“Doctors?”
He nodded. “Absolutely doctors. Sure, they need to do one more surgery. They need to do this. They need to do that, and yes, of course, it all went well. But the funny thing is, I still can’t do very much at the end of the day.”
“Which is why there are no more surgeries, I presume?”
“Actually, the doctor said he’d done the best he could at this point.”
“Good,” she said. “Now you can walk away from that stage of your life and move right into this one.”
“Which is why this is the one that I see,” he said. “I don’t have a clue about what comes after this.”
“And that brings us right around to the same conversation,” she nodded. “And, if I were to introduce you to some guys who have shown remarkable progress here, would you believe them? Or would you think that we lied to you again?”
“But I wouldn’t have been the one to see them when they arrived,” he said flatly. “So any change is change that other people say has happened and not what I’ve seen for myself.”
“You have a black-and-white viewpoint, where you need to see everything for yourself, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I guess,” he said. “At this point in time anyway. People are always talking about how much better everything will get, but I haven’t seen it at any stage of the game. So now it’s really hard for me to believe anybody.”
“Why did you come to Hathaway House?”
He stared at her for a long moment until she nudged him again.
“I presume that you wanted to come. The fact that you’re here should mean that you applied and went through the effort to come here because it was your choice.”
“I came because of my sister,” he said.
“Ouch,” she said. “There’s a huge waiting list for all the beds here, so please don’t tell the other patients that.”
He looked at her for a long moment and said, “Maybe somebody else should have my bed,” he said, “because I sure don’t know if I’m the right guy to be here.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I’ve been through a lot in the name of progress and haven’t seen any happening. So it’s hard for me to imagine it’s even possible. So I probably should just go back to the same VA place I was at before and let somebody else make good use of being here. I don’t think I’m the right person at all.” And, with that, he spun his wheelchair and headed out of the room.
Chapter 6
Just enough of an insider grapevine existed in a place like this that Ilse had heard about the bit of a disruption in Keith’s world once he’d had the psych visit. But then she could understand why he wouldn’t want anybody questioning what he said or saw or thought or felt. She just happened to be walking down the hallway to Dani’s office, when she heard the sound of a wheelchair moving rapidly behind her. As she pivoted, she saw Keith turn into his room and slam the door behind him. Hard. She winced at that.
As she got to Dani’s office, she was happy to find her in and not in a meeting.
Dani motioned to the chair across the desk, as she was on the phone. She quickly finished the call. “Problems?”
“Nope,” Ilse said. “Just bringing up the budget and supply invoices for the last month.” She handed them to Dani, who took a quick look.
“You always seem to be on target.”
“That’s the job,” she said with a laugh. “You wouldn’t like it if I came in saying I needed an extra fifteen hundred dollars this month.”