"Yes, anything you want to know." Chris moved to sit on Jory's bed and placed his strong hand on top of Jory's. Jory blinked back sleep.
"Dad, I'm not feeling anything below my waist. All the time you and Mom ate, I was trying to wiggle my toes and I couldn't. If I've broken my back, and that's why I'm in this cast, I want to know the truth, all of it."
"I intend to tell you all the truth," said Chris staunchly.
"Is my spine broken?"
"Yes."
"Are my legs paralyzed?"
"Yes."
Jory blinked, looked stunned, gathered his strength for one last question. "Will I dance again?"
"No."
Jory closed his eyes, tightened his lips into a thin line and lay perfectly still.
I stepped closer to lean above him, and tenderly I brushed back the dark curls fallen over his brow. "Darling, I know you're devastated. It wasn't easy for your father to tell you the truth, but you have to know. You're not alone in this. We're all involved. We're here to see you through, to do everything we can. You'll adjust. Time will heal your body so you won't feel pain, and eventually you'll accept what can't be helped. We love you. Melodie loves you. And you'll be a father come this very January. You reached the top of your profession and have been there five years . . . that's more than most people accomplish in a lifetime."
Briefly he met my eyes. His were full of bitterness, anger, frustration, a rage so terrible I had to turn away. It was all over him, his fierce resentment at having been cheated and stolen from before he'd had enough.
When I looked again, his eyes were closed. Chris had his fingers on his pulse. "Jory, I know you're not sleeping. I'm going to give you another sedative so you can really sleep, and when you wake up, you are going to think about how important you are to a great many people. You're not going to feel sorry for yourself and allow yourself to wallow in bitterness. There are people walking the streets today who will never experience what you've already had. They haven't traveled the world over and heard the thundering applause and cries of 'bravo, bravo!' They'll never know the heights that were yours and can be yours again in some other field of artistic endeavor. Your world has not stopped, son, you've only stumbled. The road to achievement is still ahead and wide open, only you'll have to roll along that road instead of run or dance; but you'll achieve again, for it's in you to always win. You will just find another craft, another career, and with your family you will find happiness. Isn't that what life is all about when you come down to the basics? We want someone to love us, to need us, to share our lives . . . and you have all of that."
My son didn't open his eyes, didn't respond. He only lay there as still as if death had already claimed him.
Inside I was screaming, for Julian had reacted in the very same way! Jory was closing us out, locking himself in the narrow, tight cage of his mind that refused life without walking and dancing.
Silently Chris readied a hypodermic needle before he swabbed at Jory's arm, then released the fluid steadily into his arm. "Sleep, my son. When you wake up, your wife will be here. You'll have to be brave for her sake."
I thought I saw Jory shudder.
We left him deeply asleep, in the care of a private- duty nurse instructed to never leave him alone. Chris drove us back to Foxworth Hall so he could shower and shave, take a nap, put on fresh clothes before he drove back to be with Jory. We expected Melodie to return with us.
Her blue eyes went terror stricken and stark when Chris told her as kindly as possible Jory's condition.
She uttered a small cry and clutched at her abdomen. "You mean . . . never dance? Never walk?" she whispered, as if her voice were failing her. "There must be something you can do to help him."
Chris soon dashed that hope. "No, Melodie. When the spinal cord is injured, it prevents the legs from receiving the messages from the brain. Jory can will his legs to move, but they won't receive the message. You have to accept him as he is now, and do everything you can to help him survive what is probably the most traumatic event he will ever have to face."
She jumped to her feet, crying out pitifully, "But he won't be the same! You just said he's refusing to talk--I can't go there and pretend it doesn't matter when it does! What will he do? What will / do? Where will we go, and how will he survive without walking and dancing? What kind of father will he make now that he has to spend the rest of his life in a
wheelchair?"
Standing, Chris spoke firmly. "Melodie, this is no time for you to panic and throw hysterical tantrums. You have to be strong, not weak. I realize you are suffering, too, but you have to show him a bright, smiling face that will give him the assurance that he hasn't lost the wife he loves. You don't marry just for the good times, but for the bad times as well. You'll bathe, dress, put on your makeup, style your hair and go to him and hold him in your arms as best you can, and kiss him and make him believe he has a future worth staying alive for."
"BUT HE DOESN'T!" she yelled. "HE DOESN'T!"
Then, breaking, she was crying bitter tears. "I didn't mean that . . . I love him, I do . . . but don't make me go and see, him lying like that so still and quiet. I can't stand to see him until he's smiling and accepting, and then maybe I can face up to what he's become .. . maybe I can . . ."
I disliked her for showing such spineless hysteria and failing Jory when he needed her most. Stepping to Chris's side, I linked my arm through his. "Melodie, do you think for one moment that you are the first wife and expectant mother to suddenly find the world crashing down on your head? You're not. I was expecting Jory when his father was in a fatal auto accident. Just be grateful Jory is alive."
She sank in a crumpled heap on a chair and bowed her head into her hands and cried for long minutes before she looked up, her eyes darker and more bleak than before. "Perhaps death is what he'd prefer--have you thought of that?"
It was the thought that tormented my hours, that Jory would do something to end his life, as Julian had done.
I wouldn't let it happen. Not again. "Then stay here and cry," I said with unintentional hardness. "But I'm not going to leave my son alone to fight this out by himself. I'm going to stay with him night and day to see that he doesn't give up hope. But you keep this in mind, Melodie: you are carrying his child, and that makes you the most important person in his life--and important in mine, too. He needs you and your support. I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but I have to think first of him . . . why can't you?"