Percy, page 4
“Good, because it’s hard to sleep if you guys keep interrupting me.”
“Got it,” she replied cheerfully. And she stepped away to leave.
“Wait. Is there any chance of getting a big glass of water again for the night?”
“Sure. I’ll bring you back one. Flat or bubbly? Ice or no ice?”
“Flat. No ice,” he stated quietly. And she disappeared. With that, he returned to his schedule on his iPad, hoping that was the end of his visitors for the night. He was ready for bed himself.
Chapter 4
The next morning Giada walked into her office and plunked herself down into her chair. Her brother and his girlfriend had had one humdinger of a fight at the front doorway, as she had walked in the door last night. She’d tried to disappear to give them their privacy, but that hadn’t worked. They were both hot-tempered, passionate people, and Giada hoped they were in the process of making up on the front steps, but instead they’d stormed out in the backyard and kept the argument going there, before they raced back inside again to continue it.
In the meantime Giada had managed to clean up the kitchen, then made herself a cup of herbal tea and disappeared once more. Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of this fight because, when Margaret left her brother, Francis had come up to talk to Giada. They talked till late into the night, and now she felt the effects. She sat down and turned on her computer, immediately craving caffeine. She’d left the house so late that she hadn’t had a chance to get any yet.
With her computer on now, she picked up her mug and marched down to the dining room, only to find that breakfast was in full swing. She also hadn’t eaten. Rather than getting just straight caffeine, she stepped into the buffet line and grabbed a tray. When Dennis saw her, his eyebrows shot up. “Yeah,” she replied. “Believe me. I had a horrid night, no breakfast. So hit me with something that’ll make me get through the day.”
“Protein?”
“I’m better with fruit and yogurt,” she noted, “but maybe some protein too,” as she eyed the bratwurst and scrambled eggs. Dennis took note of that and loaded up a plate for her. And, still smiling, she grabbed some toast and some peanut butter and jam cups, plus a knife and fork and her coffee, and headed back to her office. She loved her job, when she could do things like eat like this on the hour. She was halfway through her breakfast when Dani walked in. Giada took one look at the cinnamon bun in her boss’s hand and asked, “Where did you get that from?”
“It’s not available every morning,” Dani explained, “but Dennis tends to offer them every Wednesday.”
“And how is it I didn’t know that? I’ve worked here for at least eight months,” she cried out.
Dani motioned at the breakfast in front of Giada. “Aren’t those brats divine?”
“I’ve never been a big sausage person but bratwurst? Yep. they’re definitely my jam,” she stated.
Dani snickered at that. “It’s so funny to hear you say things like that.”
“Honest to God, I get it from my brother,” she said, with an eye roll. “And I wish that they would just get married and stop fighting so much.”
“Do you think the marriage will stop the fighting?”
“Usually the fights are about where they want to live, when they’ll have children, all that kind of stuff. They need to get married and stop feeling so insecure about each other.”
“You’d think at this point that the insecurity would be long gone.”
“I don’t know.” She raised both hands, palms up, adding a bright smile, more than fed up with her brother and his relationship. “How’s Percy doing this morning?”
“Better.” Dani nodded. “I just spoke to him. He’ll take all of today off and rest up, and we’ll see how he is tomorrow.”
“You think he’ll make it down to the dining room for meals?”
“Well, he should get a tour sometime today, whenever he’s feeling up for it. So maybe he’ll eat in the dining room as part of that.” Dani stepped back to the doorway, the last of the cinnamon roll popping into her mouth. She looked at her friend and asked, “Do you want to give him the tour?”
“You know what? That might not be a bad idea for both of us,” Giada replied, liking the idea. “I don’t get to visit with the patients enough.”
“And neither do you take the time to go around the gardens either or to take advantage of our amenities.” Dani walked to the doorway. “Remember. Stan says you’re always welcome downstairs.”
“Yeah, and that’s the trouble, I guess, with not living on the property. I come in for a certain set of hours, put in my time, and then I go home. Seems like visiting with Stan and the animals just doesn’t get into my schedule.”
“Well, if you’re caught up, today’s a good day,” Dani suggested. “Maybe check in with Percy around ten or eleven a.m. and see how he’s doing.”
“Okay, I’ll do that,” she noted. And Dani was gone. Giada stared out the empty doorway, wondering why Dani would have even made the suggestion. Except that staffing was always an issue, as well as a shortage of time to get everything done. Maybe because Giada had already met Percy? It did make sense. She kept an eye on the time, and, when ten-thirty rolled around, she hopped up and walked toward his room. She knocked on the door and stepped in to see him with his iPad and a folder of paperwork.
“Surprised to see you again.” Percy’s face lit in welcome. “Don’t you have enough work to do?”
“Well, I never see the patients enough. As much as an inventory of our stock is part of my job, so should be talking to you guys, getting feedback and ideas,” she admitted. “So Dani suggested that, if you’re up for it, maybe I should take you for a tour of the place.”
“A tour?” he asked. “Is there really that much to show me?”
“And that’s part of the problem,” she admitted. “There are tons of things to see and do here, and I never get to enjoy it either.”
“And how will we do that tour?”
She motioned at the wheelchair. “You’re supposed to rest up today,” she noted. “So I would take you around in the chair.” He frowned. She gave him a winning smile. “Please, save me from having to go back to the office. I really could use some fresh air. Besides, you haven’t seen the vet’s office or the gardens or the horses, or the pool for that matter,” she said, with a laugh.
“No, I haven’t,” he agreed. “Aaron did tell me about a lot of it, but I thought maybe most of it was just an exaggeration.”
“From Aaron?” she asked in surprise, staring at Percy.
He shrugged. “He was working hard to get me here, so I wasn’t sure how much was joking and how much was the truth.”
“It’s all truth,” she declared. “Hop on board, MacDuff. Let’s go for a ride.”
“Ha! As long as you’re not taking me on a wild trip for naught,” he noted.
“Did you eat breakfast this morning?” she asked.
“A tray was brought to me.”
She nodded. “We’ll see how you are after the tour. Maybe you’ll be ready for some lunch in the dining room.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Well then, maybe I should get changed. I don’t want to go anywhere in pajamas.”
“Sure. Do you want me to get you anything?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got clothing here at the end of the bed. I just hadn’t bothered yet.” But he got up awkwardly, grabbed the crutches and his clothing, and headed to the bathroom.
“I can step out of your room so you can get changed here.”
“No, this works.”
She frowned at that, wishing that she’d thought of it earlier, because she could have left and come back, but she wasn’t thinking in terms of his own personal needs. And that was something that she needed to be better at. When he came out, he looked a little flushed, but he was dressed.
She noted the missing foot. “Do you have a prosthetic?”
“Not yet. The leg hasn’t healed enough. And there’s talk of maybe putting another layer of padding on, so I can put weight on it.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “All the medical intricacies that I don’t understand, but, if you’re telling me that it’s in progress, that makes sense to me.”
“It’s in progress.”
She burst out laughing, patted the back of the wheelchair, and said, “Let’s go, soldier.”
“Seaman,” he corrected.
“Meaning, you’re from the navy?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“We have all kinds of military personnel here,” she noted, with a laugh. “I just thought maybe soldier would cover it all.”
“Some people would take you to task for making that kind of a mistake.”
“And I just apologized,” she said bluntly, “because I don’t really know all the ins and outs of the different titles and ranks. Yet here everybody’s the same, all patients in need of healing.” She had almost said broken but had stopped the harsh word from coming out—blame it on her lack of sleep—but it’s how she saw so many of the people here. “The good news,” she added quickly—to try to cover up for her snafu when he’d gone really quiet—“is that the tools, equipment, people, and skills are here to fix them here.”
“Promise?” he asked, in a low whisper.
She leaned forward and whispered against his ear, “I promise.” And then she laughed and added, “And enough of that maudlin stuff. We’ll start with a tour of this floor, and then we’ll take you downstairs and outside. You have no idea what’s coming.”
“Nope,” he said, with a happy sigh, “but just getting out of that hospital where I was before and getting here is a good start. I wish Aaron were here, but I get it,” he murmured. “He’s on to a whole new stage of life.”
“He has taken on a new life,” she agreed, “and, for that, I’m thrilled for him and for Dani. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t get to do the same. You just have to choose what direction you want to go.”
Percy struggled into the wheelchair, but Giada was proficient as she quickly helped him in, propped up his good leg, checked that his injured stump was comfortable, and then proceeded to push him out and down the hall. “You seem to be quite comfortable with all this,” he murmured, with a slight head tilt back, so she could hear him.
“I am,” she stated gently. “My brother was in a wheelchair for a long time. But he got better, and thankfully he’s doing just fine now.”
“Why was he in a wheelchair?”
“He broke his back, riding horses,” she added, with a short laugh. “And I shouldn’t laugh, but we always said that he was on the horses so often that we wouldn’t be surprised if he did take a fall. He had always aspired to be a steeplechase jockey. He was forever setting up jumps and trying them. But, of course, he did fall, and he did break his back,” she shared, with a shrug. “But all’s well that ends well.”
He smiled, thinking about it. “How old was he?”
“Twelve,” she replied.
He grinned. “So, boys will be boys?”
“That’s what everybody kept saying, yes,” she agreed. “He hated the wheelchair. Oh, my gosh, he hated it. But the rehab took a lot longer than normal, and he didn’t get his full strength back for months.”
“Interesting,” Percy noted.
She pulled around a corner, and the hallway opened up to a large social common area, with a big pool table in the middle, TVs on the walls, several little seating areas.
“This is nice,” he noted. “Except that it’s empty.”
“Of course it’s empty at this time of day. Everybody is off doing something on their schedule.”
He frowned at that. “I guess I’m supposed to be too, aren’t I?”
“Not today,” she said, with a gentle firmness. “Not until you’ve recovered from your journey.”
He settled back to watch, as she led him through another area. He heard dishes and talking. “I suppose it’s almost lunchtime.”
“It is, and we’ll come back up here later.” She took him over to a large bank of elevators. She pushed the button, and its huge doors opened, enough room for hospital beds and wheelchairs alike. She popped him in, stepped up beside him, and quickly the elevator dropped down a floor. “This is the floor for the vet’s clinic,” she announced.
When it opened, he looked to the right and saw another huge office area.
“That’s where Stan and the animals are,” she shared, “but we’ll go this way.” And she took him to the left. Up ahead were double glass doors. She led them outside, and he gave a happy sigh, as the sunshine shone directly on him. She kept walking him forward, coming to a half-covered and half-open pool deck area.
“Aaron told me a pool was here,” he murmured, as he stared at the water in joy.
“It’s the one thing that everybody here seems to really love,” she murmured. “At least everybody I know has always been eager to get into the water.”
“I wonder what’s the requirement to be allowed in?”
“Funny that you should say that,” she noted, “because that’s almost the first question when people find out about it. I’m not sure about the timing for the pool privileges, but I presume it’s individually decided. I would think water therapy would be a great healing tool, but I’m no medical expert,” she added.
“Naw,” he replied. “I’m quite sure that there’ll be a whole lot of tests I’ll have to pass before I’m allowed in there. And a hot tub too,” he noted in delight, as he looked over at good-size hot tub, big enough to seat ten to twelve men.
“And it is lovely too.” She didn’t stop there; she kept on pushing him farther outside.
“What are all the buildings around here?” he asked curiously. Because what looked like a series of townhomes or apartments were up ahead, with another one off to the side.
“Residential housing,” she noted. “Most of the staff live on the property.”
He was amazed at that. “Wow, that’s a huge perk. Particularly if they get the meals at the same time.”
“And they do,” she added, with a laugh. “I don’t live on the property myself,” she shared. “At the moment I’m living with my brother, but he’s engaged and due to be married within six months, so I need to be making other plans.”
“You don’t want to live here?”
“Dani’s offered to hold a place for me in six months. Yet I like living in town. It’s nice to have that bit of separation between work and living, but then I also have to cook and clean at home, and I have to commute,” she explained. “And that’s not anywhere near as much fun as walking a few steps to work, with my meals all prepared for me.”
“I would live here just for the conveniences,” he suggested. “Plus, if it saves you a twenty-minute commute one way, that’s about an hour a day that you don’t have to deal with and that you can do something else that you like. And to not have to cook? That would be a game-changer for me.”
She laughed. “And I get all that,” she noted. “You’re quite right. I hadn’t really considered the travel time daily. And there doesn’t seem to be enough time to do anything that I want to do.”
“Or is your brother hoping that you’ll stay long enough for him to get married so he doesn’t have to be a bachelor on his own?”
At that, she burst out laughing. When she calmed down, she added, “I think that’s a big part of my brother’s reticence to letting me go.”
“But you don’t need his permission to leave, right?”
“Nope, I just know he would prefer that I stay until his wedding.”
“But maybe that’s not what you need,” Percy murmured. “Sometimes it’s easier to be the one to leave instead of the one who has to leave.” There was such a slight difference in the meaning, depending on how he worded it, and he tried to make his message easy for her to understand, without being insulted.
She was quiet for a long moment, and then she replied in a low tone, “Kudos to you. That’s a very perceptive comment.”
“You don’t get to where I am in life,” he stated, “without having been through a lot of hardships and seeing a lot of relationships that kind of implode just because of circumstances.” He shifted his position. “You learn that so many relationships break up when they come to the major stresses in life, and honestly some of the biggest stressors are health issues.”
Giada nodded. “I heard a statistic that when a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, she is warned to get ready for a potential divorce because a lot of men—and maybe it shouldn’t be just about men but maybe about a lot of partners—can’t handle what’ll come at them.”
“Exactly,” Percy agreed. “Now you take something like what I’ve been through, and it’s way worse because there is no potentially good future ahead of me. This could be as good as it gets. Now obviously, with breast cancer, it could go either way.” He hesitated. “But the whole point of this discussion is the fact that there is no guarantee in life, and some people are just not cut out to handle the tougher times. Some people never have to handle it because nobody ever gives them that opportunity. They protect them. Sometimes well past the time that they should be protected.”
“Are you telling me in a roundabout way,” she asked, with laughter in her voice, “that I should let my brother live on his own for a few months?”
“It would probably make him appreciate what you do for him.”
“I can’t say I care about that,” she replied, still chuckling, “because I won’t be there long-term.”
“No, but what about his wife?” he asked, twisting to look up at her. “Will she appreciate the fact that he doesn’t know how to do anything? Or doesn’t look after himself?”
“Well, she certainly knows that he doesn’t know how to do anything now,” she noted. “It’s a big part of their fights.”
“So maybe he should have six months on his own, so that he has to step up and has to understand just what it is like to live alone, so his expectations of what his wife will do for him might then mature with him. Presuming he’s not looking at sharing the household chores, given that he doesn’t help you now.”
