Carmen Green - The Husband She Couldn't Forget

“I’m glad you’re being taken care of.”

He touched her wrist. “You sound like you really mean that.”

“Of course I mean it. Everyone here wants the best for you.”

“Melanie?”

“Yes,” she said, holding the pack by her fingertips.

“I think we might need to cover that with something or when you take it off, you might peel off my new skin.”

Mortified, Melanie stepped away. She was standing between his legs. Looking down into his eyes, all she wanted to do was cup his face and ask him where had he been all her life?

She knew the thought was irrational and she’d have a serious talk with herself tonight over sushi. But for right now, she was not going to cause him further harm.

“Rolland, I’m a very capable rehabilitation specialist. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I’ve clearly started on the wrong foot. I’m going to get a towel, apply this pack and then call someone to check out your head.”

“That’s not necessary, Melanie. I’ve had worse injuries playing football.”

Melanie hurried to her desk and opened her lunch bag. “So you remember playing football?”

“Yes, when I was a kid. I remember running with the ball and laughing. But not my name, the team and all that. A cloth napkin,” he asked, once she wrapped the pack and put it on his head.

“They make me feel special.” Melanie tried not to look down at him.

“I feel pretty special for you letting me use it,” he said.

“And you should,” she tried to joke. “I don’t usually do wound treatment. But considering I caused this bit of trouble, I’m obliged to help you.”

“Thanks,” he said smiling.

“So what do you hope to learn, Rolland?”

“How to cook. Add numbers.”

“Like nine plus seven?”

“That’s going to take me a few minutes. Write numbers. I recognize it’s a number, but I can’t write it for anything.”

“The alphabet.” Melanie listened as he recited the whole thing without stumbling. “Backwards.”

“You’re kidding.”

She smiled, surprised at herself. “Yes, I am. What else can you identify that you want to learn?”

“I want to find out about my old life. Was I married? Did I have a family? Where are they? Did they look for me? I want to learn how to drive. I love cars.”

“Well,” she said. “Some of those things are on my list, too. Learning how to use numbers so you can dial a phone and cook are very important.”

“Do you use lists a lot?” he asked, gazing up at her.

It occurred to Melanie that she didn’t have to stand over him and hold the ice pack. “Yes, for everything. It helps you stay on task and helps me track your progress. You don’t like lists? Here, hold this.”

She guided his hand up to hold the ice pack and went back to her desk and sat. Feeling silly for leaving him on the couch alone, she took her pad and the contract she had every client sign.

“Lists are fine, but you have to keep them in the right, what’s the word?”

“Perspective?” she offered.

“Right. Everything has a right perspective. So let’s get started. Am I going to learn how to cook first or drive?”

She laughed. “No, but I was thinking, the most important thing for you is to always know your way home, right?”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever find my home, Melanie.”

Her heart pounded. “You—you will, Rolland, and you know, I’ve found, a home is wherever you make it. But first thing’s first. I’m giving you a contract and by tomorrow I want you to read it and sign it. If you don’t understand something, just ask me and I’ll explain it to you.”

“I’ve got homework already, Melanie Wysh.”

“That’s right. Now, here’s a compass. Let’s go get lost and find our way back. I just need to do one thing.”

She went behind her desk and changed her pumps to sandals.

Coming back to his side he looked down at her. “You’re short.”

“Thanks, Rolland, that was honest.”

“Was I supposed to lie?”

She saw the confused look on his face. Bless his heart, he really didn’t know social rules. “No, you’re not supposed to lie, but you’re not supposed to say everything you think, either.”

He towered above her by more than half a foot.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I get what you’re saying. Shelby perspires like a man and some of the guys joke about it in the locker room. I’m not going to tell her.”

Melanie laughed. “Good example. Don’t ever tell her. Now let’s go?”

Rolland stepped outside and Melanie closed her door behind them. She pushed her sunglasses in place before joining Rolland and heading out into the sunny and breezy day.

“I love the color of your hair.” He let his palm touch the spikes and smiled down at her.

“Thank you, Rolland. Now, you know north, south, east, west, right?”

He stopped at the intersecting sidewalk and shook his head. “The cafeteria is blue. The dorms are brick red. The gym roof is orange and rehab center is white. The administration offices are beige. If north isn’t a color, you have to tell me where it is.”

Even though she had on her sunglasses, Melanie had to lean backward to use her hand to shade her eyes because Rolland was so tall. “Okay, this is a compass. North faces the sun. Anywhere in the world. North always faces the sun.” She showed him the compass in her hand and looked at his, but they weren’t reading the same.

“Hold on a second.” She took his and shook it. “Yours is broken.”

“You trying to get me lost already?”

“No,” she said, banging on the instrument. She stopped hitting it. “Rolland, don’t follow my bad example. Hitting something never makes it work.”

He laughed. “If you say so. We’ll just have to use yours.”

“Okay,” she said, more softly than she intended. Clearing her throat, she held her compass out and the needle pointed north. “We’re facing north. Behind us is south. To our left is west and to our right is east. Okay, let’s walk west. Which way is west, Rolland?”

“Right,” he said and stepped on her foot.

“No,” she yelled too late.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Okay, let’s try it again. West is left and we’re going left,” he sang and walked to his right.

Melanie screamed when he stepped on her foot the second time.

Rolland jumped, and she slammed her hand over her mouth.

Neither of them moved.

Other people around them stopped and Melanie waved them away. She was going to recover.

“You scared me,” he said.

“You hurt me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, Rolland. I’m sorry for scaring you.” She reached out but didn’t touch him. “Let’s try tomorrow. I’ve got an idea of how we can get this perfect tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, not looking at her.

“I’m fine, Rolland, really.”

“Don’t lie to me, Melanie. If you lie, I can’t trust you.”

“I’m not lying. I promise.”

“Yes, you are. Your toes are bleeding,” he said, and walked away.

She saw that they were and wished she could take back the words.

Rolland sat outside his dorm, sunset streaking the sky in blues and mauve. He looked at the book in his hand to verify the color he was witnessing. Yes, it was mauve. Left of pink and right of rose, it was beautiful and calming. He leaned his head back and let the breeze dust his neck in coolness before he sat back up and looked straight at Melanie Wysh.

“Melanie.”

“I owe you an apology, Rolland. May I sit down?”

He moved over on the swing and made room for her. “Do you like to swing?” he asked, pushing it with his foot.

“I do. I haven’t in a long time,” she told him. “I have something to say.”

“Then you have to swing for a few minutes. You’ll enjoy it. Put your head back like this.”

Rolland pulled Melanie’s head back just as a happy breeze floated by.

They sat this way for a few minutes and it gave him time to study Melanie undisturbed. She was a tiny woman, no more than a hundred and fifteen pounds, and if she was five three, he was being generous. Her hair was short, freshly cut with auburn/reddish highlights that looked cute with her eye color.

She was a pretty woman, a classy woman, someone he wished had known him long ago. She had kissable lips like the women on TV, but Melanie was real. She was someone he could see himself coming home to and having dinner with.

“Why did you come see me?” he asked her.

She seemed embarrassed to have been caught relaxing. She straightened her spine and folded her hands. “I came to apologize for lying to you earlier. I did it because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings—”

Rolland let her drift off, his mouth pursed. “I didn’t cut you off,” he said, laughing.

“I know you didn’t,” she jumped in, hurriedly, then laughed. “I just mean to say that it was easier to say I wasn’t hurt so that we could get to the greater goal of you learning which way west is.”

He gazed at her out of the corner of his eye. “Okay.”

“Do you understand anything I’ve just said?”

“Yes. So it’s better to lie than to tell you you’ve confused the hell out of me.”

Melanie crossed her legs and touched his arm and it felt like fire had been set to his limb. Rolland liked the heat and didn’t want it to stop. For the past three months he’d been cut, sewn, stapled, massaged, twisted and rehabilitated by so many people that he thought he was immune to the human touch, until now. He moved his arm closer so she would touch him again.

“I don’t want you to lie to me. If I’ve confused you, then tell me. What I mean to say is that I’m sorry for lying to you. It won’t happen again.”

She drew her hand back.

“So what happens when you don’t want to tell me something?”

“I just won’t answer you.”

“That’s not fair, Melanie. That’s the only way I get information.”

He could tell she was considering what he’d just said.

“As your therapist I have to keep some things confidential, so I’ll just tell you it’s confidential and you’ll have to respect that.”

“That’s fair.” He opened the book he’d been reading and pointed to the sky. “Melanie, have you ever seen mauve? It’s a cool color.”

She leaned over to look at his book, and he caught a whiff of her perfume. “Yes, it’s cool,” she said.

“You have to look at the sky,” he told her.

“Oh.” She sat back embarrassed.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed. I know cool has two meanings.”

“You’re a mess.”

He looked down at his clothes, then at her and she started laughing until her meaning dawned on him. “Oh, you’re funny. Mess has two meanings. I can see therapy will be fun with you.”

“What do you do when you get upset?” she asked him as they watched people walk the large campus.

“I try to figure out what went wrong,” he said, crossing his legs. “I never get angry with people. I get disappointed. I mean, what can anyone do to make me angry? They’re trying to help me. If they don’t give me cake? Sometimes that’s not so bad.”

She smiled and his stomach fluttered.

“This is all I know. So I don’t get angry. I get frustrated. I want to leave the campus and come back like real people do. I feel like you’re all having more fun than I am.”

“What kind of fun?”

“Driving.”

She laughed. “Driving is important, but I wouldn’t say it’s fun.”