As he pondered it all, a knock came on his door, and a tall stranger walked in. Keith looked up with a nod and said, “Good morning.”
The man walked forward, reached out a hand, and said, “I’m Iain.”
He stared at him in surprise. “Robin didn’t tell me that you were coming.”
“I didn’t tell her,” he said easily. “I know she’s worried about your reaction to me.”
Keith smiled and shook his head. “Robin has always been a force unto herself. She will do whatever she thinks is right, but, at the same time, she’ll worry in the background.”
Iain grinned. “Isn’t that the truth?” He looked at Keith. “I didn’t know what time was good to catch you.”
“Right now isn’t bad,” Keith said. “I just came back from getting coffee, and it’s not quite breakfast time yet. You’re here pretty early, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he said. “I came to do a bit of carpentry work downstairs at the vet clinic for Robin and Stan.”
“Good. It’s got to feel pretty decent to be in a position where you can do that now.” He frowned as he noted the huge envelope Iain held up now.
“I brought these for you,” he said. “Not that you’ll care necessarily, but I thought I’d give it a try.”
Keith pulled some pictures out. The first was of Iain when he’d arrived. Keith recognized a lot of similar things in the photo of Iain as compared to Keith’s own photos, but the most profound element was the look on Iain’s face. Like Robin had told Keith, Iain had been here—depressed, down, almost surly, and looking at the world as if nothing would ever change. Keith barely even commented on Iain’s physical body. “Man, that face,” Keith said. “I so recognize that look.”
“Right,” Iain said. “I was such an idiot for the way I traveled here.” He shook his head as he stared down at the man that he had been. “I was in such a narrow mind-set, and I couldn’t see beyond it. We get locked up with all our pain, our depression, and our emotions that are just not quite clear, and it’s painful to look back on it now.”
As Iain reached for another photo, Keith was still struck by the fact that the man standing before him was the complete antithesis of the man in the first photo. Keith didn’t even really need to see the next photo, but, when he did, he saw not just the pride on Iain’s face but also the muscle growth, the development, the calming down of some of the angry muscle tissue, the vibrancy of his spirit. Keith looked up at the man in front of him. “I can see why you hang on to these photos.”
“Nobody ever believes me,” Iain said, pulling up a chair with a grin. With a single hand, he flipped it around and sat down casually, a man who was once again in control of his body.
“I’m not there yet,” Keith said boldly.
“You haven’t been here long enough,” Iain said. “You’ll need months, depending on the damage. Sometimes the surgeries are the easiest, but it’s the muscle rebuilding that takes the longest.”
“That’s what I’m finding,” Keith said with a wince. “Just when you think you get progress, you also have a setback.”
Iain’s booming laughter rang across the room. “It can, indeed. Of all the stages of life I’m glad to have over with, it was leaving here. Don’t get me wrong. This is the best place to be for rehab, for recovery, for success. And I owe everything to my time here. It gave me a life back. Some of the staff are really tough, and they make you work but, when they do, wow.”
“Are you talking about Shane by any chance?” Keith asked with a smirk.
“Oh, yeah. I’ve screamed at him and cried with him. You know when you get to that breaking point, and there’s nothing else left? Shane would say that’s when the real Iain showed up.”
“Yes, I’ve been there,” Keith said. “It hasn’t been as dramatic as yours, but I’ve certainly been in a position where I could see that I had to work harder, be more, and do something to show the improvements, and I’m almost there now.”
Iain looked at him and smiled a knowing smile. “You’re not even close,” he said. “I remember this stage. It was about halfway through.” He pointed to his legs. “It’s so much farther than you ever thought you’d get, so you think it’s good. It’s good enough. You think that maybe you can live with this because you’re afraid to hope for more.
“But I’m here to tell you that there is so much more, and you have to give them a chance to give it to you. I’ve seen guys walk away early because they couldn’t stand being away from their families so long. And sure, their rehab could continue at another place, but it’s not the same. Every day you get here is a gift. You need to make as much use of it as you can, and, when you’re lucky enough to get the full benefit, you end up with something like I did.” He smiled. “Every day I wake up and bounce out of bed, grateful that my body works again.”
“I can see that,” Keith said, and he could, but Iain was so far advanced from where Keith was that it was hard to see himself there.
Iain smiled, nodded, and said, “Listen. I know what you’re thinking because I felt it too. I saw other people, who were way ahead of me, and I knew it couldn’t possibly be the same for me. But I was wrong, very wrong, and so are you. Even if you’re upset and worried right now, just know that you have a lot of room for more progress, and it’s worth every bead of sweat.” Then he grinned. “And, by the way, I’m going to marry your sister,” he said. “Some would say I should be asking for your permission, but, since I’m not doing that, no matter how you feel, asking seemed insincere.”
The change in conversation caught Keith off guard. He looked at Iain, smiled slowly, and said, “Well, I’m really glad to hear that,” he said, reaching out for a handshake, “because she is head over heels in love with you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Iain said with a gentle smile. “She’s unlike anybody I’ve ever met before. And a far cry from the kind of woman I used to go out with.”
“We’re different men now,” Keith said.
“Not only different,” he said, “but because of the real relationship it is, and the way it started here at Hathaway House, there’s no comparison. In this place, you see people in an honest way, at their worst in some cases, and that has to be dealt with first. It’s not like the supposed real world, where everybody has all these layers and layers of fakeness that you have to get through to find out who the person is on the inside. Here, fake doesn’t work. Here, it is what it is, and you have to deal with it. The good news is that, by the time you survive the first stages of a transparent relationship, you have something that’s solid, and it can go the distance.”
“I hear you there,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about those issues myself.”
Iain looked at him, his lips quirking. “Have you met someone?”
Keith flushed. “I have,” he said, “and believe me. Nobody was more surprised than I was.”
“I think that’s a standard response for those of us lucky enough to have it happen,” he said. “I don’t even understand it myself. Robin could have anybody, so why someone all busted up like me? Now that also gave me the impetus to work a little bit harder, to make sure that I came to her as physically sound as I could possibly be. The reality is that, because of all the surgeries and the injuries, things could get a little uglier down the road, but she says she’s fully prepared for that. I don’t know that I am though,” he admitted honestly. “But it is what it is, and, having met Robin, I’m no longer prepared to be alone, and I’m not afraid anymore to commit to me and to her.”