It was a beautiful misty morning on what promised to be a hot day. The long deep cold lake that seemed like a river more than a lake was perfect for a boat racing regatta. Before the trees formed a bowl on all sides, it was surrounded along the shoreline with hundreds of people all waiting for a race to begin.
The first race was hydroplanes with their huge rooster tails and extraordinary high speeds on the water. The crowds came to watch the races and let's face it, to watch the accidents. The hydroplane races ended mostly without any incident, much to the disappointment of the crowd. The long red and white Miss Canada won the race, not that anybody really cared.
The second race, which normally would have gone first, but not all the competitors had arrived on time, was for stock outboard motor. Boats about 15 feet or so long with two hulls outside of a long tunnel which were fairly flat but with a gentle slope on each side of the bottom towards the motor.
The boats shot off the starting line and there was so much wind and water squirting 30 or more feet into the air, you could barely see them. The competitors didn’t look at each other and most probably didn’t know who else was racing. Between death, injury and poverty, the turnover was high, and no one got to know one another anymore. The crowds screamed for their favourite or at least for the people walking around with trays of beer. Either way between the screaming crowds, the roar of the boats etc. it was pure cacophony.
The race was tight. The twin hulled boats were barley touching the water. There were so few racing venues left and stock outboard was hardly the most popular. That didn’t stop it from being intense and the difference between first and last was just a few seconds. There was no better feeling for Joe Framer, a pleasant looking dark-haired man in his early 30s, than racing his stock outboard boat and this time he could feel he was winning. But just before the finish line, his excitement pushed him too far and the boat lifted just enough for the wind to get underneath it and he flipped over and over again until the boat landed upside down. It was exactly what the fans came to see—a boat flipped over and torn to pieces with death just seconds away.
He was upside down struggling in pain trying to remove the harness. He couldn’t breathe and his pain was overwhelming. Too often he had heard, “is that what you want, to be a dying man in dying sport?” Now he really was a dying man in a dying sport. On his last breath and in total agony…He didn’t remember much after that except a person in a wetsuit bringing him some oxygen just in time, getting free from the harness and floating to the surface. They took him to the shore and sent him in an ambulance to the large old city hospital which was more than 10 miles away. His prognosis was not good.
Defying the worst of the odds going against him, Joe spent months in and out of hospital in rehab from a nearly broken neck and spine. He could have been paralysed. He could have been dead which in his mind might have been better because all he could think of was not being able to race again.
Stuck in a hospital staring at the cold cream-coloured walls in bed for hours if not days at a time, all he could hope for was the beautiful physical therapist named Megan was going to visit him soon and take him to the therapy room which was at the end of the long hall with what sounded like sadness and pain behind every door on the way. The therapy room itself was little more than an exercise room with a set of gymnastic parallel bars in the middle. It also had an empty jacuzzi tub that no one had ever seen work.
Megan was attractive, well proportioned, with blond hair and delicate features, but an almost annoyingly bubbly personality. She was one of those happy people and it drove Joe crazy. There was little hope of a relationship there as she had seen him at his worst – crying from pain, angry at his inability to do the things that used to come so easily …which he often took out on her.
Megan didn’t seem to mind and just told him to push through it. She would smile and occasionally laugh with him when he felt his failures were comical. In one such incident he was supposed to walk between the 2 parallel bars for support, but he missed one of the bars. He fell ass over teakettle right on top of the therapist. Joe was apologetic at first, but he could see the laugh Megan was trying to stifle and then they both started to giggle. It was a tough situation not knowing how much movement he would get back and what he would do from here. “I’ve never seen anyone completely miss the bar before,” Megan said laughing loudly. Joe didn’t mind in fact he was glad for the break of constant seriousness. They kept telling him he was lucky to be alive, but was he? So, humour even dark humour was a welcome relief.
Truth to tell Joe didn’t feel lucky at all. His boat racing days were most probably done and were it not for the inheritance his parents left him when they died in a plane crash, he would be broke. Insurance was paying for his hospital and rehab but even that would be gone soon.
There was no one in Joe’s life. He had poured himself into his racing career, so he had no wife or children. He had a brother out there somewhere, but he had no idea where. They didn’t really have a falling out. They just lost touch and neither tried to find the other. He always thought he would have time for a family later but here he was in his thirties and nearly paralyzed with no one and nothing to show for it. All that just made the pain of rehab that much more torturous. Was there any point? Sure, he might even get some movement back but for what purpose? His life was like an episode of that Canadian TV show “Mary Kills People” where she euthanized the dying except, he didn’t know a Mary and technically he was not dying. He felt dead inside and surely that must count for something.
Annie, his regular day time nurse, was a pretty girl, but she looked much younger than she actually was. She looked like she was about 14 but she was likely in her mid 20s. She dealt with Joe when he was his most cantankerous. But Annie seemed to take it in stride, and it never really bothered her much when Joe yelled and threw things at her and told her to go away.
They say the hospital is filled with patients but it's really the staff who are the patient ones. Joe was frustrated. He wanted to be able to move. He wanted to be able to walk down the hall and go outside and have a cigarette but none of that was possible anymore. Megan, the physical therapist, was always happy to see him even when he wasn't happy to see her. Though she had seen him at his worst there was a bond developing between the two of them and she could get him to laugh and just accept his circumstances. But that didn't stop him from wanting more.
“Come on over here Joe and I will give you a big kiss,” Megan teased.
“Really?”
“Don’t be silly. Of course not. How about a chocolate bar instead?” Megan wax coxing him.
“Um…well I preferred your earlier offer but…wait…what kind of chocolate bar?” Joe asked
“I think it’s a Jersey Milk.”
“Well ok but for future reference I prefer Cadbury,” Joe said teasing back.
“Noted,” Megan said as, just then, Joe tumbled to the floor.
“Do I still get the bar?” Joe laughed through the pain and obvious discomfort while lying on the floor.
Megan helped him sit up and said, “We’ll share.” She then took the bar out of her pale blue uniform pocket, ripped it open and gave Joe a piece.
“Is that all I get?”
“Yes, to put it bluntly …. you failed!” At that Joe stood up and shakily walked four more feet and then fell again.
“Oh, Joe I am so sorry. Are you alright?”
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Do I get another piece of the chocolate bar?” They both laughed but for Joe it was a sad laugh.
“Ok. OK, we've had enough suffering for one day,” Megan said as she broke another piece of the chocolate bar. And then decided to change the subject. “What were you like as a kid?” Megan asked curiously.
“My life as a kid was actually pretty fun. I had really good parents. They loved me and let's face it they indulged me a little too much and now I guess I'm paying the price for that. When they died my whole world was ripped apart! All I had was my racing and now that's gone too.” Joe said this in sad reflection of times long gone.
“It must have been very lonely?” Megan asked as if making a statement.
“No, not really. I immersed myself in the boat racing. I went from one race to another to another winning just often enough to keep me going. My parents, when they died, left me quite a bit of money. On top of that there was a huge insurance settlement... not that I needed it, but you know I took it.”
“What about you, what was your childhood like?” asked Joe
“Oh well much the same as yours going from the Hamptons to Florida—mansion to mansion, indulging in all life had to offer,” Megan said somewhat sarcastically.
“Really?”
“No. My parents were partyers and when I was 8, the party caught up to them and they both got killed in a car crash. I was alone and no relatives that I knew about so I ended up in foster care. I was with the first family for four years but when I was 11 my foster dad started to really like me if you catch my drift,” Megan said with tears forming in her eyes.
“Oh God, I am so sorry…”
“It’s ok now,” Megan added quickly. “They moved me out of there when I was 12 and I went to a lovely older couple who have been the kindest most wonderful people to me even to this day. I still call them Mom and Dad and they have helped me in every way real parents can…money, school, chasing off boys…”
“I bet they had to do a lot of that.” Joe interrupted.
“Thank you but no not as much as you might think. I mean I am not stupid; I know some find me attractive, but I think I just never got close to anyone. Or. Maybe it had to do with the abuse, I don’t know.” After a short pause Megan changed the subject. “I think I’ve talked more about myself today than I ever have to anyone.” Megan was full of tears now and Joe skillfully wiped them away but even reaching out his arms was hurting a lot…although not as much as hearing about Megan’s early life. The pain Joe was experiencing was both physical and mental. He was a boat racer that would never again drive a boat. But right now, all he wanted to do was hug someone and he couldn’t even do that.
“Ok I get all that but why physio?” Joe asked curiously.
Megan chuckled a bit as they went from too serious to light conversation. “No big conversion experience, I fell off a motorcycle when I was a teenager and the therapist at the hospital was so kind and patient, I thought maybe it was something I could do.”
“So, you liked inflicting pain then?” Joe joked.
“Exactly,” Megan smiled. “What about you? How did you get into boats?”
“My parents always had one and I always wanted to go faster, so I went from racing locally to what’s left of the tour,” Joe answered sadly remembering he would never be a competitive racer again.
A few days later, during rehab, Joe and Megan seemed to share a moment where their heads were close together and they both looked at each other longingly and started to kiss. Luckily for both, Annie showed up at that very moment and said time was up. Joe was angry at himself, he was sure that Megan had a boyfriend, and she was just feeling compassion for him as he suffered through his rehab.
The next morning Annie wheeled him down the crowded hall --with hospital staff scurrying around like nuns on their way to mass-- to the physical therapy unit and this time there was a new therapist. Tom, the new therapist, was a very large man well over 6 feet with muscles bigger in his arms than in Joe's legs. Joe was sad that Megan wasn't there. He had come to trust her… even more than he was developing a crush on her.
Joe asked Tom where Megan was, and Tom just replied tersely, “well she's not here is she? They say you two got a little bit too close and that she could no longer be objective in your care which is why I'm stuck with you. Now get off your fat *** and start walking!” Tom lifted Joe and brought him over to the parallel bars where Joe was starting to take steps, but he felt like his legs couldn't hold him up and he started to fall. Tom just let him. There was no connection between the two of them at all. Tom looked down at Joe who is now curled up on the floor and he told him to “get up you lazy *******.
Just then Megan appeared at the door she looked at Tom and said, “If you can't provide proper care, you shouldn't be here!” To which Tom replied, “Well if you wouldn't fall in love with your patients, I wouldn't be here. I would be with people that need me! This pathetic excuse of a human being who doesn't want to be cured is not high on my priority list. So, if you want him that bad you can have him!” At that Tom stormed out.
“So, I guess the wedding is off then,” Joe called out after Tom left the room. Megan stifled a laugh, but she was embarrassed.
Megan helped Joe get up and he held on to her tightly has she lifted him up to the bars. He couldn’t help noticing that for a relatively small woman, she was amazingly strong. He was in pain, but it wasn't just the physical pain of using legs that didn't want to be used but it was a sad pain that if what Tom had said was true and Megan really did like him, he had nothing to offer her. He did have an element of financial security thanks to his parent’s plane crash, but he had no plan for nor any real interest in the future.
Megan seemed to know what Joe was thinking about. She just looked at him hard in his eyes and said, “Don't get too far ahead of yourself. You've got a long way to go. For now, let's just worry about you learning to walk again. Besides Tom was just jealous. He has wanted to go out with me for a long time and when Annie told him why I didn’t want to be your therapist anymore, he thought I had a romantic interest in you. But really the moment we had was nothing. But it was unprofessional, so it won’t happen again.”
“Right, you like me …. you totally like me!” Joe was teasing Megan.
“Well, I don’t hate you but keep that up and it wont take long.”
“Well therapist lady, I like you too.” Joe was trying to be serious, but it all came out wrong.
Some time later as Megan walked up to the nurse’s station to get a chart.
“So, what’s going on between you and Joe?” Annie asked Megan
“You know I wish I knew. It’s not appropriate to be with a patient and I have a guy I have been dating for a while now but there is something about Joe that’s hard to explain. Even when he’s angry and yelling at me, he just makes me wanna laugh. …Like it’s a game and we’re both playing it.”
“Yeah, I get that. I sort of feel the same.”
“Oh, were you interested in him?” Megan asked cautiously.
“No, I play for a different team.” Annie said as Megan looked confused. “Let’s just say I’m more interested in you than him.” Annie explained.
“Oh,” there was a long pause as Megan figure out what Annie was saying.….”Ohhhh. I had no idea,” Megan said, and they both laughed.
“So, you want to go back to my place and make out?” Annie asked coyly.
“Ummm I hope I didn’t….” Megan stuttered.
Annie was laughing now. “Oh my God, I was just teasing you,” Annie laughed again. “But do you?”
“Still teasing?” Megan asked still not certain if Annie was making a serious offer.
“Oh yeah,” Annie laughed again.
Not long after, Annie, the petite but pretty nurse, invited Megan to her place. Megan was trepidatious and perhaps a little intrigued but when she got to Annie’s tidy but small one bedroom apartment, they sat on the floor on either side of a small circular coffee table, drank sangria, and played scrabble all night. Annie and Megan were both glad nothing else happened and they each had a real friend now and, evidently, both were fiercely competitive scrabble players.
The days seemed to go quickly now. Joe seemed to be getting better. He could get out of bed on his own and wheel himself to rehab. When he got there, he virtually jumped out of the chair to go on the parallel bars. But as he was about to turn around on the bars, Megan grabbed his arms and told him to start walking toward her. There were no bars on either side of him now and Megan dropped her arms, and he was on his own now. He was wobbly but very determined to keep walking toward her.
“Keep walking and I will give you a very unprofessional reward,” Megan said. He walked on thinking maybe he’d get to kiss her or something but after he had walked about five feet, she grabbed him and hugged him. It was a little disappointing but nice none-the-less.
“This is our last session,” Megan said sadly. “You are going to be released tomorrow and you'll be looked after by the outpatient clinic so it's not likely that I'll see you again. But I'll tell you this, even though I shouldn't, I'll really miss you!” Joe could tell by the look in her eyes that she was genuinely sad, and he knew in his heart that he would miss her too. More than anything he wished at that moment that he had something to offer her other than more sadness and pain.
As tears welled up in his eyes all Joe could manage was “thank you”.
As if she understood everything Joe was not saying, the tears fell from her eyes and she offered a very loaded, “You’re welcome.”
After a couple of months of outpatient rehab, Joe was pretty much walking on his own. Although he used a cane to support himself. He hadn't seen Megan in that whole time but every day he wished and hoped and even prayed that he would see her again. He was making use of his skills and finishing courses in marine engineering which he started years ago. The course and the eventual job that came with it, helped make use of his love for boats even though he knew he would never race again now. He would soon be working on military watercraft designing them for the Canadian Navy.
As time went on Joe had regained most of his mobility but even though it had been almost a year now, he still missed Megan. He loved his new job working out design flaws and helping get that little extra second of speed and expand the capability of each boat or ship that he was working on. He had a workmate who herself was quite pretty and they often went out with each other to have a drink, dinner or even go to a show. Even though she was quite lovely with a beautiful figure, Joe new that they could never be more than just friends and he hoped Catherine, his workmate, knew that as well, but he never broached the subject.
It was during one of those outings at a pub near the hospital that from across the room, a dark grey room with small tables for two elevated a few feet above larger tables below. A room filled with people who were laughing and drinking and carrying on, Joe saw Megan at a table about 30 feet away. It was the first time he had seen her without her hospital fatigues, and she was even more beautiful than he had remembered…blonde hair, blue eyes, every man's dream. And he new at that instant he didn't have a chance.
But just then she saw him and literally ran across the room almost jumping over people and tables and threw her arms around him without giving Catherine a second thought and she said, “Oh my God Joe, I've missed you so much. How have you been? Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
It was then that she noticed Catherine. She looks at her and says, “Oh I'm sorry! I was his physical therapist after his accident.”
Catherine looked at her and asked, “Joe had an accident? What happened?
“Oops! Oh, Joe didn't tell you.” Megan mouthed sorry to Joe and looked back to Catherine. “Well, I'll let you two catch up and…” Looking back at Joe. “…You can tell her the story! It was really good seeing you. Maybe you could give me a call let me know how you're doing?”
“OK but I don't have your number.”
“That’s an easy fix. Give me your phone.” Megan took the phone and she put in her number and awkwardly walked back to her date who looked just as befuddled as Catherine. Even though Catherine and Joe never thought the other would amount to anything long term, Catherine still felt a bit of jealousy and frustration at Megan’s visit. But she was actually angry that Joe never told her about the accident. She knew he walked with a cane, and he told her that he’d tell her why eventually. But she was his friend…. maybe his only friend and she didn't know a whole part of Joe's history.
Joe let himself look a little too long and a little too lingering at Megan. Catherine looked like she was about to get up and leave and he looked over at her and said, “No wait I'll tell you the story. Please just sit down.” She sat down and listened patiently while Joe told her the whole story about racing boats… how he had pretty modest success, winning a race or two and then the terrible accident that basically put him in hospital and eventually outpatient rehab for well over a year before he was able to walk again. Even though he could now only walk with a cane. Catherine just looked at him and said, “Joe I'm so sorry, I had no idea. I knew you had a cane, but I didn't know why. Personally, I thought it was just something you carried to make yourself look cool,” Catherine said trying to lighten the mood.
Joe looked at her and laughed and said, “Canes make you look cool? I wish I'd known.” They both chuckled and then Catherine looked over at Joe and realized that he was still staring at Megan, and she looked at him and said, “You should call her. She may have been your therapist then but she's not now.” Joe looked at her and said, “Well what about you?” To which Catherine replied, “Oh Joe you and I will always be friends. Maybe even friends with benefits but let's face it, that's all we were ever gonna be. But I see the way you look at her and I just know I want someone to look at me that way,” Catherine said sadly. “We should go…”
At that they both got up and as if on cue, Joe’s cane came down on a bottle and he went tumbling to the ground hard. His head was bleeding, and he didn't look well. Megan launched herself across the room to come to Joe's aid. And she screamed, “Somebody call an ambulance!” About 20 cellphones flashed open and they all, seemingly, called 911.
The paramedics arrived in no time, and they got ready to take Joe back to the hospital.
“How bad is it?” Catherine asked Megan.
Megan replied, “Well with head injuries you never really know but if I know Joe, he's tough enough, he can fight anything even a really bad concussion.”
“Is that what you think it is?”
“Yes, that's what I think but I'm a therapist not a doctor.”
Megan forgot all about her date and went in the ambulance with Joe to the hospital.
Catherine was bewildered, so she asked Megan's date if he wanted to get a drink. Catherine looked at Megan's date and said, “This has been a weird night.”
Megan's date just looked at Catherine and said, “You could say that again. …Lost my girlfriend to a crippled guy. And Catherine just smiled and said, “And I just lost my boyfriend to his therapist.”
In the ambulance Megan just looked at a somewhat lucid Joe and said, “We have to stop meeting like this.” Joe chuckled and then closed his eyes Megan looked at him intently and said, “If you die on me, I'm gonna kill you.”
Joe smiled and pulled Megan close and kissed her passionately.
Megan broke the kiss and said, “Just so you know….I’m out of chocolate.”
Then they kissed again until the ambulance got to the hospital.
--30--