Broken Read online

  “They’re not trying to be rude.” I waited until he’d successfully traversed the bumpy patch of concrete before walking by his side. “Besides. It’s been forever since we had dinner out, together. Let’s enjoy it.”

  Once our marriage had been precious. Now it had become fragile, too. Our argument the night before had been swept beneath the carpet, ignored by both of us out of self-preservation. We were both too brittle for truth at the moment.

  “You must be Danning, party of two?” The smiling hostess had very pretty eyes that skated serenely over Adam and rested on me. “You have a reservation.”

  Of course she knew who we were. I’d called to make certain the restaurant had adequate facilities to handle Adam’s chair. Before I could answer, Adam spoke up.

  “How’d you guess?”

  The hostess looked startled that he’d spoken to her. “Oh, I…well, I…”

  Adam had always been a flirt. I don’t think the girl waiting to seat us knew quite what to do. By the time we got to our table, though, she was laughing and blushing. He’d thoroughly charmed her. She left us with several backward glances. I saw her talking with one of the waitresses, pointing.

  “Well,” I told him. “You certainly made an impression.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  A flash of a long-familiar grin made my heart ache. “Yes, Adam. You do.”

  “What looks good?” He indicated the menu with a lift of his chin. “I’m in the mood for something spicy.”

  We looked over the menu and ordered drinks. The waitress looked surprised when Adam ordered a Corona. She looked to me for confirmation, which I could see annoyed him even though he should have been used to it.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I won’t drink and drive.”

  Flustered, she scribbled our orders and fled the table. I gave Adam a look. He gave me one, too.

  “What?”

  “Do you have to be so belligerent?”

  He frowned. “Hey, listen, I’m not a kid. If I want a drink, I should be able to have one.”

  “It’s not fair of you to expect everyone in the world to understand, Adam.”

  He made a disgusted noise. “Ask me if I give a rat’s ass about everyone in the world.”

  “Do you give a rat’s ass about anyone else?” The words popped out before I could stop them.

  The waitress brought our drinks and we ordered our food. She asked Adam what he wanted this time, not speaking to him through me. I waited until she’d gone before saying, “See?”

  “Of course I care,” Adam snapped. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m trying to say,” I said quietly, “that you hold everyone around you up to very high standards of expectation, and I think you do it so you have the right to be disappointed.”

  He said nothing. I pushed the lime to the bottom of his bottle and held it up for him. Beer through a straw had once been a college trick to avoid foam and get intoxicated faster. Now it was simply an easier way for him to drink.

  “Why would I want to be disappointed?” Adam asked when he’d finished sipping.

  “I don’t know. Because then you can be angry at that instead of the fact you’re in a chair? You tell me.”

  It had been a long time since we’d discussed philosophy and punk rock, way back when we’d had hours of life and the desire to live it together. Nothing then had been too weighty a topic. I’d been happy to listen to him then, and I was happy to listen, now.

  “It’s what people see. The chair. Are you saying I shouldn’t expect them to get their heads out of their asses?”

  I shook my head. “No. But you could be kinder about their failures.”

  He snorted. “Beer.”

  I held it up and he drank. “I guess I don’t have your patience, Sadie.”

  “No. Really? I’d never have guessed.”

  We smiled at that, a moment of connection I hadn’t felt in a really long time. Our food came and we ate it, and if people stared and pitied us because I had to cut and feed him his food, Adam and I ignored them. We talked, the way we used to, about nothing serious. It was far from the easy way we’d once been but better than the way we’d become.

  Getting out of the restaurant proved to be slightly harder than getting in had been. The crowd had grown, filling every table and spilling into the aisles. We had to say a lot of “excuse me” and “can you scoot in” but Adam, perhaps taking my words to heart, maintained a cheerfully polite air about it all even when people stared or whispered as we passed. I walked behind him to make sure I could help if he got caught up on anything, my gaze on his wheels.

  In a bigger city, running into someone I knew would have been coincidence, but in Harrisburg it was merely inevitable. I expected to see an acquaintance in the restaurant. I didn’t expect a sleek French twist and pearl earrings.

  “Pardon me,” Priscilla said as she shifted her chair so Adam could get by, but I wasn’t looking at Priscilla.

  Of course, I was looking at Joe.

  “Thanks,” Adam told her as he passed.

  I stopped, frozen for what seemed forever while Joe and I stared. I was the first to look away. I put my hands on the back of Adam’s chair, though he didn’t like that. I thought, perhaps, I could push him faster, harder, though that was silly since he operated the chair and no amount of shoving from me was going to get him through a space too narrow.

  “Sadie, hold on,” Adam said, irritated. “Wait a minute, someone’s got to move or something.”

  People were staring even more at the small commotion we were causing, but Adam stayed calm. I was the one who felt frantic and stressed, my hands shaking and cheeks hot. I wanted to move, but hemmed in by Adam in front and diners on either side, I couldn’t.

  “Here.” Joe stood, moving with easy grace, and tapped the oblivious man at the next table on the shoulder. “Can you move, please?”

  He arranged the chairs and cleared the way in no more than half a minute, and he did it without making it seem awkward or a big deal. He even bent to pick up a napkin that had fallen, no barrier to Adam’s chair but a considerate gesture anyway. Then he stood back, out of the way, to allow us to pass.

  “Thanks, man,” Adam said.

  “No problem.” I heard Joe’s smile though I was steadfastly not looking at his face. “Have a nice night.”

  “Joe, darling,” said Priscilla from behind me. “Sit down.”

  I gave her a glance. She was smiling, too, pleasantly, with her perfect red lips and perfect white teeth. Her perfect hair and face and life. I nodded, quickly, then followed Adam out of the restaurant.

  At home I was quiet as I helped Adam get ready for bed. We went through the routine, so familiar now we didn’t need to think about it. My fingers fumbled on the controls of the lift I used to get him from the chair into bed and for one heart-stopping instant I thought he was going to fall.

  “Easy,” Adam said. A few minutes later, when he was settled and changed into pajamas, he added, “Are you all right?”

  “No.” I started to cry, and this time, he didn’t tell me to stop.

  I cried for a very long time, sobbed myself to sickness, and wished desperately for a hand to hold mine. Adam couldn’t give me that. Not ever. But I laid my face down against his shoulder and wept, and he whispered to me, offering the comfort of his words. They had to be enough.

  “How did we get here?” Adam’s breath ruffled my hair. “I thought we’d always love each other. Was it just the accident, Sadie? Or would this have happened, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.” With my eyes closed and the softness of flannel beneath my cheek, the words were easier. “I don’t know anything anymore, Adam.”

  “I used to know everything for both of us,” he said. I felt the brush of his mouth against my temple. “Back then. I wish I still did.”

  I lifted my head to look into his face. “I don’t. Things change. They have to change in order to grow. We’re not the same people we were when we