And it had robbed her of her big brother.
Without him, she’d felt more alone these past four years than she could have imagined.
Before she could catch herself, Oti reached for her wedding rings, as though to twirl them on her finger the way she had done virtually all last night, unable to sleep. But she’d removed her rings before visiting Edward—he would have spotted them instantly and demanded to know about them, and she’d never been able to lie to her big brother.
But it was disconcerting how bare her hand felt without them. After less than twenty-four hours. Oti didn’t care to examine what that said about her. She forced her focus back to Edward.
‘No, it won’t help you to walk again,’ she agreed evenly. ‘But this procedure could allow you to regain use of your arms. You might be able to lift a cup and feed yourself. You could be able to lift your arms above your head to dress yourself, or even turn on a light switch. Maybe you could even have enough strength to turn a door handle and push your own wheelchair. You could even make one of your godawful peanut butter sandwiches, which always glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth. You could be independent again, Edward. You wouldn’t have to have carers on hand 24/7. Feeding you, cleaning you, even having to scratch your damned nose for you if it itches. I know how you hate it. But, this way, you could get some quality of life back.’
‘Could. Might. Maybe...’ He echoed the words hollowly. ‘Do you hear yourself?’
It broke her heart, but she couldn’t afford to let him see that. This was Edward, her incredible brother, who had been able to do anything. Everything. He was tough and he wasn’t a quitter. He never had been.
She just had to bring that back out of him now.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, did you have some better plan?’ she forced herself to say. ‘My mistake. I see your life is just how you want it right now.’
‘Funny,’ he threw at her.
But she was sure she saw just a glint of something in his eyes. As though the old Edward was still in there—somewhere. It was more than she’d seen in four years. But, then, this was the first time she’d been able to give him something akin to hope in the past four years.
She made herself press on. ‘Or you could just give up, of course. Prove Father right and be the quitter he keeps saying you are. Is that what you want, Edward? To let him win by giving up on yourself? On me? On your own life?’
For one long, horrible moment he stared at her and Oti felt the words of apology racing up through her, ready to spill out everywhere. And then, all of a sudden, he offered a twisted kind of smile.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.
‘Who the hell wants to let that repulsive old bully win anything?’
‘Right.’ She hesitated. It wasn’t exactly the resounding agreement she’d hoped for. But neither was it the stonewalling for which she’d been preparing herself.
She waited as the silence enveloped them again. Should she say something more? Or wait for Edward to speak?
Oti clenched her fingers together in her lap and forced herself to be patient. If Edward was going to go for it, he would need to be the one to instigate it.
‘Nerve transfers aren’t new,’ he pointed out, after what seemed like a lifetime. ‘But they’ve never really been successful on spinal cord injuries.’
‘You know about them?’
He snorted loudly. ‘You think I haven’t constantly looked for new procedures, sitting here in this damned chair all day, unable to even lift my own glass of water to drink?’
It was all Oti could do not to smile. Or cry. Possibly both. Instead, she focused on keeping her emotions in check and her voice even. Edward wouldn’t thank her for a song and dance—though he might enjoy the irony of her pun—and, in any case, she didn’t want to oversell it.
There were still no guarantees, after all.
She moved around the table, sitting down carefully and trying not to look too eager. And all the while pushing to the back of her mind that all this hinged on their father honouring his agreement to her and paying for the surgery.
Looking at her brother’s face, agreeing to marry Lukas in return seemed like a small price to pay.
She wasn’t an idiot. Her father would have always found someone to marry her off to—and some way to have leverage over her to do so. She was lucky it was Lukas and not one of his boorish friends. Or one of their hard-partying sons.
And it wasn’t as though she had someone of her own to love. Not that she wouldn’t have liked that...but her social circle, and her job, made that rather difficult.
She ignored the sensation that rippled through her when she thought of Lukas. A fleeting chemical attraction. Nothing more.
‘It’s a combination of nerve transfer for dexterity, and tendon transfer for strength. Both of these are well-established procedures, just for other areas. For example, tendon transfer is well described in the area of hand surgeries.’
‘I need upper arm strength.’