Love in Darkness (Castles on the Sand 2)

Fifteen

I don’t know Mrs. Ruskin’s first name. She’s a petite woman with ebony skin and her hair in neat cornrows. “Alex, hi. Um, hello.”

I step over to her, cock an eyebrow, and wait for her to continue.

“My husband told me what happened, when you called about Dmitri. I wanted to apologize.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. I’m really embarrassed, actually. I can’t believe Wendy blabbed about it in public, and I can’t believe Dave didn’t say anything against it. You’d think if anyone would understand your situation, it’d be the disabled community.”

“Well, thanks.”

“So how are you?”

I shrug. “Fine. Really.” I look past her to see Dmitri negotiating his way between the racks of clothing to join us. He’s still awkward in his chair, which means he’s still getting used to it. I wonder how long ago he was injured. His atrophied leg muscles tell one story and his awkwardness another. Despite his mother’s African descent, Dmitri’s hair is almost blond. People often look twice when they find out how these two are related. Genetics is a fascinating process.

His mother glances at him, then turns to face me completely so that he won’t see her face. “Dmitri’s attempted suicide three times.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Last time he lied about where he was, went out into the woods, and took a whole bottle of pills. I just had a sense that something was wrong and it’s a miracle I found him. This isn’t a cry for help kind of situation, you know what I mean?”

I do. Dmitri really does want to end his life, is what she’s saying, and this isn’t all that uncommon among the newly disabled. People look ahead to a life with new curtailments and limitations and despair.

“I’m doing all I can to be supportive, but I’m out of my depth here. We’ve been to Dr. Maliki. He’s been on anti-depressants.”

“But his problem isn’t biochemical,” I say.

“Right. What can we do? If there were any procedure, at all, that would make him walk again, no matter how expensive, I would pay for it. I would fly him anywhere in the world to get it. And don’t think that this means I was a mother who always spoiled him before this happened. This is different.” She dabs tears from her eyes.

“Yeah, I know it is.” She’s here in Old Navy. Clearly she’s not a throw-money-everywhere kind of person.

“And I’m sorry to bother you, especially considering how you can’t possibly have a very high opinion of us, but do you have any ideas?”

Dmitri manages to clear the last of the clothing racks and wheels on over to us. His scowl shows me that he’s able to guess what his mom’s been talking about and he propels his wheelchair forward with angry, overpowered movements. He isn’t awkward in his chair because he’s not used to it. He’s fighting with it because he doesn’t want to need it.

“You into sports?” I ask him.

“Very funny.” He sneers.

“He was the quarterback of the varsity football team. Honey, really, not everyone in town knows or cares about high school football.”

He rolls his eyes, though, convinced that I asked him just to have the chance to mock him or give false sympathy.

I look him over again. The break in his spine appears to be pretty high up, as best as I can tell from the way he moves. I don’t remember all the classifications of paraplegia, but I know several exist, and the most severe ones are what a certain sport was designed for. “Wheelchair rugby,” I say. “Ever heard of it?”