Chapter 4 - The Shadow on the Wall
Three days later, the rain had stopped, leaving behind a cold, biting November fog that wrapped the estate in a thick shroud of white.
I sat in the gym wing on the lower level of the house—a massive, mirrored room filled with high-tech rehabilitation equipment that I hadn't touched in fourteen months. Standing frames, electric muscle stimulators, parallel bars, and specialized weight benches sat covered in thin layers of dust, looking like torture devices from a bygone era.
I was sitting in front of the wall mirror, staring at my reflection.
Without my shirt, the story of my life was written in scars. A three-inch silver line across my left ribs from a knife fight in Cicero when I was nineteen; a jagged star-shaped entry wound on my right shoulder from an armed robbery; and, high on my lower back, a neat, small, round scar where the sniper’s .308 round had entered, shattering the vertebra and severing the spinal cord.
My arms and shoulders were thick, heavy with muscle built from two years of dragging my weight around in a chair. But below my belt, my legs were noticeably thinner, the muscle mass slowly wasting away despite the electrical stimulation treatments I had abandoned months ago.
The door behind me clicked open.
I didn't turn around. I could see her reflection in the glass.
Emma walked in carrying a laundry basket filled with fresh white towels for the gym's private shower room. She wore her uniform, her hair tied back neatly, her face calm and pale.
She stopped when she saw me sitting shirtless in front of the mirror.
She didn't look away. She didn't blush or make a quiet apology like the female nurses used to do. She set the laundry basket down on a leather bench, walked over to one of the physical therapy tables, and set a fresh towel on top of it.
"You should use the standing frame," she said quietly, her eyes meeting mine in the reflection.
I let out a dry, bitter snort. "Excuse me?"
"The standing frame," she repeated, pointing toward the heavy steel frame in the corner equipped with leather chest straps and knee supports. "The physical therapist who quit three weeks ago—I heard him talking to Mrs. Gable in the hall before he left. He said if you don't stand at least twenty minutes a day, your bone density in your hips will deteriorate. He said you’re letting your hips rot because you’re too proud to let someone strap you in."
My face turned into iron. I twisted my chair around to face her directly, my chest heaving with sudden, violent anger.
"You listen to me, you arrogant little bitch," I growled, my voice echoing off the mirrored walls. "You know nothing about my body. You know nothing about what it feels like to be strapped into a piece of steel like a piece of meat, waiting for your blood pressure to drop until you pass out because your legs can't pump blood back to your heart!"
Emma didn't flinch. She didn't back up an inch.
She walked straight up to my chair, stopping so close I could smell the faint scent of her cheap lemon soap and clean cotton.
"I know what it feels like to watch someone give up," she said, her voice low, cold, and entirely devoid of fear. "My mother spent two years sitting in an armchair staring at a blank wall because she was scared of forgetting where she was if she stood up. Now she can't walk at all. Her legs are like dry twigs, Mr. Vance. If you want to sit in that chair and rot until your bones break when someone transfers you to a bed, go ahead. But don't act like it’s a noble choice."
"Get out," I snarled, my hands gripping the wheels of my chair so hard my knuckles turned white.
"The card you left on the kitchen counter," she said softly, reaching into her uniform pocket.
She pulled out the black leather card I had given her three nights ago and set it gently on my bare lap.
"I called them," she said, her voice dropping into a quieter, softer register. "They moved my mother into the Oak Park facility yesterday morning. She has a room facing a rose garden. A nurse named Sarah stayed with her for three hours playing old piano music until she fell asleep."
She looked down at my face, her dark eyes filling with a strange, complex mixture of deep gratitude and painful dignity.
"I owe you my life for that, Danny," she whispered, using my name again. "I will work for you for twenty years without pay to clear that debt. I will scrub your floors until my hands bleed. But I will not sit here and watch you kill yourself because you're scared of a steel frame."
May you like
She turned and walked out of the gym, leaving the laundry basket on the bench.
I sat alone in the quiet, mirrored room, looking down at the black card resting on my bare, lifeless lap, my heart beating with a strange, heavy rhythm that felt terrifyingly like life.
