Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

She arched one delicately pencilled eyebrow. ‘‘Have you picked out anybody special?’’

‘‘One will do as well as another. Protective camouflage, you know. It’s only for a few weeks, darling.’’ He turned the full force of his dazzling smile on her, and went out.

Eleanor stood for a moment looking after him. It was hard on Roger, of course. Still, she had her own future to think of. Her husband had offered her a divorce as soon as the doctors had told him the sports car smashup had left him paralyzed for life. Naturally she had refused. It wouldn’t have looked well, and besides, the settlement he’d offered was not her idea of adequate support.

No, she would have it all. She and Gerald. It was clever of Gerald to have found the way. She arranged her features in exactly the right expression of calm compassion and went to visit her husband.

Day by day she increased the length of time she spent in the sickroom. It was less tedious than she had anticipated. For one thing, Roger was so glad to have her there. She took to bringing him little surprises: some flowers, a few sun-warmed strawberries from the garden. She had the gramophone brought into his room and played the records they had danced to before they were married. Nurse Wilkes beamed. Marble the valet scowled distrustfully.

Eleanor found herself looking forward to her visits, planning the next day’s surprise, thinking of new ways to entertain the invalid. The weeks went by and Gerald began to fidget.

‘‘I say, don’t you think we ought to be getting on with it?’’

‘‘You said we mustn’t rush things.’’ And she went past him into Roger’s room, carrying a charming arrangement of varicolored roses she’d got up early to pick with the dew on them.

As had become her habit, she took up the book she was reading aloud to him and opened it to her book-mark. Her eye, now attuned to Roger’s every expression, caught a tightening of the muscles around his mouth. She put the book down.

‘‘You hate being read to, don’t you, Roger?’’

‘‘It’s just that it makes me feel so utterly helpless.’’

‘‘But you’re not. There’s nothing the matter with your eyes. From now on, you’ll read to yourself.’’

‘‘How can I? I can’t hold the book, I can’t turn the pages.’’

‘‘Of course you can. We’ll just sit you up, like this-’’ Eleanor slid one arm around her husband and pulled him up. ‘‘Nurse, let’s have that backrest thing. There, how’s that?’’

She plumped a pillow more comfortably. ‘‘Now we’ll prop the book up on the bed table, like this, and lift your arm, like this, and slip the page between your fingers so that you can hold it yourself.’’ A pinching between the right thumb and forefinger was the only movement Lord Patterly could make. ‘‘And when you’ve finished with that page, we just turn it over. Like this. See, you’ve managed it beautifully.’’

‘‘So I have.’’ He looked down at his hand as though it were something miraculous. ‘‘That’s the first thing I’ve done for myself since… it happened.’’

For the next half hour, Roger read to himself. Eleanor sat at his side, patiently moving his hand when he signalled that he was ready, helping to slide the next page into his grasp. She found the monotonous task strangely agreeable. For the first time in her life, she was being of use to somebody else. When Marble brought in the patient’s lunch and Nurse Wilkes came forward to feed it to him, she waved the woman away.

‘‘He’ll feed himself today, thank you, Nurse.’’

And he did, with Eleanor setting a spoon between his thumb and forefinger and guiding his hand to his mouth. When he dropped a morsel, they laughed and tried again. At last Lady Patterly left Nurse Wilkes clucking happily over a perfectly clean plate and went to get her own lunch. Gerald was waiting for her.

‘‘I’ve got it all figured out, darling,’’ he whispered as soon as they were alone. ‘‘I’ve been reading up on digitalis. The doctor’s been leaving it, I know, on account of that heart of his. All we have to do is slip him an extra dose and out he goes. Heart failure. Only to be expected in a helpless paralytic.’’

To her own surprise, Eleanor protested. ‘‘He is not helpless. He’s handicapped.’’

‘‘Rather a nice distinction in Roger’s case, don’t you think, sweet? Anyway, there we are. You’ve only to notice which is the digitalis bottle, watch your chance, and slip a tablespoonful into his hot milk, or whatever they give the poor bloke.’’

‘‘And what happens when Nurse Wilkes notices the level of the medicine’s gone down in the bottle? Not clever, Gerald.’’

‘‘Dash it, you can put in some water, can’t you?’’

‘‘I suppose so.’’ Eleanor pushed back her chair. ‘‘I’ll have to think about it.’’

‘‘Think fast, my love. I miss you.’’

Gerald gave her his best smile, but for some reason her heart failed to turn over as usual. She got up. ‘‘I’m going for a walk.’’

She started off aimlessly, then found herself heading toward the village. It was pleasant swinging along the grassy lane, feeling her legs respond to the spring of the turf under her feet. Roger had loved to walk. For the first time since the accident, Eleanor felt an overwhelming surge of genuine pity for her husband.

She turned in at the bookshop. It was mostly paper-backs and greeting cards these days, but she might find something Roger would enjoy now that she’d found a way for him to manage a book.

That was rather clever of me, she thought with satisfaction. She liked recalling the look on Roger’s face, the beaming approval of Nurse Wilkes, the unbelief in old Marble’s eyes as he watched His Lordship feeding himself. ‘‘There must be any number of things I could help him do,’’ she mused. ‘‘I wonder how one goes about them?’’

She went up to the elderly woman in charge. ‘‘Have you any books on working with handicapped people? Exercises, that sort of thing.’’

‘‘Physical therapy.’’ Miss Jenkins nodded wisely. ‘‘I do believe there was something in that last lot of paperbacks. Ah yes, here we are.’’

Eleanor rifled through the pages. ‘‘This seems to be the general idea. But don’t you have any that go into greater detail?’’

‘‘I could always order one for you, Lady Patterly.’’

‘‘Please do, then, as quickly as possible.’’

‘‘Of course. But-excuse me, Lady Patterly-we all understood His Lordship was quite helpless.’’

‘‘He is not!’’ Again Eleanor was startled by her own reaction. ‘‘He was sitting up in bed reading by himself this morning, and he ate his own lunch. You can’t call that helpless, can you?’’

‘‘Why… why no, indeed. Good gracious, I can hardly believe it. Nurse Wilkes said-’’

‘‘Nurse Wilkes says entirely too much,’’ snapped Eleanor. She would have a word with Nurse Wilkes.

She walked back slowly, studying the book page by page. It seemed simple enough. Manipulating the patient’s limbs, massage, no problem there. If only they had a heated swimming pool. But of course Roger wouldn’t be ready for that for ages yet. And by then she and Gerald… Gerald was getting a bit puffy about the jawline, she’d noticed it at lunch. Those big, beefy men were apt to go to flesh early. He ought to start exercising, too. No earthly good suggesting it to him. Gerald made rather a point of being the dominant male. Roger was much more reasonable to deal with.

He was positively boyish about the exercises. When the doctor dropped around for his daily visit, he found them hard at it, Roger pinching on to Eleanor’s finger while she swung his arm up and down.