Page 57 of Love Always

I nod. “You need to stop, Chris. This,” and I wave to him, to the medical monitors and then out to the hall where his parents were sitting, “this can be left behind. But only you can do it.”

“That’s not what they told me at meeting. We can all support each other.”

He looks genuinely terrified.

Pausing for a moment, I think about my sister and take a deep breath. “You can tell yourself that and you can lean on friends and people who have been there before and they can relate to you and that can, and will, be helpful. But this is on you. You have to make this work. If you were my kid, I’d tie you to the bed and never let you outside.”

As I leave the ER, I push the visitor door open hard with my bad leg behind me and I nearly crash into the glass.

Shit. I should have kept my mouth shut. What did I know about him, his issues, his path to sobriety? I was the brother who wasn’t there, remember?

The drive down to Portland is too long. When I get back to my apartment, it seems smaller, emptier, tidy but soulless. The military cultivated a nascent OCD tendency for order, and my place is certainly in order. I go into the bathroom to remove the leg. For a moment I don’t see the other liner and then remember I still haven’t washed it. I drop my pants, slide the sleeve back down the shaft, remove the leg and then the liner.

The round end of Nubby has healed. I stand, balancing on my other leg and wash the liner, hanging it up to dry on a narrow towel rack. Then I take off my shirt, dump all my dirty clothes into the hamper and hop into my bedroom. The chin up bar is set into the door jamb. Reaching up I can feel the muscles in my back release as I just hang a moment, knees bent. Then I start my circuit.

Chin ups, free weights, pushups with weights, legs and glutes, and a modified weight pack for Nubby. An hour and a half later, slathered in sweat, my arms and legs hard, pumped, I stretch for another half hour and make my way to the shower.

It’s not until I’ve had take-out delivered in, and I’m in bed, that I let myself really think about Rose in other contexts. There. I said her name. Rose. Rose, laughing at a birthday party, on her pony, Ralph, wearing her Red Bat Halloween outfit she made when she was eight. Rolling over, I press my parents’ landline number in, the one we grew up with. It’s a little after nine, six California time, but there’s no answer.

The answering machine clicks on, the same one they’ve had forever. “Hello, you’ve reached Bob and Rosario Guiterrez and the G Ranch. We can’t take your call. Please leave a message after the beep.”

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. It’s me again. Just wanted to say I’m thinking of you. You know where to find me. Adios.”

My dreams are wild, stubborn, and leave me exhausted in the morning but I can’t remember a single one. I’m left with an over-arching sense of dread. I wonder if I died in one of them.

΅

I want to bike to work today. It’s warm, no breeze and the news guy on the radio says it may be the last day to commute on your bike. The trouble is, I need a leg to bike and a leg to walk. One day I want to get a blade so I can run—my healthcare only pays for one leg every three years, so like every other amputee, I’m screwed. They cost a fortune, ten to seventy thousand and you need one for each activity. Insurance companies need to wizen up. Exercise makes us healthier, and healthier is better for their bottom line. I’m luckier because I have health care through the military, but it’s still complicated to get extra legs.

I opt to drive. Good thing, too, because my phone lights up with a text from Finn with instructions to go talk to this Professor Cruz asshole and then head north. I call Bryce to tell him. He’s in a mood, having played guard all night outside Chris Proctor’s hospital room. The parents were still at their hotel, unwilling to leave town until they had a plan in place for their son.

I still opt for the tie-him-to-the-bed plan.

“Shit,” Bryce says when I inform him there will be no changing of the guard this morning.

“What about Jackson?”

“He’s out at the airport at a meeting with the luggage cart people. We need more staff up here.”

“Hang in there, boss. Jackson will relieve you as soon as he’s done.”

“I’ve got a shit load of paperwork to do,” says Bryce.

“Now you’re just whining.”

I can practically hear him grinning. “Fuck you.”

I get back to the job. “Finn’s text says Nic is going to meet up with me and we’ll do the questioning together. I haven’t worked with him before. What’s he like? Isn’t he in Boston?”

There’s silence on the other end for a moment. “That’s weird. Finn must have some intel on this teacher.”

“You mean more than the fact he passed an identical box to Laurel? That’s pretty damning.”

“That professor could have found it and the person’s name was on it.”

“Don’t think so.” This professor is dirty. I know it.

“Hey.”