Joan Kilby - Family Matters

“What are you studying?”

“Early-childhood education.”

“Ah,” he said knowingly, “you want to brainwash the little brats before they lose their innocence.”

“I’m a primary-school teacher upgrading my qualifications. I only work at the pub because I can’t get a full-time teaching job.” Speaking of the pub, he was heading in the opposite direction. She hesitated, not wanting him to think she was interested in him but curiosity got the better of her. “Where are you off to?”

“An hour of torture, misery and pain.” When she raised her eyebrows, he added, “My physiotherapy appointment.”

“Why come to Pemberton when Whistler has so many highly trained physios?”

“Val was recommended by my physiatrist in Vancouver. Plus she’s conveniently located close to my favorite drinking establishment.”

“Why am I not surprised that would figure in your motivation?” she said. Fiona paused to pin one of her advertisements to a public notice board outside the grocery store. Marc waited while she accomplished her task.

“Maybe you could ask your therapist to put a notice in her clinic window,” she said, handing him one.

He scanned the contents then let the flyer drop onto his lap. “What happens if no one wants the mutt?”

“Someone will.”

“And if they don’t?”

The wooden sidewalk slanted down to the pavement as they crossed a side street. Fiona walked a little ahead. “I’ll wait till the end of the week then if no one comes forward I’ll have to take him to the pound—”

“Damn!”

At first she thought his expletive was a reaction to her plan to take the dog to the pound, but when he gave vent to more muttered curses she turned around. His back wheel had hit a crack in the pavement and swiveled, sending him shooting toward the road. He managed to stop before falling into the path of an on-coming pickup truck but at a cost to the raw, red skin on his hands.

Fiona hurried over. “Are you all right?”

Marc waved her away with a sharp gesture, swearing again under his breath in his efforts to get his wheelchair back on level ground. “Why me?” he muttered fiercely to himself. “Why the hell did this have to happen to me? I’ve got a life to live, dammit!”

She knew he wasn’t referring to hitting a bit of uneven pavement. There was no satisfactory response to his demand, as he would learn eventually. Why anybody? Why not him? She’d been through the whole litany of questions-with-no-answers, the outbursts of rage, with Jason.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she told him.

He uttered a scornful grunt. “Bull.”

“The reason might not be obvious right away but if you search for meaning in life something good will come from even the worst events.”

“Thanks a lot for your comforting words,” he drawled derisively. “Probably I’m the butt of some huge cosmic joke and the gods are having a good laugh as we speak.”

He must think her impossibly ingenuous and unsophisticated. He couldn’t know she had her own demons to face and that her determined hopefulness was how she’d learned to cope with the events of her life. “Give yourself time. Things will get better—”

“Oh, please. Spare me your wide-eyed optimism. I need a drink.” Laboriously he turned his chair around.

“Wait, Marc—”

“Go back to your swings and dolls, Pollyanna.” He cut her off with the back of a sharply upraised hand as he headed in the opposite direction.

Pushed too far, Fiona ran after him and yanked his chair to a halt. His startled glare didn’t stop her anger from pouring out. “Don’t be a jerk! Instead of drinking yourself into oblivion you should be glad you’re alive. There are a lot of people worse off than you. You know that better than anyone, the places you’ve been. When someone tries to help you could at least be gracious if you can’t be grateful.”

“How dare you?” he growled when she paused for breath. “You have no idea what I’m going through.”

“Yes, I do. Not firsthand but—”

“Then you don’t know. You, who can run and walk, dance and jog, don’t have any idea what it’s like to be conquering mountains one day and having someone wipe your ass the next.”

“Oh, you…” she sputtered, fists clenched at her sides. “Why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something to help someone else?”

“Yeah, right. How can I help anyone in my condition?”

“Use your imagination. You’ve got plenty of time to think. Or is your brain disabled, too?”

At Marc’s stunned expression Fiona’s anger subsided. Oh, dear, that was so mean. “I’m sorry,” she said, aghast at herself. “That was totally unlike me. You made me so mad I didn’t know what I was saying.”

“The truth according to Pollyanna, apparently,” he said. His rage seemed to have vanished, replaced by sudden interest. “Anything else you want to say to me?”

She started to back away. The intense curiosity in his gaze was unnerving. “Er… Have a nice day?”

MILDLY SHOCKED but definitely intrigued, Marc watched Fiona walk away. That sweet nurturing woman had a hidden streak of spit and vinegar. She was completely wrong, of course, but at least she didn’t hesitate to say what she thought.

Remembering his physio appointment, he turned around just in time to see Fiona go into another store with her damn notices. He didn’t care about the dog but for some stupid reason he felt responsible for the animal’s plight. And although he hated to admit it, Fiona’s comments had stung. The sooner he became mobile enough to get out of town, the better.

The automatic doors to the clinic opened and he wheeled in to find his physiotherapist, Val, at the front desk reading through a patient’s file. “Hey, Marc,” she said, glancing up. “What’s up with you today?”

With her butch haircut and muscular forearms, Val could have belonged to an eastern European shot-put team. Marc valued her because she was the only female he knew who didn’t smother him with platitudes and sympathy.

“Nothing,” he muttered, trying to rub away the furrows between his eyebrows. There was no way to explain how rotten he felt, and not just physically. He used to be a decent guy who got along with everyone. Now he seemed to snap a dozen times a day.

“Just your usual generic mad at the whole world, is that it? Never mind, it comes with the territory.” Val put down the file and motioned Marc through the wide doorway into the workout room. “Come into my parlor. I’ll give you something to complain about.”

Val was also the only person he allowed to help him move around. With her assistance he transferred to a narrow, padded massage table and lay on his back, hands gripping the sides against the inevitable pain.

“Are you experiencing much cramping?” she asked, raising his straight leg and stretching out the hamstring.

“Occasionally at night I get muscle spasms right down my legs.” He grunted as she bent his leg at the knee and pushed it into his chest. “How come the nerves work enough to make me feel pain but not to walk?”

“There are a lot of theories but no definitive answers,” she told him. “When the spinal cord is injured, nerve messages get mixed up. Soft muscle tissue is bombarded by stray electrical impulses which can be experienced as pain. Or, you could be feeling referred pain from an injury or sickness somewhere else in your body. You need to do something about those hands, by the way. Leather gloves are essential if you’re going to be active.” She manipulated his ankle and then his knee to keep the joints mobile. “Any burning or tingling sensations in your legs? Pins and needles?”