Finding Liberty Read online

  “Ask again,” Trig says. “You wouldn’t make Mozart spend his life playing the kazoo because no one else wanted to do it. There are plenty of people who can manage a car dealership. If there weren’t, you wouldn’t see them everywhere you can throw a rock.”

  “Duly noted,” I say. “Now can we check out the jewelry box?”

  Trig sighs. “You should listen to me, man. I know what I know.”

  Profound.

  Trig meanders to where I’m standing and I point at the armoire. I made a base table for it that I have no idea whether he’ll want. He said he’d fill it up for her, and filling it up felt like something that was supposed to take time, so I made it big. Maybe too big.

  The center has seven slim drawers, the top three for rings, then three for bracelets and one that’s open space. Then three larger drawers at the bottom are made to fit larger pieces like bulky bracelets, hair clips or jewelry she wants to keep in boxes.

  “I made the center of the box of this honey colored quilted maple because I love the marbling. I wanted a darker contrast color for the waved doors in the front, and the legs, and the sides, so I used bubinga. It’s a hardwood from Africa, and I love the contrast of the reddish tone against the pale gold of the maple.”

  “These open?” Trig points at the doors in front of the drawers.

  “Yep, they just swing out.”

  Trig opens them gently, the doors swinging out so he can pull out the necklace holder slide bar. But when they’re open, he doesn’t pull out any of the ten drawers, or the necklace sliders. He bends down to read the engraving and exhales.

  “You’ve already carved it.”

  “I know,” I say. “I put your inscription across the lid, but then this just felt right. I can redo the doors if you want me to. I probably should have asked you first. Sometimes inspiration just strikes me.”

  I carved the words, “What I promise…” on the top left of the left side door. And on the bottom of the right, I carved, “I do.”

  “I thought about ‘What I promise… I fulfill.’ It sounded more poetic, but since it’s a wedding gift, I do felt like the proper way to end it.”

  “It’s absolutely perfect.” Trig slides the necklaces holders out and back in. He opens the drawers slowly and they glide smoothly.

  “I probably have time to redo anything you don’t love. We could change wood colors, or—”

  Trig grunts. “Nothing. I wouldn’t change a single thing. It’s immaculate. So delicate and refined and yet sturdy.” He whistles. “Don’t get mad, but I was expecting a little wooden box. This.” He shakes his head. “I don’t even know what to say, because it’s even more impressive than the rest. You outdid yourself. Your suggested price is far, far too low.”

  “Oh no,” I say, “A thousand is very generous.”

  “I’m not even going to bother arguing with you. I’ll tip you if you want to call it that.” Trig points to the table the armoire jewelry box sits on. “What’s this?”

  “The base table is optional, and it’s my gift if you want it. The jewelry box has so much hardware and solid wood that it’s heavy, like almost sixty pounds. I worried it might be too heavy unless the base was made with that weight in mind. And I had this idea that Geo might stand in front of it to pick her jewelry, and then want to grab a scarf or gloves…” I trail off.

  The base table matches, with the same two toned wood, and long carved legs, leading up to five large drawers out of the quilted maple again. It’s about eight inches wider than the box, so it looks like it was designed to support it, like the box is a crown on top of a princess’s head. Or maybe that’s only in my mind.

  “I want both. I’ll pay you double the price of the box for the table.”

  “I insist on the table being a gift,” I say. “Geo is my oldest friend. Remember?”

  Trig sighs. “We can work that out later.”

  I drag him over to look at the samples for the interior of the box and Trig agrees with me on the color swatch I picked.

  Half an hour later, he’s still poking around at all the furniture I’ve stored up. “Hey, by the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you thank you,” Trig says. “Brekka said you took her to the beach as an experiment and it wasn’t as bad as she thought. She gave me the green light to do the wedding in Hawaii. Geo and I are delighted.”

  “About that,” I say. “Geo asked me to sort of keep an eye on her mom. I’m a little nervous that I won’t be able to be there for Brekka like I’d want to, since I’ll be making sure Geo’s mom is okay. Is there anyone else Brekka might trust to make sure she has whatever she needs on the sand?”

  Trig leans on the partner’s desk he was looking at. “I’m sure we can think of someone, but hopefully she won’t need it. That may be overly optimistic, but you never know, right?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I say. “Why wouldn’t Geo’s mom need assistance? Is the clinical trial over? Has she been approved for daily doses?”

  “Oh no, I meant Brekka.”

  “Why won’t she need assistance? Her wheelchair won’t roll in loose sand.”

  “Well, I mean, if the surgery goes well, Dr. Anthony said a full recovery takes time, but they encourage patients to be as mobile as possible as soon as possible. He knows when the wedding is and said we have every reason to hope—”

  No. I shake my head. He can’t be serious. “Are you saying Brekka’s getting one of those stupid, risky, dangerous surgeries she mentioned? Now, after four stable years?”

  Trig frowns. “Are you saying she didn’t tell you?”

  I can’t meet his eye. Why didn’t she tell me? “She mentioned she was talking to a doctor, but not that she scheduled anything.”

  Trig taps his fingers on the desk. “She confirmed the date while you were at the beach. She copied me on the email. I thought surely you were the one who convinced her. I wanted to offer to take you to dinner as a thank you. I’ve been trying for years without any luck.”

  I stiffen. Take me to dinner to thank me? For endangering her life on a snipe hunt? For gambling her current safety and quality of life on whispered prayers? “I’m the last person you should thank. I told her I thought this was the worst idea I’d ever heard. We fought about it, actually. I’d never want anyone to think I support this, not in any way.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Trig asks.

  “Not remotely.”

  Trig sits in a wooden chair that’s next to the desk and runs his hands through his hair. He’s clearly overdue on a cut. “You didn’t know Brekka before the accident. She was intrepid. Nothing scared her. She was the bravest person I know. She’s always been small, but she didn’t seem… I can’t think of the word for what she is now, but—”

  “Fragile. The word you’re looking for is fragile,” I say.

  He throws his hands into the air. “Yes. That’s exactly it. She was small, but she was never fragile, not like she is now. Brekka was a firecracker that would blow anything that got in her way into smithereens. It was a sight to see.”

  “She’s still a firecracker.” I think of the day she stormed my office to yell at me for interfering with Trig and Geo. It feels like an age, but mentally I compared her to a dragon.

  “Right, you’d think so, but comparatively, she’s—”

  “No,” I say. “Stop that right now. Stop comparing. Stop wanting her to be exactly the same as she was before. Things change and life changes us and we’re different. We take a beating sometimes, and that alters us, sometimes profoundly. Those changes aren’t always bad, and even when we think they are, they teach us and that strengthens us in a different way.”

  “She broke her back, Rob. And you know as well as I do that the stupid platitude ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ is rubbish. If I break my arm, that bone will always be weaker there. It never remodels as strong as it was before the break.”

  I pace from where we’re standing toward the jewelry box and back again. “I know that bio
logical fact, yes, but you’re missing everything else.”

  “Like what?” Trig asks. “I’ve never broken my back, but you have. That gives you a unique perspective, but tell me this. Let’s say your break hadn’t healed. Wouldn’t you jump at any chance to regain mobility?”

  I would have. I absolutely would have. But I hate the idea of Brekka doing this and I can’t articulate why.

  “Look, my sister has been cowering in the corner since this happened. We had a cat once that got attacked by something. We didn’t know what. But it huddled in the corner, completely fine other than a tiny scratch on its shoulder. We couldn’t get to it and figured it would crawl out. It didn’t. That poor cat would have hidden back there in shock until it died. Brekka’s like that poor cat. She’s been hiding. Before you came along, she was content to keep hiding. You’ve woken something in her, something that she needed to find again.”

  “She didn’t need anything at all when we met. She was already dazzling,” I say.

  Trig rolls his eyes. “Spare me the besotted drivel. My point is that my sister’s being brave again, for maybe the first time in four years. I’m going to support her, and if you’re smart, you’ll do the same thing.”

  Trig stands up and walks toward me slowly until he’s inches away and we’re eye to eye. “What you will not do is call or text her and freak out about it. You will not tell a woman you barely know what to gamble on or what to do with her life. Do you understand me?”

  His order raises my hackles and my chest swells. I’m about to tell him where he can shove his advice until I remember what Brekka told me.

  Trig blames himself.

  He’s a wounded animal, too. He needs Brekka to do something, anything to save herself. He needs atonement, and she’s refused to give him any hope he’ll ever have it.

  I lower my voice as much as I can, trying to defuse the situation, not torque it any more. “Are you sure this isn’t about you, Trig? Your guilt? Your hopes?”

  Trig stares at me for a full minute, pivots on his heel and walks out of my shop.

  I collapse onto a chair and put my face in my hands. I hate that she’s doing this. I want to call her and yell. I want to rant about what a horrible idea it is. I want to discuss the ramifications, the risks. I want her to believe that spending time with me is precious and she’s endangering it.

  I want to be enough for her.

  But if I’m being honest with myself, Trig’s right. I barely know her. I need to mind my own business. It should be easy to do, since Brekka didn’t even trust me enough to tell me she’s having the surgery in the first place.

  I whip out my phone and text Trig. I WON’T SAY A WORD. I WON’T EVEN TELL HER THAT I KNOW ABOUT THE SURGERY.

  THANK YOU.

  BUT I HAVE A CONDITION.

  Trig’s emojis may be borderline girly, but his talent at creatively using swearwords offsets it. I grin and push ahead.

  YOU’LL TELL ME THE LOCATION AND LET ME BE THERE FOR THE SURGERY. YOU DON’T NEED TO TELL HER, AND I WON’T SEE HER BEFORE OR INTERFERE AFTERWARD, BUT I WANT TO BE CLOSE.

  I CAN AGREE TO THAT, he texts back.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. Now just ninety bazillion more breaths in and out before that feeling of an anvil on my chest will clear. I can do this, right?

  15

  Brekka

  I’m sick of wearing this flimsy open-backed surgical gown already and I’ve only had it on for eight minutes.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  Dr. Anthony turns to me, a clipboard in his hand. “Anything.”

  Anything? Really? A bizarre, twisted part of me wants to ask him something strange, like what he ate for dinner last night, or whether he likes trying on women’s shoes in the privacy of his own home. But I don’t. I focus on what matters.

  “In your opinion, is it likely I could ever have children?”

  Dr. Anthony lowers his clipboard until it rests against his legs. “Well, I’m not an OB, but we did quite a few tests recently. We have every reason, based on everything I saw, to assume that you could, yes. You aren’t pregnant currently, however. We did confirm that.”

  My belly laugh surprises him. “You have to engage in intercourse to get pregnant,” I explain. “So it’s funny, because there’s no way I could possibly be pregnant.”

  Dr. Anthony frowns. “You have sensation throughout your pelvic region currently, so there’s really no reason you couldn’t be—”

  “Never mind,” I say, wishing I had never brought it up.

  “You should know, since it’s on the paperwork you signed, that there’s a twelve percent chance you’ll lose this ability should this procedure go poorly.”

  Twelve percent. If I had a twelve percent chance of having a zit on my chin tomorrow, I wouldn’t be concerned. After all, odds are against it. I may not be Trig, but I’m good with numbers. But twelve percent chance I can’t have kids tomorrow, when I probably can today seems steep. A vision of a baby pops into my head.

  Goofy, it’s so goofy, but I can’t shake it.

  The baby has my tiny hands, but Rob’s big blue eyes. It has my thick hair, and Rob’s aquiline nose. When she smiles, I can see Rob’s dimple, just on the right side of her face. A single dimple, just like her dad. And I realize I’ve lost my mind, thinking about having a baby with a guy I barely know.

  I want this surgery so I’ll be good enough for Rob. But what if having it ruins our future? My stomach hurts thinking about it.

  “Can I still make calls?” I ask.

  Dr. Anthony’s eyes widen. He brushes the hair that’s combed over the top of his head sideways, as though that might increase its volume. “If you have calls to make, you need to make them immediately. We’re in the final stage of pre-op right now.” He glances at his clock. “I can give you ten minutes. Is that sufficient?”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  He slips out the door and pulls it closed behind him. My finger hovers over the call button, my eyes staring at the name saved for the contact: Robert Graham. He doesn’t even know I’m going in for surgery, but if he did, what would he tell me? He’d probably yell and tell me not to do this. If he were close enough, he’d probably scowl, his big blue eyes flashing, and wave his hands in the air. That’s what he did last time I mentioned it in passing. And he had barely kissed me then. I didn’t even know the shape of his back and shoulders, or the feel of his skin under my fingers. I didn’t know how he taps his lips when he’s reading. I know him so little, and yet he’s all I think about.

  My finger nearly presses the button. I want to hear his voice one last time, if I happen to be one of the tiny few who doesn’t survive the procedure. I want to imagine him standing next to me, holding my hand. He’d be so angry, I doubt handholding would be a likely reaction for him, but it’s what I want more than anything.

  Of course, being mad at me for doing this would be idiotic since I’m doing it for him, or more specifically for us, so we have some semblance of hope for a future. So we could have a real family, not some poor facsimile of what we might have been. He admitted that he gave up when he thought he wouldn’t ever walk. He admitted he threw in the towel entirely.

  I want to call him and convince him that I’m making the right decision.

  Or maybe I want him to convince me. But of what?

  I’ve been fasting since yesterday at five, and somehow my stomach churns anyway. Should I go through with this? They’re going to slice open my back, and then cut into my spine and dig around.

  I shudder.

  They’ll inject a compound that has been proven to destroy scar tissue. Once that has had time to process, which varies depending on the severity of the scarring, they’ll inject stem cells. Then more stem cells. The idea is to stimulate the areas of the spine that have died to grow anew. Then they’ll shift down and repeat the entire thing again below the highest point.

  My spinal cord will pulse there, exposed. My nerve cells are going to be attacked by outside fo
rces, in the hopes they will regrow, heal, and I’m the one sending in the troops. Before I can decide whether to call Rob or not, my phone rings. I nearly drop it.

  I swipe without thinking, sure somehow that it’s Rob. He could feel my angst. The universe has connected us and he’s going to tell me what to do, I know it.

  “Hey Brekka,” Trig says. “I wasn’t sure whether I’d catch you.”

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “I’m in the waiting room outside,” he says. “Duh. Where else would I be?”

  I look at the ceiling. “What are you calling for?” I wipe away a tear. I’m not sure whether I’m crying because I’m afraid, or because my brother called and I love him, or because he’s not Rob.

  “You came in too early,” he says. “I came by your room, but they said you’d already left. I was going to give you a ride over and hold your hand.”

  “I didn’t need that,” I lie. I could really use him here right now. My hand needs a solid squeeze.

  “I had this dream last night, Brekka,” he says, his voice dropping lower, so quiet that I can barely hear him. “It was my wedding, and we were walking along the white sands in Hawaii, hand-in-hand.”

  “You and Geo?” I ask.

  He snorts. “No, you and me, goofball. Why would I call you to tell you about Geo and me? That would be fruitless. I wouldn’t even be able to see you roll your eyes.”

  “So you had a dream of us on the sand, walking, and instead of thinking it’s a memory, you assumed it’s a prophecy?”

  He groans. “Not you too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. Look, my point is that I feel calm about this. I feel amazing, actually. How are you feeling? Are you nervous at all?”

  I can’t bring myself to speak.

  “Brekka, you’ve spent four years paralyzed physically, but emotionally too. You’ve been hiding in the office out in Denver. I’ve been following along and watching all these amazing miracles coming from Dr. Anthony’s research, and every single time I’ve thought, that could have been Brekka. She could have her life back. But now you’re finally doing it. I am so proud of you. Have I mentioned that? I’m so proud.”