Home Front

It was still a shock to land on one foot, but she concentrated on keeping her balance. Michael started to roll the wheelchair into range; she shook her head and hopped one step, then grabbed the rubberized handles and sat down with a sigh. She could feel how red her cheeks were from the exertion, and she was breathing hard—again—but she had done it herself, and there was some small satisfaction in that.

Conny smiled at her, then took his place behind the chair. The three of them set off down the hallway. For the first time, she saw how big this place was. Finally, they rolled up at a door marked Prosthetics.

Inside, it looked like Frankenstein’s laboratory. There were plastic hands and feet and arms and legs hanging from the ceilings and the walls, in every size and color and composition.

A small Asian woman with huge glasses came out from the back room. “You must be Mrs. Zarkades,” she said.

“Call me Jolene. This is my husband, Michael. ”

The woman nodded crisply. “Let’s get started. ”

For the next hour, the woman worked in concentrated silence. She measured Jolene’s residual leg and made a plaster cast of it.

While the plaster was drying, Michael asked questions. “Why can’t she get fitted for her permanent leg now? Why a temporary?”

The Asian woman blinked through the saucer-sized glasses. “Her stump will continue to shrink, which means that the socket will have to be changed often. It saves time and money this way, and it has the added benefit of letting her learn to be mobile while her leg shrinks. Bearing weight on it actually helps speed recovery. It will also help with desensitization. ” She carefully removed the plaster mold, which Jolene had trouble looking at, and took it into the back room.

Afterward, they headed back to Jolene’s room.

“You’ll be walking in no time,” Conny said as he wheeled her up to the bed.

She maneuvered herself onto the mattress and remained sitting up, covering her legs with the blanket.

“I’ll be back at noon for PT,” Conny said.

“Lucky me. ”

Conny’s laughter boomed and then faded as he walked away. Then she and Michael were alone.

“Well,” Jolene said. “I need to sleep before Genghis Khan throws me to the mat again and tells me to give him two hundred sit-ups. ”

“You can do it, you know,” he said. “Whatever he asks. ”

Jolene looked up at him, remembering how much his support had once meant to her. She wanted to tell him how scared she was to come home, how uncertain she felt about everything, how terrible her nightmares were. “Thanks for coming today, Michael. You didn’t have to. ”

“I’ve let you down a lot in the past. ”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

“Let me make it up to you,” he said.

She thought about that, about opening herself back up to him, expecting something, and the idea was terrifying. He’d already broken her heart. How could she trust him again? Especially now.

She didn’t answer.

He waited a long time, staring down at her. Then, with a quiet sigh, he left the room and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Jolene counted the days until her temporary prosthesis was ready. When it was, Conny strode into her room with a bright smile on his face. “You ready to get a move on, soldier girl?”

“I’m ready,” she said.

He rolled the chair up to the bed, and she got into it with less effort than before.

All the way down the hallway toward the physical therapy room, she tried to prepare herself, both for triumph and failure. She didn’t want failure to suck her under again.

In the PT room, Conny wheeled her over to a set of parallel bars.