Kristina Knight - Breakup In A Small Town

“What about the vertigo?”

“Nothing.” Of course, it was hard to have vertigo when he spent 90 percent of his day either lying on the guest room bed or sitting in that damned chair. He leaned his head forward, and the floor seemed to yo-yo toward him. Adam gripped the edge of the table and closed his eyes. When he looked up, Jenny was tapping at her phone again and the doctor was making another notation in his chart. Good, neither of them had seen through the vertigo lie, either.

“Okay. Let’s see how things are looking, then,” the doctor said as he turned to face Adam.

He shone a light into Adam’s eyes. Looked in his ears. Listened to his lungs and his heart and his belly. Adam wondered what any of that had to do with his malfunctioning brain, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know. The less he knew, the more he could pretend that this wasn’t really happening. That maybe he was still stuck in the rubble of the day care, waiting to be rescued from the worst dream of his life.

Finally, Dr. Lambert finished his examination. He sat on the wheeled stool while he made a few more notes on the tablet.

“I like what I’m seeing, Adam,” he said after a long moment. “I think we may be on the right medication track, and your vitals are definitely returning to normal. What’s going on with your knee? Still giving you trouble?”

“The rehab doc still thinks he’s going to require surgery to fix the knee, but they’ve talked about ultrasound therapy as a stopgap measure,” Jenny stated. “He said it might be enough to reattach the hamstring, which would be a good first step. Or it would be if he was actually going to the physical therapy appointments.” She shot Adam a look before he could offer another monosyllabic, false-positive reply. “They won’t approve surgery until you give us the all-clear on the epilepsy front.”

“I can walk, though—it’s just not as comfortable as it used to be.”

“Walking mostly comfortable is good. But those ligaments aren’t going to reattach themselves, Adam. Rehab will help, especially since I don’t feel confident approving the surgery just yet. We need to ensure the epilepsy is under control before we put you under the knife.”

Because if his brain freaked out during surgery, chances were the knee surgeon could do more harm than good, Adam supposed. He didn’t say that, though. He didn’t want Dr. Lambert to refer him to a head-shrinker as well as a rehab specialist.

“Have you given any more thought to a service dog?”

“Yes,” Jenny said.

“No,” Adam said at the same time. He stared at his wife for a moment.

She shook her head as if to say, “Fine, have it your way.”

“I don’t like the idea of having a big dog in the house. We have small children,” he said, and he knew even as he said the words that they were a reach. Having a service dog in the house wouldn’t be a danger to the kids. It wasn’t trained to find drugs or bombs, but to sense his messed-up brain waves or something. Adam still wasn’t positive what the service dog would do, other than be another reminder of his new inadequacies. That was enough to put a stop to the dog coming to their home.

Her home. Whatever.

“As long as the children understand the dog isn’t a pet, you have nothing to worry about. Even if they don’t quite understand it, it isn’t as if the dog will go on the attack. These are gentle dogs who are trained to meet your specific needs.”

“Well, I don’t need a dog.” Adam stood abruptly, but the floor did that yo-yo thing again and he quickly sat in the wheelchair.

Dr. Lambert pressed his mouth into a hard line. “Fine,” he said after a while. He motioned to the door, and they went into the hallway.

“Thank you, Dr. Lambert,” Jenny said, but Adam heard no actual thanks in her voice. There was annoyance, but not thanks. He supposed he was the reason for that.

“Kim at the front desk will schedule you back. Let’s go three full weeks this time, unless there is a seizure.” He walked beside Jenny while she pushed Adam in the wheelchair. “If there are any issues—” Adam knew what that meant: if the meds stopped working “—please call immediately.”

“We will.”

The doctor nodded. He paused for a moment, but didn’t say anything else, just turned on his heel and went down the hallway.

Jenny scheduled the appointment while Adam sat in the wheelchair. In the parking lot, she turned to him. “You didn’t have to be rude about the dog.”

“I don’t need a service dog. I’m not blind or deaf.”

“Service dogs aren’t just for the blind or deaf. Did you even read the literature?”

He’d put it in the nightstand drawer, and refused to open that drawer since putting the pamphlets there. “Of course I read the stupid flyers.” What was one more lie on the mountain of lies he’d been telling her since the accident?

“Then stop acting as if a service dog means you’re permanently—” She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Disabled? News flash, Jen, the doc thinks I am permanently disabled or he wouldn’t keep bringing it up.”

“Epilepsy isn’t the end of the world.”

“Well, it sure as hell isn’t normal, either,” he said. He got out of the wheelchair, slapped at it until it collapsed into a flat heap, and shoved it into the trunk of the Mustang convertible he’d restored his senior year in high school. The handles stuck out so that the trunk wouldn’t close. He shoved at it again, but no matter what he did, the stupid chair wouldn’t fit into the trunk.

Jenny pushed him aside. “Let me do it,” she grumbled. “If we had a family car, this wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

“We don’t need a family car just because I’m stuck in that stupid chair for another couple weeks.”

“Rehab might shorten those couple weeks,” she said. “There is no way to rehab epilepsy.”

She glared at him for a long moment then started around the car. Adam opened the passenger door, got in and slammed it shut. She slammed her door when she got in, too.

“We need a family car because we have a family,” she said, anger making her husky voice even huskier. It sent a thrill down Adam’s spine, which was ridiculous. He couldn’t walk without a wheelchair; there was no way he could make love to his wife the way he wanted to. “Two kids, all of their school stuff, Frankie is already playing football because he wants to be like you. We need a family car.”

“This car is important to me,” Adam said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“This car is impractical.”

“I restored it. It’s a classic.”

“Then we’ll just get a second car.”

“No.”

She glared at him again. “No?” she asked, her voice deceptively calm. Quiet.

“No.”

Jenny put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot. She didn’t say anything until they pulled onto the highway leading to Slippery Rock. Adam glanced at her. Jaw set. Mouth in a hard line. Hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, knuckles white.

Adam started to apologize. He didn’t want to snap at Jenny. He didn’t want to fight with her. It was too hard to fight. He leaned his head against the rest and closed his eyes. He didn’t like fighting, not with Jenny. Not with anyone. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had always been. The Mustang was the way things had been.

The Mustang meant everything would be okay again.

* * *

THEY DROVE IN silence until the big “Welcome to Slippery Rock” sign came into view. It had taken everything she had not to snap at Adam, not to react when he obviously wanted a reaction. A reason to fight. She wasn’t going to be that reason. He hated his diagnosis? Well, so did she, but according to some of the information she’d read online, keeping his world bland and ordinary could help to keep the seizures under control. Something about blood pressure spikes and endorphins, and it didn’t make a ton of sense to her, but then Jenny had never pretended to be interested in biology or any of the other sciences. She’d been too busy reading fiction books and daydreaming about Adam Buchanan.