Forever: A Lobster Kind Of Love (12 page)

“Don’t you cath? It was in your records,” she said quizzically.

“Umm no! My legs don’t work but my pee factory works just fine. You can take those right back out to your car.”

“What about at night?” she persisted.

“What about at night? I’m a big boy; I haven’t wet the bed since I was a toddler. I’m not starting now. What else does my chart say about me, besides being a potential bed-wetter?”

She looked up at me with the biggest eyes I had ever seen. I’d spooked her. Okay, I guess I should dial it down a notch or three.

“No, seriously, are you going to believe what you read or what I tell you? I assure you I don’t wet the bed. Maybe we should go over my chart together so you know what you are getting yourself into.”

Her facial expression softened, but she still looked unsure.

“Come on, pull up a chair. I’m not using any of those,” I said as I waved to the dining chairs.

A smile crept across her lips as she took a seat at the head of the table. I moved the useless-to-me chair out the way and parked myself to her right.

“Okay, so they give us an intake packet on all new patients. Here is yours,” she pushed a small packet of approximately six pages of yellow colored duplicate forms to me.

I looked them over as she regarded me closely. “Well, at least they got my name spelled right. The rest of this you can probably trash.” I scooted the packet back over to her.

She let out a huff as I watched her formulate her next words. “Well, what is incorrect?” she asked.

“Hmmm…pretty much everything after my address. They even have my phone number wrong. That is a cell phone that was lost at sea at the time of my accident.”

“Are you kidding me?” she squeaked.

I put my hands up in a time’s out “T” as she furiously flipped through the pages looking for truth. “Listen, why don’t you put that useless paper away and just ask me what you need to know.”

She looked down at my hands covering hers and sighed. “Well, why don’t I start by updating these and we can go from there?”

“Okay, if you want to go that route. What do you want to know?”

She looked up at me cautiously and cleared her throat. “Phone number?”

I provide my digits and we continue.

“That’s not a Maine number.”

“Is that a question or a statement?” I snapped back.

“I was just wondering why you would have an out of state phone number, that’s all.”

“I spent the last year in a rehab center in New York City. I lost my phone at sea and I had a local provider at the time. When I got a new cell phone, the new cell service gave me a local number. Besides, who cares what the area code it is anyway? Everyone has cell phones these days. It’s not like anyone is going to be paying long distance charges or anything.”

“Fair enough. Allergies?”

“Penicillin.”

“What happens when you take penicillin?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. “I get paralyzed.”

She sat there with her mouth hung open as she stared at me. I chuckled at my own humor, but I had to hold my shit together if we were going to get through this. I was starting to see she took this whole patient history thing very seriously.

“No, seriously, I’m allergic to Penicillin. I don’t get the whole itchy hive thing; my muscle fascia swells and last time, when I was around fifteen years old, I was hospitalized until they figured out what it was after a mild case of tonsillitis went awry.”

“Okay, then. What medications are you currently taking?”

“They had me on a lot of meds when I was inpatient, but I don’t take anything except a B12 shot and some vitamin supplements these days.”

“Ryan, it says here you are on antidepressants, muscle relaxers, a sleeping aid and this one here is an anti-seizure medication." She slowly looked up to me as she points to the form.

“I haven’t taken any of those for a while now. I told them I didn’t need them and they weaned me off all that crap before they released me back into the wild. I have some of those muscle relaxers just in case I get cramps, but I don’t take them. ” I paused for a moment, appreciating the humor that was just hitting me. “So what you're telling me is, according to that file, I’m a prescription junkie that wets the bed.”

“Apparently, but I will update your file so they don’t start mailing you diaper coupons.”

As we went through the rest of the patient history form, I corrected all the errors with her and she seemed more at ease. My stomach growled audibly. I glanced at the clock on the cable box and I realized two hours had already passed.

“Do any of those packages you carted in my house happen to have anything edible in them?”

“Just my sandwich. What do you want to eat? I can whip something up for you.” Her face gleamed bright at the idea of cooking.

“I have no idea what is in the kitchen. I haven’t been home in a while. I suppose we need some groceries. Those Meals on Wheels people deliver.”

“Let me go take a look and see what’s in the cabinets. Then we can make a list together and I will go grocery shopping. How’s that?”

“Sounds good to me. So what kind of sandwich?” I winked at her.

Smooth Ryan, real smooth. That was pretty fucking rude, but hell I’m hungry.

“Nothing special. It’s just a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich with bananas.” She said as she holds up the neatly wrapped parcel of saran wrap.

I extended my hand for a handshake as she stared at it for a moment and then wrapped her hand in mine. “Hello, my name is Ryan and I am a peanut butter addict. Thank you for coming today. I promise to be a good patient if you hand over half of that crack sandwich. I will pay you for it! How much? $5, $10…name your price.”

Lydia just laughed at me as she carefully opened the plastic wrapped piece of heaven and handed me half of the sandwich. She lifted her half to her lips and took a bite. Her tongue darted out to catch a glob of jam that tried to escape down the side of her mouth; she caught it before it got to her chin. My cock stirred in my pants as I watched her.

Her snark snapped me out of my jelly-licking induced trance. “So, are you going to eat that or do you just like holding stuff?” As I took a bite, I couldn’t help it, a moan of pure pleasure escaped as the flavors of smooth peanut butter, sweet bananas, and grainy strawberry jam danced across my palate.

“Oh my God, this is food porn. Sorry for the soundtrack,” I mumbled in between chews. I was actually chewing very slowly, savoring each morsel and regretting swallowing.

“It’s just a sandwich,” she told me in a lowered voice.

“This is not
just
a sandwich, not to me. Whatever you used, you have to buy more.” We proceeded to make a long shopping list, she cleaned up after we finished up and I asked her to grab my wallet from the bedroom so she could do some shopping.

“You heading out now?” I asked her.

“Well, it’s still a bit early, so I can go do groceries and then come back and cook you dinner before I head out.” Yes! Praise Neptune! I’m getting dinner! Now she needs to leave so I can pee.

Lydia grabbed her jacket and left my home as she headed to the supermarket. I went to the sofa to grab my empty water bottle and it was not there. It had been there earlier. Where was it? I backed up to try to peek under the sectional to see if the bottle had fallen and rolled under. It wasn’t there. I continued to look around and there was not one bottle, cup, dish, bowl, or receptacle of any kind to be found. The only thing around was Lydia’s travel cup.

Fuck. Please forgive me.

A little over an hour later, Lydia returned with another truckload of parcels. This woman was born to shop. I helped her human-cart the grocery bags into the house and watched her unload. I sat at the threshold of the kitchen and watched the yumminess get unpacked.

“Oh my God, I am so thirsty! I didn’t have any cash for the soda machine and that supermarket didn’t have any of those single serve fridges by the checkout.”

“No! You can’t use that!” I exclaimed grabbing her travel cup from her grasp.

“Ryan, what’s got into you? Come on, hand it over,” she said impatiently.

“There are plenty of glasses in the kitchen cabinets. I will buy you a new cup, I promise.” Tucking the cup under my arm away from her.

“Ryan, you’re being silly. So either you tell me what this is all about, or hand over my cup.”

I mill around my head tossing the idea of how do I tell her this. “What did you do with all the water bottles?”

“I took them out to the recycling bin, why?”

“You cleaned up too well, and I was left with only one alternative…so I don’t need those caths, but I do need a bottle.” I stretch out my words hoping she won’t make me say each gory detail.

I watched as the realization hit her and I felt like shit. “Eww, Ryan!” she shrieked.

“I’m sorry! You cleaned up really, really well and my chair doesn’t fit in the bathroom.”

Disgust changed to confusion on her face and she asked, “What do you mean your chair doesn’t fit?”

“It doesn’t fit in any of the doorways, so basically I stay out here in the living room. I do rinse my bottles in the sink. I can reach that faucet, but I can’t make it all the way inside. Same for my bedroom, I can’t get in there.” I felt disgusted with myself as I hung my head in my hands. I hated admitting this, but she was going to find out eventually.

“Okay,” she said with determination. “If this is going to work, you are going to have to be honest with me. No secrets. I’m a nurse and a professional. This is a judgment-free zone, okay?”

What did I say to that? I didn’t want anyone fussing over me. I just wanted to be left alone. And a shower, I really wanted a shower.

Lydia knelt before me and pulled my hands away from my face, forcing me to look at her. “Ryan, I know this is hard, but I am here to help. For me to help, you have to tell me what you need, what you can do and what you need help with. I am going to go unpack the groceries and make some dinner. Okay?” I nodded slightly, and she released my hands, stood, and went into the kitchen.

I sat there for the next ten minutes just thinking. What did I want? I wanted to be fishing; that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want to be in this damn chair, but I didn’t really have a choice now, did I? I needed to shower and change my clothes. I needed to be able to get into my bedroom. If I could just get in there, it would be great.

I just had to trust her.

I rolled over to the kitchen threshold and watched as Lydia put away jar after jar of peanuts, peanut butter, pasta boxes, jars of this and that while humming to herself what sounded like a pop tune I’d heard on the radio but I couldn’t think of the name.

Then I saw them. “Are those Oreos I see?” My pulse quickened at the sight of the bright blue package.

“Yes, they are the new peanut butter ones. Have you ever had them?” she said teasingly, waving them around.

“No, I haven’t, but you can hand them over now.” I said with an outstretched hand.

“No, you will ruin your dinner,” she said in her best stern mommy voice.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Well, my shift is over soon so I figured I would just make something quick and easy. How does Mac and Cheese with Franks sound? I can make something better tomorrow with more time.”

“Sounds good to me. Anything is better than cold Meals on Wheels. Then I can have some Oreos, Mom?”

Her face turned ashen, and she stood frozen in the kitchen.

“I promise I will eat, okay?”

She snapped out of her zone and handed me the package, busying herself with making dinner. I retreated to the safe zone of the living room and left her to dinner.

The macaroni and cheese with cut up franks was heavenly. It was a little piece of normal back in my life. Lydia served me a second bowl and started to gather her things to head home.

“Hey Lydia, I was thinking about what you said before. Thank you for not freaking out. I’m sorry about your cup. I will buy you a new one,” I said quietly as I shoveled the last few spoonfuls of heaven in my mouth.

“You don’t have to buy me a new cup; I have a bunch at home. No worries.”

“Thank you for coming to help me today.”

“Well, I will be back again tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that…so get used to me. Tomorrow is when the work begins,” she said with confidence.

“Work? Woman, I am retired. No work for me. Only thing I am good for these days is carrying groceries and as a door stop.”

Her head whipped around at me but instead of anger, she had a grin, “We will see about that, Mister. See you tomorrow.”

Lydia took my bowl into the kitchen and tidied up collecting trash along her path. She left the package of Peanut Butter Oreos on the dining room table, “Here, these are for later.”

“Can you leave out some water too?” I asked quietly.

“It’s right there on the counter, Ryan.”

“Thanks, Lydia. I know you are headed out now, but do you think tomorrow I can take a shower?”

“Sure thing. Today food, tomorrow shower. We will work out the kinks and get you sorted. So aside from the doorways, what else haven’t you been able to do?”

“I can’t get to the kitchen and the fridge, my bedroom or bathrooms. Those are the biggest things so far. Oh, can you bring me my cell phone?” She went into my bedroom and retrieved my cell phone and wallet and brought them back.

“Okay, first thing tomorrow we will get you showered and then we will go from there.”

“Thanks for coming today, Lydia.” I said meekly. I hated asking for help, never mind admitting that I needed it.

“That’s what I am here for, Ryan. I will see you tomorrow.” She gathered her backpack and nursing bag and left for the day.