Breakup In A Small Town. Kristina Knight

Solidly built, but with enough design elements to also be visually appealing. There were hidden drawers, curved edges. He’d been tempted to create some kind of locking device, so that the hidden drawers would actually be inaccessible, but at the last minute decided that was a little too adventure movie-ish, and simply built them to blend into the desk itself.

      A picture of Jenny and the kids sat on the desk and he picked it up, running his fingers over their faces. He’d failed them. He hadn’t kept up his end of the bargain. He was supposed to be their protector, their provider. He was neither, and despite that fact, despite knowing that they would be better off without him, he couldn’t seem to wheel himself away.

      * * *

      FOURTEEN HOURS AND a million more reasons to let his family go later, Adam was just as uncomfortable as he had been in the guest room of his home. He sat in the exam room of his doctor’s office, waiting. Jenny sat in the plastic-backed chair against the wall. He’d left the wheelchair in favor of sitting on the too-short bed thing in the office. The protective strip of paper on it crackled when he moved, so he did his best to remain still.

      Jenny was checking her phone.

      “Everything okay?” His voice sounded rough and unused. So, pretty much the new normal.

      “Just checking in with your dad. We were supposed to ship the new cabinet fronts for the Wareham project in Joplin today.”

      “Supposed to?” he asked, because supposed to made it sound as if the shipment didn’t happen.

      Jenny sighed. “He decided to ship them with the countertops next week.” She put her phone into her purse. “I’ll call the project manager when we get done here, straighten it out.”

      Adam didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He didn’t know anything about the Wareham project; maybe it made sense to ship the tops and fronts at the same time.

      Jenny watched him for a long while, as if waiting for him to say something or do something more than sit on the edge of the exam table. Finally, she blew out a breath and took her phone from her bag again. While she tapped the keys, he watched the clock on the wall click off two minutes and twenty-five seconds. Then the doctor came in.

      “Adam, Jenny, how are you both doing today?” Dr. Lambert wore gray pants and New Balance running shoes. Under his crisp, white lab coat, he wore a pink polo shirt. Adam didn’t answer his question.

      “We’re fine. No seizures since our visit two weeks ago,” Jenny said, as if she spoke for him all the time.

      “Sixteen days, if you want to be exact.” Because sixteen days sounded so much better than two weeks. Two was nothing. Sixteen, that sounded like progress, at least to Adam. Jenny raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

      “Good, good.” Lambert made a notation on his tablet. “We’ll keep the same dosage, same meds for now. This could be the cocktail we’ve been looking for. Adam, how are you feeling?”

      “Fine,” he said.

      “No more headaches?”

      Adam shook his head, not caring that it was a lie. The headaches were much better than they had been the first few days after he’d woken up in the hospital. Instead of pounding at his brain like a hammer, they were more of a dull throb. And instead of lasting all day, they were an hour or so at the most. Nothing he couldn’t deal with. Besides, his head shake seemed to make Jenny feel better. Her shoulders didn’t seem so stiff now.

      “What about the vertigo?”

      “Nothing.” Of course, it was hard to have vertigo when he spent 90 percent of his day either lying on the guest room bed or sitting in that damned chair. He leaned his head forward, and the floor seemed to yo-yo toward him. Adam gripped the edge of the table and closed his eyes. When he looked up, Jenny was tapping at her phone again and the doctor was making another notation in his chart. Good, neither of them had seen through the vertigo lie, either.

      “Okay. Let’s see how things are looking, then,” the doctor said as he turned to face Adam.

      He shone a light into Adam’s eyes. Looked in his ears. Listened to his lungs and his heart and his belly. Adam wondered what any of that had to do with his malfunctioning brain, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know. The less he knew, the more he could pretend that this wasn’t really happening. That maybe he was still stuck in the rubble of the day care, waiting to be rescued from the worst dream of his life.

      Finally, Dr. Lambert finished his examination. He sat on the wheeled stool while he made a few more notes on the tablet.

      “I like what I’m seeing, Adam,” he said after a long moment. “I think we may be on the right medication track, and your vitals are definitely returning to normal. What’s going on with your knee? Still giving you trouble?”

      “The rehab doc still thinks he’s going to require surgery to fix the knee, but they’ve talked about ultrasound therapy as a stopgap measure,” Jenny stated. “He said it might be enough to reattach the hamstring, which would be a good first step. Or it would be if he was actually going to the physical therapy appointments.” She shot Adam a look before he could offer another monosyllabic, false-positive reply. “They won’t approve surgery until you give us the all-clear on the epilepsy front.”

      “I can walk, though—it’s just not as comfortable as it used to be.”

      “Walking mostly comfortable is good. But those ligaments aren’t going to reattach themselves, Adam. Rehab will help, especially since I don’t feel confident approving the surgery just yet. We need to ensure the epilepsy is under control before we put you under the knife.”

      Because if his brain freaked out during surgery, chances were the knee surgeon could do more harm than good, Adam supposed. He didn’t say that, though. He didn’t want Dr. Lambert to refer him to a head-shrinker as well as a rehab specialist.

      “Have you given any more thought to a service dog?”

      “Yes,” Jenny said.

      “No,” Adam said at the same time. He stared at his wife for a moment.

      She shook her head as if to say, “Fine, have it your way.”

      “I don’t like the idea of having a big dog in the house. We have small children,” he said, and he knew even as he said the words that they were a reach. Having a service dog in the house wouldn’t be a danger to the kids. It wasn’t trained to find drugs or bombs, but to sense his messed-up brain waves or something. Adam still wasn’t positive what the service dog would do, other than be another reminder of his new inadequacies. That was enough to put a stop to the dog coming to their home.

      Her home. Whatever.

      “As long as the children understand the dog isn’t a pet, you have nothing to worry about. Even if they don’t quite understand it, it isn’t as if the dog will go on the attack. These are gentle dogs who are trained to meet your specific needs.”

      “Well, I don’t need a dog.” Adam stood abruptly, but the floor did that yo-yo thing again and he quickly sat in the wheelchair.

      Dr. Lambert pressed his mouth into a hard line. “Fine,” he said after a while. He motioned to the door, and they went into the hallway.

      “Thank you, Dr. Lambert,” Jenny said, but Adam heard no actual thanks in her voice. There was annoyance, but not thanks. He supposed he was the reason for that.

      “Kim at the front desk will schedule you back. Let’s go three full weeks this time, unless there is a seizure.” He walked beside Jenny while she pushed Adam in the wheelchair. “If there are any issues—” Adam knew what that meant: if the meds stopped working “—please call immediately.”

      “We will.”

      The doctor nodded. He paused for a moment, but didn’t say anything else, just turned on his heel and went down the hallway.

      Jenny scheduled the appointment