“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Mom and me.”
“Since when are you and Mom a ‘we’?”
Kitty’s expression darkened. “It’s a fragile, don’t-ask-don’t-tell truce.”
I frowned. How was that possible?
“Never underestimate Linda’s ability to compartmentalize,” Kit said. “Or mine, either.”
“So you’re not talking about anything?”
“Nothing but you.”
“Okay.”
“She hates everything about how I look, though.”
“Of course she does.”
“Especially the tattoos.”
I gave Kit a look. Of course she does.
“It was her idea, actually. This whole thing.”
“What whole thing?”
Kit pretended to blow a trumpet. “Announcing the greatest birthday news ever!” she announced. “We are giving you a night out.”
“A night out?”
Kit dropped her voice back to normal. “Mom thought you might like to have spaghetti and cake at home.”
Our traditional birthday dinner. Spaghetti and cake. The thought of it made me sad. “I don’t want to go home.”
“I know.” Kitty looked pleased with herself. “I told her that! And Dad backed me up.”
“I don’t have to go to Mom’s?”
“No. Better.”
“Where?”
Kit did a little shimmy. “The lake.”
“The lake? Our lake?”
She clapped.
But it was no good. “I can’t go to the lake,” I said. It was my grandparents’ old fishing cabin. Rustic, to say the least. Hardly wheelchair accessible.
“You can! It’s all set up!”
“They’ll never let me out of here for that.”
“Mom got them to okay it. It’s all official. I was waiting to tell you until it was certain. We’ll spend Saturday night at the lake. Which means you will wake up on your birthday not in the hospital.”
“But…” I wasn’t sure what to think. Kit wanted me to be excited, but it just seemed like such a terrible, awful, exhausting idea.
“We figured it all out. Mom’s been down there all week, cleaning so it shines. Fresh sheets, dust-free: the works. Plus a ton of groceries to stock the kitchen.”
“Is Mom coming, too?”
“No! That’s just it! I said, ‘Mom, Margaret is a young person! She wants to spend her birthday with young people!’ And Dad backed me up.”
“So who am I spending it with?”
“Me!”
This sounded worse and worse. “Kit, you can’t take care of me. You can barely take care of yourself.”
“Rude. And untrue. And I can take care of you, because I talked your boyfriend into coming with us—and he’s going to do all the hard stuff.”
My boyfriend? “Who—Chip?” I hadn’t seen or heard from him—absolutely nothing—since the night we’d ended it. It was like he never existed.
Kit shook her head. “No. Your Scottish boyfriend.”
I put my hand over my mouth. “You didn’t.”
“I did!”
“You asked him?”
She nodded.
“And he said yes?”
“I might’ve implied I could accidentally kill you.”
I leaned back against the pillow. “No.”
“Anyway, that’s your real present. Now you can have forbidden sex with your secret love.” Then she frowned and leaned in to whisper, “Your vagina still works, right?”
I put my hand over my eyes. “No secret love. No forbidden sex. Come on, Kit!”
“You think I’m an amateur? You think I can’t read that sexual tension? Sexual tension is my primary language!”
“Kit, look at me. Look at my life.”
“So?”
“This is not junior high. I’m a month into a total shit-storm of utter devastation.”
“All the more reason to have a little fun.”
“I hate fun. I don’t even believe in fun anymore.”
“You do when you’re with Ian.”
“We are not doing this.”
“It’s all arranged. He’s taking a personal day and everything.”
“So me, you, and my physical therapist are going to the lake for my birthday?”
Kit nodded. “And Fat Benjamin, too. For a little forbidden sex of my own.”
“What about the Moustache?”
“We’re nonexclusive.”
I’d grown up spending long weekends and summers at this little fishing cottage, scampering around the yard, swimming for endless hours, only breaking for lunch and dinner, and exploring the lake in the rowboat. I’d spent my childhood there, never even imagining—of course—that I’d end up like this. The idea of facing any normal thing now, with my life so changed—even the grocery store or a movie theater—seemed heartbreaking. But a place so happy? A place so densely layered with memories of my other life? A place where the future had always been something to look forward to?
It broke my heart to even consider it.
And yet. It was all arranged. I did want to get out of here. I did love that lake. The cottage was only a hundred feet or so back from the shore, and when you woke, the first thing you saw was morning sunlight glittering on the water. I did want to see that. I longed to be someplace beautiful.
Kit went on, “We’re going to eat camp food and make s’mores.”
My stomach felt like it was filled with pebbles. I wanted to go exactly as much as I wanted not to go.
But I didn’t know how to refuse. It was happening. Plus, Kit wasn’t wrong: I did believe in fun when Ian was around.
*
IAN AND I had become quite the ninja rehab team since he’d become my tutor. I stayed motivated and focused, and Ian finally caught on to the notion that people do better when you encourage them. We worked every day in the gym, and then we worked again after dinner.
In fact, he was the only person I’d told about my morning toe-wiggling attempts, which had become quite a ritual for me. I never started a day without giving my toes a little pep talk and then trying to rev them up.
“What do you say to them?” he asked, when I told him about it.
“To my toes?”
He nodded. “In the pep talks.”
In the name of healthcare, I told the truth. “I say, ‘Come on, little guys. You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.’”
“What do they say back?”
I gave him a look. “They say, ‘Right back atcha, lady.’”
Some nights, I was tired, and he just hung out in the room with Kit and me, working my lower legs in a low-key way, with texture therapy, or stretching, or massage, and talking in a far more relaxed way than I ever saw in the gym. In the gym, with Myles never far off, Ian was always all business. He scowled less now, maybe, but he still scowled a lot.
But after-hours Ian was different.
First of all, he was jazzed about our activities. In the rehab gym, he had a going-through-the-motions vibe, but on his own, he was full of energy and surprises. When I wasn’t too tired, we went to the pool, where he had a whole array of inflatables to cheer the place up—surfboards and noodles and blow-up unicorns. Other times, he’d show up with an acupuncturist friend, and do acupuncture right there in my room while Kitty ate sesame chicken and looked on. Now and again, he brought a reflexologist who also dabbled in aromatherapy. Once, he had a chiropractor friend in tow—which was a little alarming because I did not want her even touching, must less adjusting, my back—but she just used a handheld ultrasound machine to stimulate my calves and feet.
Was it helping? Who knows? It wasn’t hurting.
The rehab gym was all work, but tutoring became play.
Some nights, we played Pop-A-Shot outside the rehab gym until bedtime. The first time we ever tried it, after I explained in detail how much I sucked at basketball, I beat Ian’s score by thirteen points. He wasn’t thrilled about that. After that, I beat him every time we played. I’d sit in front of the basket as Ian handed me basketballs, and I’d make swish after swish after swish until the timer went off. Then Ian would take a turn. Sometimes he made baskets, sometimes he didn’t. I’m sure he was fine at it. But, to everyone’s surprise, I was remarkable. I never missed. And this drove Ian crazy—especially since I had never even seen a Pop-A-Shot game before now.