Two broken vertebrae, T11 and T12, a partial injury to the spinal cord.
I would walk again, said Dr. Patel, but not for at least six to nine months.
Until then, I would need help with nearly everything.
Bathing.
Dressing.
Getting from the bed to the chair, from the chair to the toilet.
Keith visited four times in the first ten days.
He stood at the foot of the bed with his hands in his pockets and said, “You look rough.”
Then I was moved to Heartland Rehabilitation Hospital, third floor, where the ultimatum happened.
It was March 27th, ten days into rehab.
The third-floor day room smelled like pudding and disinfectant.
An oxygen concentrator hummed in one corner.
Eight patients sat in wheelchairs around small tables, each with a visitor, and a nurse named Una Hendry was working the medication cart by the window.
Across the room, a physical therapist named Mitch Yost was guiding an older man through a standing exercise with a gait belt around his waist.
I was in my wheelchair with a lap blanket and a plastic cup of apple juice.
Keith sat across from me, tapping his phone against the table.
“The discharge planner says I need to be home with you,” I said. “At least until I can transfer on my own. Three months, maybe more.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
“No,” he said. “I mean I’ve been thinking about what it’s worth.”
I thought I’d misheard him.
“What it’s worth,” I said.
He leaned back.
“Jodie. You’ve earned more than me for years. I took the break, I changed jobs, you said it was fine. That was your choice. Now it’s your turn.”
He said the next part clearly, in a voice that carried across the room.
“If you want me to stay and help you, it’s a thousand dollars a week. You pay me. Every Friday.”
The man with the gait belt stopped in the middle of a step.
A spoon clinked against a bowl and went quiet.
“Keith,” I whispered. “Not here.”
“Why not here? You’re always telling me to talk to you like an adult.”
“Please.”
“YOU’VE EARNED MORE THAN ME FOR YEARS,” he said. “NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO PAY UP. I’M NOT YOUR NURSE.”
Every conversation in that room d*ed.
I counted eleven faces turned toward us.
My cheeks burned.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
That was when Carly walked in.
Carly Pfeiffer, my best friend since sophomore year of college, the maid of honor at my wedding, in a black wrap dress and a dark green Hermès Birkin on her forearm, and a Cartier Love bracelet that flashed gold when she lifted her hand to wave.
I thought, for one stupid second, that she’d come to save me.
She kissed my cheek.
“Oh, honey,” she said. “I heard from Keith. You can’t expect a man to give up his whole life for free.”
Her perfume was sweet and heavy.
“You’ll pay him. It’s only fair.”
Keith held out his hand.
“Phone,” he said.
“What?”
“Open your banking app.”
I didn’t move.
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