Chương 6
“Will I walk?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw movement.”
“I saw a reflex. I saw partial voluntary activation. I saw muscles that have been allowed to waste for six months. I saw medication levels that should make a horse reconsider standing.”
“Can the drugs be responsible?”
“They can contribute. They cannot create the original damage. Your spinal cord was injured. Anyone promising a complete recovery is lying.”
Nina’s words returned to him.
I’ll wash your feet and then you’ll walk again.
Park pulled a stool closer.
“You have an incomplete injury. That means pathways remain. Some may strengthen. Some may not. Recovery is not a switch. It is ugly work, and your window has been mishandled.”
“Mishandled?”
“You were kept sedated. Your blood pressure was repeatedly lowered. Your therapy notes show sessions canceled for fatigue and spasms after medication changes. Hale reported absent reflexes I can produce tonight.”
“Could those be mistakes?”
“One mistake? Yes. A pattern? Less likely.”
Massimo looked at Sal.
Park followed his gaze.
“Do not turn medicine into certainty because you want a villain. I cannot tell you why Hale documented what he did. I can tell you I would not let him manage your care tomorrow.”
“He comes at eight thirty.”
“Then you will take what he gives you.”
Massimo’s eyes narrowed.
Park continued.
“If you abruptly stop the muscle relaxants and sedatives, you could have dangerous withdrawal, blood-pressure swings, severe spasms, seizures. We taper. Quietly. I replace tablets where possible so the count looks right.”
“You came prepared?”
“I came because Sal described a possible poisoning. I hoped he was being dramatic.”
“I am never dramatic,” Sal said.
Both of them looked at him.
He lifted his hands.
Park wrote a taper schedule in tiny print.
“You will need daily therapy.”
“That is impossible.”
“Walking is more difficult.”
“Who can do it without being seen?”
Park glanced toward the door.
“Your housekeeper.”
“She is not a therapist.”
“No, but she has hands, judgment, and more patience than anyone in this room.”
Massimo bristled.
Park began packing her instruments.
“You asked whether you will walk. Here is the honest answer: perhaps. With braces, a walker, years of work, perhaps only across a room. You may remain dependent on the chair. Your little girl did not cure you with water.”
“She is not my little girl.”
Park looked toward the hall, where Carla’s shadow moved beneath the door.
“No,” she said. “I suppose she isn’t.”
Carla initially refused.
“I clean rooms,” she said. “I am not touching your spine.”
“You would be assisting with basic exercises,” Park told her. “Positioning. Stretching. Monitoring symptoms. I will teach you.”
“And if I hurt him?”
“You stop when he says stop.”
Carla folded her arms.
Massimo sat between them, increasingly annoyed by being discussed as equipment.
“I can hire a nurse.”
“Dean approves every new hire,” Carla said.
“A therapist can enter as wedding staff.”
“And leave carrying resistance bands under a flower arrangement?”
Dr. Park rubbed her forehead.
Sal checked his watch.
Nina appeared in the doorway wearing yellow pajamas and dragging a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
“Mommy?”
Carla turned.
“You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I had a loud dream.”
She noticed Dr. Park’s equipment.
“Are you fixing Uncle Massimo?”
“No,” Park said. “He has to do most of that himself.”
Nina considered this unfortunate arrangement.
She crossed the room, climbed onto Massimo’s lap without asking, and rested her head against his chest.
“You can help him, Mommy.”
Carla closed her eyes.
Massimo felt the weight of the child through layers of wool and cotton. Small, warm, trusting. The last person who had sat on his lap had been his nephew Anthony, fifteen years earlier, before Anthony’s father moved the family to Arizona to escape Rinaldi business.
Trust had become unfamiliar enough to frighten him.
Carla opened her eyes.
“I will learn the exercises,” she said. “That is all.”
It was not all.
Within a week, Carla knew which muscles tightened before Massimo admitted pain, which movements triggered spasms, and how long he could sit unsupported before his shoulders began to shake. She learned to lock the library door, draw the curtains, and place towels beneath the wheelchair so sweat would not mark the carpet.
Massimo proved a terrible patient.
“You are leaning,” she said during one session.
“I am sitting.”
“You are leaning while sitting.”
“I have sat for thirty-eight years.”
“Apparently incorrectly.”
He gave her a look that had once silenced union leaders.
Carla moved his cane farther from reach.
“You cannot fire me until you stand.”
Nina sat nearby coloring horses purple. Every few minutes she looked up and said, “Again,” whether Massimo had succeeded or failed.
The first time he lifted his right heel from the floor, Carla smiled before catching herself.
The first time he managed to keep his knee straight for five seconds, Nina applauded.
The first time he fell, he struck the floor with enough force to split his lip.
Carla dropped beside him.
“Don’t move.”
“I was not planning to dance.”
“Your back—”
“Get Park.”
“We cannot call her in the middle of the day.”
Massimo tried to push himself upright. His arms failed. The helplessness came so quickly that anger covered it before shame could.
“Get me into the chair.”
“I can’t lift you alone.”
“Then find someone.”
“And explain why you are on the floor?”
He struck the carpet with his fist.
Nina began to cry.
The sound stopped him.
She stood beside the table with a purple crayon in one hand, staring at the blood on his mouth.
Massimo turned his face away.
“Take her out.”
Carla did not move.
“Take her out!”
Nina flinched.
Carla’s expression changed. Fear disappeared. Something harder replaced it.
She picked up Nina and carried her to the door.
“You do not speak to her that way.”
“I said—”
“I heard you.”
The door closed behind them.
May you like
Massimo remained on the carpet for twenty-three minutes.
He could have used the emergency button on his watch. Dean would have come. Guards would have entered. The deception would have ended.
