In his own way, Chris was in Heaven, enjoying the best years of his life, or so he said. "I love my new job. The men I work with are bright, humorous and have unending tales to tell and take away the monotony of doing a lot of drudgery. We go into the lab each day, don our white coats, check our petri dishes, expecting miracles, and grin and bear it when miracles just don't happen."
Bart was neither friend nor foe to Jory, just someone who stuck his head in the door and said a few words before he hurried on to something he considered more important than wasting time with a crippled brother. I often wondered what he did with his time besides study the financial markets and buy and sell stocks and bonds. I suspected he was risking much of his five hundred thousand in order to prove to all of us he was smarter than Chris and craftier than the foxiest of all Foxworths, Malcolm.
Soon after Chris drove off on a Tuesday morning in late October, I hurried back up the stairs to check on Jory and see that he was properly taken care of. Chris had hired a male nurse to tend to Jory, but he was only here every other day.
Jory seldom complained about being
housebound, although his head was often turned toward the windows to stare out at the brilliance of autumn.
"The summer's gone," he said flatly, lifelessly, as the wind tossed colorful leaves playfully about, "and it's taken my legs with it."
"Autumn will bring you reasons for being happy, Jory. Winter will make you a father. Life still has many happy surprises in store for you, whether or not you want to believe that. I believe like Chris, that the best is still to come. Now . . . let's see what we can do to give you substitute legs. Now that you're strong enough to sit up, there's no reason why you can't move into that wheelchair your father brought home. Jory, please. I hate seeing you in bed all the time. Try the chair, maybe it won't be as obnoxious as you think."
Stubbornly he shook his head.
I ignored that and went on with my
persuasions. "Easily we can take you outside. We can stroll through the woods as soon as Bart has workmen clear the paths that might hinder your progress, and right now you could sit on a terrace in the sunshine and gain back some of your color. Soon it will be too cold to go outside. And when the time comes, I can push you through the gardens and the woods."
He threw the chair, kept where he could see it every day, a hard, scornful look. "That thing would turn over."
"We'll buy you one of those electric chairs that's so heavy and well balanced it can't turn over."
"I don't think so, Mom. I've always loved autumn, but this one makes me feel so sad. I feel I've lost everything that was truly important. I'm like a broken compass, spinning without direction. Nothing seems worthwhile. I've been cheated, and I resent it. I hate the days. But the nights are worse. I want to hold fast to summer and what I used to have, and the falling leaves are the tears I shed inside, and the wind whistling at night are my howls of anguish, and the birds flying south are all telling me that the summer of my life has come and gone and never, never again will I feel as happy, or as special. I'm nobody now, Mom, nobody."
He was breaking my heart.
Only when he turned to look at me did he see this. Shame flushed his face. Guilt turned his head. "I'm sorry, Mom. You're the only one I can talk to like this. With Dad, who is wonderful, I have to act manly. Once I spill out to you all I feel, it doesn't eat at me inside so much. Forgive me for laying all my heavy feelings on you."
"It's all right. Never stop telling me just how you feel. If you do, then I won't know how to help. That's what I'm here for, Jory. That's why you have parents. Don't feel that your father won't understand, for he will. Talk to him like you talk to me. Say anything you need to say, don't hold back. Ask for anything within reason, and Chris and I give all we can--but don't ask for the impossible."
Silently he nodded, then forced a weak smile. "Okay. Maybe, after all, I can stand to sit in an electric wheelchair someday."
Before him, spread on the table with casters that fitted over his bed, were the many parts of the clipper ship he was tediously gluing together. He seldom turned on the stereo, as if beautiful music was an abomination to his ears now that he couldn't dance. He ignored the television as a waste of time, reading when he wasn't working on the model ship. A tiny part of the wood was held by tweezers as he applied a bit of glue; then, squinting his eye, he looked at the directions and completed the hull.
Casually he asked without meeting my eyes, "Where's my wife? She seldom comes to visit before five. What the hell does she do all day?"
It seemed a casual enough question for Jory to ask as Jory's nurse came in again to say he was off for classes. He waved a cheerful goodbye and left. During his absence either Melodie or I were supposed to do what we could to make Jory comfortable, as well as keep him entertained. Keeping him occupied was the- most difficult part. His life had been a physical one, and now he had to be content with mental activities. The nearest thing he had that even approached a physical life was putting the ship together.
At least I'd presumed Melodie came in to do what she could for him.
I very seldom saw Melodie. The house was so large it was easy to avoid those whom you didn't want to see. Lately she'd taken to eating not only breakfast but lunch as well in her bedroom across the hall from Jory's suite.
Chris brought home the custom-made electric wheelchair with its joy stick for driving. Immediately the nurse began to teach Jory the methods he'd use to swing his body out of the bed and into a chair he'd have locked beside his bed, with the arm nearest the bed pulled out.
Jory had been crippled for more than three and a half long, long miserable months. For him they were more like years. He'd been forced to change into another kind of person, the kind of person I could tell he really didn't, like.
Another day came without a visit from Melodie, and Jory was asking again where she was, and what she did with her time. "Mom, did you hear my question? Please tell me what my wife does all day.' His usually pleasant voice held a sharp edge. "She doesn't spend it with me, I know that."
Bitterness was in his eyes os 1e nailed me with his penetrating dark blue eyes. "Right this minute I want you to go to Melodie and tell her I want to see her--NOW! Not later, when she feels like it--for it seems she never feels like it!".
"I'll get her," I said with determination. "She's no doubt in her room listening to ballet music."
With trepidation I left Jory still working on the model ship. Even as I looked back at him, I saw the wind was picking up and beginning to hurl the falling leaves toward the house. Golden and scarlet and russet leaves that he refused to see--and once he'd heard the music of colors.
Look, now, Jory, look now. This is beauty you won't see again, perhaps. Don't ignore it--take it and seize the day, as you used to do.
But had I, back then . . . ? Had I?