Casey's Courage (8 page)

Tres knew Brad’s actions were done professionally, but he bristled anyway. Their closeness troubled him.

After two successful cuts, Casey said, “Now, let me do it by myself.” Laboriously, she sawed on the clay, slicing ragged-looking chunks off until it was in pieces.

Brad put the clay he had been shaping on the plate and picked up the cut-up bits. Once again, Casey went to work, cutting with more accuracy. When she finished, Brad said, “Let’s give the clay a rest. We’ll practice some more tomorrow.”

Knowing the session of learning was over, Tres knocked on the open door where he stood before stepping into the room. “I found a blanket and a box of dog treats in J.D.’s office. They must belong to Ula.”

He sat down, Indian-style, on the floor, the three of them forming an arc. He handed Casey the items. “What are you doing?”

Casey looked serious. “I’m learning to cut steak, so I can go to a dinner party. It’s really hard to do, but Brad said if I practice, it will get easy.”

Vera appeared at the kitchenette door. “I have decaf ready, if anybody wants some to go with the chocolate cake Mattie Lou sent for dessert.”

Tres started to help Casey. “I’d like the coffee, but I’m afraid I’ve had all the dessert I can handle tonight.”

Quietly, Brad said, “Casey is learning to get up by herself as well as learning to cut steak.”

Awkwardly, she got to her hands and knees, then crawled to a nearby chair. Bracing herself with the sturdy furniture, she pulled herself upright then grinned triumphantly at Tres. “I can walk without my walker, too, if I can hold on to somebody’s arm.”

Tres held out his arm. “Then hold on to my arm and we’ll walk to the kitchen.”

She gripped his arm with surprising strength, raised her head regally, and cautiously took a step. “Brad says I have to hold my head up and walk proud. If I need to look down, I have to stop and look then look up again before I step. It’s hard to remember everything.”

Tres’ heart ached for the Casey who had been so coordinated and adept at physical activities and now struggled to accomplish the least of these.

He watched as Casey ate slowly with meticulous care. Brad and Vera geared their eating to hers, all the time talking about inconsequential matters. When Casey had eaten all the cake, she patted her mouth with a napkin, glancing at Brad for approval. The brawny therapist chuckled as he spoke gently to her. “You’re really getting good at eating, especially desserts.”

Suddenly, the crack of shattering glass and the clatter of marbles bouncing on the hardwood floor sent Tres’ heartbeat into overdrive. Casey jerked to alertness, alarm in her eyes, like a wild animal ready to take flight.

He and Brad shot to their feet at the same time. Brad beat Tres to the living room by seconds.

“Hello, Valerie,” Brad said. “We weren’t expecting company so we didn’t put away the things we worked with this evening. Are you okay?” Brad stepped in front of the intruder, blocking her view of the kitchen.

With a sharp laugh, Valerie said, “I’m fine, but I’ve made a hell of a mess.”

“Don’t worry about the mess. We aren’t quite up to having guests yet. Therapy has to follow rather rigid guidelines at this stage.”

“Did you need to see me for something?” Tres knew his sharp tone left no doubt about his irritation and he hoped Valerie picked up on it, too.

“I came to invite you over to see the Hancock mare I bought,” she said, frowning.

Tres clamped down on his temper. “I’m leaving early in the morning for Houston and Austin. I’m not sure just when I’ll get back.”

Brad released her arm. “We should be ready for visitors in a few weeks. Maybe we can get together then.”

Trying to hide her impatience, Valerie gave him a curt “of course” then turned back to Tres. “We really need to find time to get to know each other, since so few people our age live around here. That is, those who aren’t married with a house full of kids.”

Tres shepherded her back toward the other guests. “As you probably noticed, I’m not much of one for socializing.”

“Mattie Lou’s going to be awfully disappointed if we don’t become friends.”

“My grandmother is an understanding woman. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Valerie opened her mouth, then closed it as he hurried her back to the others.

Doris Peters was the first to notice their return. “Well, looks as if your quest was a success. You’re back with a handsome man in tow.”

“Tres was just checking on the help and was glad to return here with me.” With a coy, sideways glance at Tres, she added, “Weren’t you?”

“Valerie has a
special
way about her.” The thin smile on his lips said more than any words.

Their guests finally departed, Mattie Lou said, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea Valerie would be so pushy. I’ve never seen her act that way.”

Tres put his arm around his grandmother’s shoulders and gave her a gentle hug. “Don’t worry about it. The world is full of Valeries. I think I can hold my own. Are you going to be crushed if I don’t kowtow to your friend?”

With an unladylike snort, Mattie Lou said, “Tres Spencer, you know me better than that.”

Casey sat straight and still, staring into space as if paralyzed by the sharp noise. She saw sizzling firecrackers and felt the terror of losing control as she and Sassy Silk fell that awful day. Her head started to throb. She gripped the sides with both hands and moaned in pain as blackness took over, then pyrotechnics, like a Fourth of July celebration, began to go off in her head. Consciousness slipped away. The fireworks spent themselves. Coolness came. She felt like she floated along before landing on a soft, fluffy cloud.

Chapter 6

Casey opened her eyes to a bright, moonlit night. She saw lacy shadows dancing on the wall. Instinctively, she knew a breeze stirred the leaves of the trees, creating the ever-moving patterns. She felt at one with the beautiful, quiet peace, no hot, sharp colors and pain in her head. Turning her head, she saw Vera, sitting in a pool of light.

The nurse caught the movement. “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, but I feel different.”

Vera came to the bed and brushed Casey’s hair back as she checked for temperature. “How do you mean different?”

Casey wrinkled her brow in concentration, “I feel like I’m forgetting something I need to do. What’s the date?”

“The twenty-ninth of September.”

Casey sat up in bed, horrified. “I’m supposed to be teaching at the college!”

“Don’t worry, they hired a retired professor to fill in for you,” Vera said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Agitated, Casey insisted, “But I can lose my certification for not honoring my contract.”

“That’s not going to happen. Tres talked with the president of the college and everything is fine.”

Casey swung her legs off the side of the bed. Vera quickly moved the walker around so she could reach it.

Casey stared at the apparatus. “I guess I have some gaps in my memory.”

“That’s not surprising,” Vera assured her. “The type of head injury you received can make memory foggy and cause blank spots here and there.”

“I need to go to the bathroom. Will I fall if I don’t use this?” She waved at the walker.

Vera offered her arm for support. “You can manage by holding on to something. Take my arm. I’ll walk with you.”

“Why can’t I walk by myself? I don’t hurt any place.”

“Your balance is a little wobbly at times, but it’s improving.”

Lightly holding the nurse’s arm, Casey walked without hesitation to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror as she dried her hands and stared, wide-eyed. “What happened to my hair?” Combing her fingers through the soft waves, she brushed the scar on her scalp. Leaning closer to the mirror, she parted the auburn tresses, then spoke softly to herself. “You really whacked yourself a good one, didn’t you? No wonder you have balance problems.”

When she left the bathroom, she found Vera standing at the door, waiting patiently. “I’d like to see if I can walk alone.”

Vera remained beside her for a time then sat and watched Casey move around the room; first very cautiously then with a more normal step. As she neared the door, the dog’s whine caught Casey’s attention. She opened the door.

“Hello, Raider, you act like you expect to come in.” The old dog stopped a minute for Casey to pet her then made a beeline for the blanket beside the bed. The canine that Casey had called Ula before lay down with a soft sigh, causing both women to chuckle.

Walking back to the bed, Casey sat down on the floor near Raider, propping her back against the side of the bed, and stretched her legs out in front of her. She ran her hand lightly over the scar on her leg and peered up at Vera. “Would you tell me everything that’s happened?”

Vera hesitated. “Are you sure you really want to know?”

Casey nodded as she stroked Raider’s soft, clean hair.

Brad came into the room as Vera began to talk. He spoke and sat down in a chair, observing Casey’s reactions to the events as Vera related them. He noted the dog creeping closer to Casey and putting her chin on her friend’s thigh. At times, Casey stroked the dog lightly then at other times, more vigorously as Vera talked. But no distress or panic showed in his patient’s eyes, just intense interest.

The sun had risen by the time Vera finished recounting the details of Casey situation. They went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Raider, toenails clicking on the hardwood floor, padded along beside Casey. While the three ate a mix of egg, sausage, and cheese rolled in hot flour tortillas, Raider crunched on a dog treat Casey had given her.

Casey hadn’t asked questions during Vera’s discourse but once at the table, she asked, “Did Sassy Silk have to be put down?”

“No,” Brad said. “She still has to have a lot of rehabilitation and has to be in her body swing some of the time. The bones in her leg have mended, but the muscles, tendons, and ligaments need more therapy. The weight of a horse creates some problems, but she is doing well and probably will be able to live pain-free and have lots of colts to carry on for her.”

“When can I see her?”

Brad hedged. “We better postpone that for a while. We don’t want you to have another episode like the one you had last night. There’s no way to know how completely your head injury has healed inside.”

“How will you finally know?” A touch of impatience tinged Casey’s voice.

Bard, unruffled, replied, “When you can do the activities we’re working on in your therapy with ease.”

She sipped her coffee in silence for a minute. “I felt clumsy and weak as I walked around in here by myself this morning. Will the exercises help me get back to normal?”

Purely professional, Brad answered, “The weakness should be gone in a few weeks as we do strengthening activities. The clumsy feeling comes from your head injury, and we don’t know how long it will take the brain to mend itself or if it will ever be one-hundred percent like it was before.”

Casey seemed to ponder his words. “I do remember when they were doing all those tests in the hospital; I couldn’t read well enough to make sense of the material. Will that get better?”

Brad wished he knew what had happened in her head last night, because she was no longer the ‘little girl’ personality he had been dealing with, but a woman with a need to know. He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. “We believe so. Many of the crawling and balancing activities we do should help to reprogram the area of your brain that was hurt. Some of the swim strokes I will teach you have a crawl motion that will be useful, too.”

Without blinking or frowning, she stared at him, determined. “Strength, coordination, and balance are the goals I need to work toward, right?”

Brad smiled. “You got it!”

Casey rose up from the table. “In that case, we better get started.”

Brad warned, “Just remember Rome wasn’t built in a day. You don’t want to overdo and end up with a headache like the one you had last night.”

For the next few weeks, Casey pushed herself to her limits. She had learned in college that physical training and conditioning enhanced her innate abilities and helped her win when she and her horses entered competitions. Winning back her normal self became her passion.

Raider stayed by her side and walked or trotted or just sat with her until she got in the pool, then the old dog went off to Dan’s house, not to be seen again until the next morning.

As Casey lay stretched out on a lounger one afternoon while Brad massaged her tired muscles, she said, “I need to see if I can read any better now than I could when I was in the hospital.”

“You can’t expect a lot of improvement this soon,” Brad said.

“Maybe not, but I need a baseline, so I can gauge my progress or lack of, don’t I?”

Brad cautioned, “Just understand you can’t rush some kinds of healing, regardless of how hard you work.”

Casey rolled over and sat up. “Don’t worry about me. I realize you’ve been guiding me step-by-step through childhood development. I feel like I’ve been living those courses I had my sophomore year in college.”

His body language showed the easing of his tension. “You are making amazing progress and I don’t want any stumbling blocks getting in your way.”

Casey grinned at him. “If I remember right, life is full of stumbling blocks. I doubt it changed just because I got hurt.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. You’re right, but you’ve got lots of time to deal with them after we get you in tiptop shape.”

“One more thing, I really need to go see Sassy Silk.”

“Let me talk to Dr. Newton. If he says it is okay then we’ll move onto these things.”

After Brad’s detailed report on Casey’s progress, Dr. Newton assured him that exposing her to new experiences would be good. He did emphasis removing her from any situation that produced excessive stress.

The next afternoon they went to the old headquarters—the only real home Casey had ever known—to see Sassy Silk. Raider sat in the back of the Suburban with her chin propped on the back of the seat near Casey’s shoulder. As the barns and corral came into view, Casey became edgy and reached up to stroke Raider’s head. “I should have put on boots and jeans,” she said.