Chapter 23

Kevin

I thought life would feel more normal once I went home, but I was wrong. There was nothing normal about the way I was living.

From the moment I woke up in the morning to the moment I fell asleep at night, I felt like I was living someone else’s life, stuck inside a body that wasn’t mine. Even in the middle of the night, I was reminded of it every time someone entered my room to reposition me. Talk about a rude awakening. It was like having a recurring nightmare, but in reverse. My real life was the nightmare, and my only way of escaping from it was to fall back to sleep.

I looked forward to sleeping because it was the only way I could still be with Kristin. In my dreams, she was still alive, and I could still walk. I wished I could stay in my dream world forever, but inevitably, morning would come and, with it, my caregiver, and I would be forced to wake up again, whether I wanted to or not.

I thought I had adjusted to my nightmarish new reality while I was in rehab, but being home made everything seem worse than it had before. There were reminders of my old life everywhere, from the framed photos in the family room to the platinum album plaques that decorated the walls of my office. I avoided the closet where Kristin’s old clothes, shoes, handbags, and accessories were stored. It was easy enough, since I couldn’t dress myself anyway.

“What do you want to wear today?” Greg asked after my shower, as he went into the closet to get my wheelchair. We had started plugging it in there overnight because the glow it gave off as the battery recharged made my bedroom too bright.

“I don’t care. Whatever’s comfortable,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I was scheduled for outpatient therapy at the rehab center on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but it was only Tuesday. My mom was flying home that day. Normally, I would have taken her to the airport, helped her check in, and walked her to the security line, but not this time. The thought of going to LAX, which was always swarming with people and paparazzi, terrified me. Thankfully, Brian and Leighanne had offered to pick her up on their way to the airport, since their flight back to Atlanta left around the same time as hers.

Greg emerged from the closet, pushing my power chair, with a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt draped over the head rest. “How’s this?”

“Just fine,” I replied, forcing a smile. “Thanks.”

It was his second day on the job, and so far, things were going as well as could be expected. I hated having to rely on a caregiver at all, but much like Cole at the rehab center, Greg had a way of making me feel less uncomfortable. He kept the conversation going as we went through my morning routine, talking about the college basketball tournament as he helped me stretch in bed and the upcoming baseball season while he was washing me in the shower. “You never can tell from spring training, but the Dodgers are looking good so far,” he said, as he shampooed my hair. “I can’t stand the Yankees, but I’ve got to admit, Joe Torre knows what he’s doing. I think he’s gonna be a great manager for this team.”

“Uh-huh.” I closed my eyes, concentrating on the feeling of his fingernails scraping my scalp as he worked the shampoo into a lather. It felt so good. I had always loved it when Kristin ran her fingers through my hair, but ever since the accident, any sensation I felt above my level of injury seemed heightened, as if it was making up for the lack of feeling below. For a moment, I could almost pretend it was her massaging my head in the shower instead of a man I had paid to be there. But then I thought, This is weird, and forced my eyes back open. That brought me back to reality. I glanced down at myself, hating the way my pale, naked body looked slouching on the shower chair. I watched the beads of water roll down my bare chest, fascinated by how the warm, wet sensation went away once they crossed the invisible border between where I could feel and where I couldn’t. It was still a strange phenomenon to me, seeing the lower half of my body, but not being able to feel it.

After my shower, Greg got me dried off and dressed in the outfit he had picked out, then put me in my wheelchair. His previous nursing experience made everything much easier than it had been with Erik on Easter Sunday. I didn’t have to explain as much because he already knew what he was doing.

“Here’s your morning meds,” he said, as he brought me a shot glass containing an assortment of colorful pills. He placed the glass in my left hand, making sure my fingers were curled tightly around it so I could lift it to my mouth. I poured the pills in and washed them down with water from the bottle I kept next to my bed at night. Greg watched to make sure I didn’t choke, then escorted me downstairs in the elevator.

We went into the kitchen, where my mom was busy feeding Mason breakfast. “Good morning!” she greeted us. “I hope y’all are hungry! I made a huge batch of blueberry pancakes, hot off the griddle. You help yourself to some, too, Greg.”

“Thanks, Ms. Ann,” he said, smiling at her. “They smell great. Can I fix you a plate, Kevin?”

I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings when she had taken the time to make breakfast on her last morning at my house. “Sure, thanks. I’ll take two, with a lot of butter and a little syrup.”

While Greg got my food ready, I turned my attention to Mason, who was picking up the small pieces of pancake my mom had put on his tray and stuffing them in his mouth.

“Well, good morning, buddy,” I said, laughing at the sight of his purple face and fingers. “You look like the little girl in Willy Wonka who turns into a big-ass blueberry.”

Mason may not have understood what I meant, but he grinned back at me anyway, allowing bits of food to fall out of his mouth. Even his two tiny bottom teeth were blue.

“This boy of yours sure likes his Mammaw’s blueberry pancakes,” my mom said with a proud smile.

“Well, who wouldn’t?” Greg interjected, setting a plate down in front of me. The pancakes looked delicious, but they were cold by the time Greg got the fork holder strapped onto my hand so I could take a bite.

“Mm… really good, Ma,” I said, swallowing.

She beamed. “The other boys better get down here and have some before they get too cold,” she said, looking toward the stairs.

“Eh, let ‘em sleep in. They’ve both been up late the last couple nights, turning me over.”

“It’s awfully sweet of them to stay here and help you like they have… but I still wish you’d reconsider coming back to Kentucky with me.”

I sighed. “Ma, I really don’t wanna have this conversation again. You know how I feel.” Even with memories of Kristin haunting my house, I wasn’t ready to leave it. Remembering her was hard, but forgetting her would be worse.

“I know,” she said with a sigh of her own. “Never mind then. Just remember, I’m only a phone call away if you need anything – and if you change your mind, I’ll make the necessary arrangements to bring you home.”

“Thanks, Ma. You’ll be the first to know if I do.”

Nick wandered downstairs as I was finishing my breakfast and helped himself to some pancakes. AJ came along a few minutes later. “Morning, everyone!” he said as he entered the kitchen.

“Hey, AJ. How was your show last night?” I asked.

His face lit up. “Even better than Sunday’s show! Great crowd.”

“He put on one hell of a show,” added Nick, as he cut into his pancakes. “I’m proud of you, bro.”

“Thanks, buddy,” said AJ, grinning. “I’m glad you came.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be there,” I said, feeling guilty – because, of course, I could have been there. I just wasn’t ready to face a big crowd of people yet, especially one that consisted mainly of BSB fans.

AJ seemed to understand, though. “That’s okay, man.” He clapped his hand down on my shoulder. “Maybe next time.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I hoped the fear would go away with time, as I got more used to being in my wheelchair, but for now, the thought of going anywhere but the rehab center filled me with anxiety.

When it was time for my mom to leave for the airport, AJ carried her luggage downstairs. A lump rose in my throat as I looked at the small suitcase she had been living out of for the last three months, imagining her packing it in a panic in the middle of the night after getting the call about my accident. She had left everything else behind to fly to L.A. and be by my side, not knowing how long she would end up staying. Although a part of me was glad to see her go so I could get on with my life, I was grateful for her presence.

“Looks like Brian and Leighanne just pulled in,” said Nick, peering out the front window.

I turned my chair to face my mom. “Ma, I… I just wanna thank you… for everything you’ve done for me over the past few months. It’s meant the world to me to have you here, helping me through this. Just knowing Mason was in good hands and the house was being taken care of gave me such peace of mind, but you did so much more than that. Thank you.” I opened my arms, and she leaned over to embrace me.

“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” she said, hugging me tightly. “I’m your mom. I’ll be here for you whenever you need me. Like I said, you just pick up the phone, and I’ll be on the first flight. I love you so…”

I nodded, tears prickling in my eyes. “I love you, too.”

By the time she let go and pulled back, her own eyes were extra bright. She bent down and picked up Mason, cuddling him close as we heard a knock at the door. Nick opened it to let Brian in.

“Hey, y’all,” he said, as he stepped into the foyer. “How’s it goin’?”

I felt my lips quiver as I forced a smile. “Oh, you know… just saying our tearful goodbyes.”

Brian grinned back. “Aww, cuz. Don’t cry, or you’ll get me goin’. C’mere, man…” He threw his arms around me, giving me the biggest bear hug he could manage with me in my wheelchair. “You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m gonna keep asking God for a miracle, but whether you get your legs back or not, I know your life is only gonna get better from here. Once you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up, right?”

I nodded, my throat tightening again. “Try to keep your prayers practical, cuz,” I told him. “I’d be fine with just getting my fingers back.”

He laughed as he let go of me. “Well, all right then. I’ll pray for finger function. And peace.”

“Yeah, you better pray these two don’t kill me, my kid, or each other,” I replied, flinging my fist toward Nick and AJ.

“Ha… that’ll definitely take a miracle!”

“Hey now,” said AJ, as we all laughed.

“We’re gonna be like Three Men and a Baby!” Nick announced proudly, slinging his arm around AJ as he put his other hand on my shoulder. “I’m Ted Danson.”

“I’m Tom Selleck,” I chimed in.

“And I’m – hey, wait, who says you get to be Tom Selleck?” asked AJ, frowning.

“I do,” Nick said without missing a beat. “It’s already been decided, bro: You’re Steve Guttenburg.”

“What?! No way, I don’t wanna be Steve Guttenburg. I’m clearly more of a Tom Selleck type,” he complained, stroking his mustache.

Nick snorted. “Are you kidding? Look at Kevin – he’s like the definition of tall, dark, and handsome.”

“Well, thanks, Nick,” I said, doing my best to puff out my chest from my chair. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

“What?! C’mon, bro, you know I love you.” He leaned over to plant a big, wet, slobbery kiss on my cheek, making everyone laugh.

Looking at his watch, Brian said, “Well, we’d better get going. We’ve got a cab waiting. You ready, Aunt Ann?”

My mom nodded, wiping tears from her eyes with one hand as she held onto Mason. “Mammaw’s gonna miss you so much,” she told him, kissing the top of his head. Then she handed him off to AJ and picked her purse up off the floor.

I followed her and Brian out front so I could say goodbye to Leighanne and Baylee as Brian loaded my mom’s suitcase into the trunk of the cab. After one more round of hugs, she climbed into the passenger seat, while Brian squeezed into the back with the rest of his family. I raised my arm in a wave as the car went down the driveway, disappearing when the gate closed behind it.

Then I went back inside, where AJ and Nick were waiting with Mason. He was crying. “Aww, c’mon, it’s okay,” AJ said, bouncing him in his arms. “We’re gonna have so much fun together!”

My heart broke for my baby boy, as it occurred to me that this might be a harder adjustment for him than I had realized. He had already lost his mother, and now his grandmother, the most consistent caregiver in his life for the last three months, was leaving, too. He still had me, of course, but I wasn’t the same father who had made airplane noises as I fed him or walked laps around the house with him when he was fussy. I wondered if he even remembered the way I had been before the accident or realized I was different now. Being so young, he would grow up without any memories of the old me – or of Kristin. That was what hurt the most.

Swallowing hard, I held out my arms to him. “C’mere, Mason.” AJ set him carefully in my lap. “It’s okay,” I said, cuddling him close to my chest. “I know you miss your mammaw – and your mom – but Daddy’s here now. We’re both gonna be okay.”

Despite my best efforts to soothe him, it took another ten minutes for him to calm down. As his cries dissolved into hiccups, I carried him to the family room in my chair, my left arm wrapped around him while I worked the joystick with my right.

“Hey, fellas?” I called to Nick and AJ. “Can one of you come find some cartoons or something on TV to distract him?” I couldn’t flip channels very easily; the buttons on the remote were too small, so I usually ended up bumping the wrong ones.

“Sure, buddy.” AJ found the remote and turned on the TV. “What does the under-one crowd watch on TV these days?” he asked as he scrolled through the guide. “Teletubbies?”

“Nah, I don’t think that’s on anymore.”

“Please, for the love of God, just don’t put on Barney,” said Nick with a shudder. “Aaron and Angel used to watch that shit when they were little, and it made me wanna blow my fucking brains out.”

“Nice language, Nick.” I rolled my eyes, pretending to cover Mason’s ears with my hands. “You realize my kid’s gonna start talking sometime in the next few months, right? I don’t want his first word to be a cuss word.”

Nick snickered. “Sorry – my bad, bro.”

“Speaking of shit, though…” I sniffed the air as something stinky caught my attention. “Do y’all smell that? Is… is that him, or is that me?” Someone had clearly just pooped their pants – probably Mason, but I couldn’t tell for sure who it was coming from. One problem with being paralyzed was that it might have been me, and I wouldn’t have even felt it.

The other guys exchanged glances. Nick looked like he wanted to laugh, while AJ was clearly grossed out. “Uh…” Nick finally lifted Mason off my lap and held him up high enough to catch a whiff. “It’s definitely him, dude. He needs a diaper change.”

I sighed with relief. “So… who wants to help me change him?”

“Not it!” AJ blurted, touching his nose.

Nick gave him a look. “Who’s the only one here who doesn’t know how to change a diaper? Perfect time for you to learn, AJ!”

“Please?” I added. “I’ll do as much as I can, but I don’t know if I can do it all alone.” My mom had been handling most of the baby stuff – meals, bath time, and diaper changes – but now that she was gone, I wanted to do more of it myself. I was Mason’s dad, after all. I just wasn’t sure how much my disability would allow.

AJ groaned. “All right,” he agreed grudgingly. “I’ll go with you.”

Nick grinned as he handed Mason off to AJ, who held him reluctantly, his nose wrinkled.

“Here, I can take him,” I offered. AJ looked relieved as he plopped Mason back down in my lap. “C’mon, buddy, let’s go get you cleaned up.”

We took the elevator up to Mason’s room. I rolled my wheelchair right up to the changing table, only to realize it was too high for me to comfortably reach.

“Could you put him on the changing table?” I asked AJ. “I can’t lift him up there.”

“Of course.” He picked Mason up by his armpits and laid him on the table.

“He likes to wiggle, so we have to watch and make sure he doesn’t roll off,” I warned as I reached for the knob on one of the drawers underneath, where Kristin had kept diapers and wipes. But it was too tiny for me to hold onto; my hand kept slipping off it when I tried to hook my fingers around it and pull. I finally had to give up and ask AJ for help again. “Can you get a clean diaper and a box of baby wipes out of here?” I rolled backwards so he had room to open the drawer. Thankfully, it was well-stocked. AJ took out the supplies and set them on the table.

I tried to take off Mason’s pants myself, but that, too, turned out to be a struggle. It was hard to reach him from my angle and all but impossible for me to wedge my fingers under the elastic waistband to pull down his pants. I couldn’t unfasten the snaps on the crotch of his onesie either, so I had to have AJ do that as well. I thought getting the dirty diaper off would be easier, but I didn’t have the dexterity needed to pinch the tabs between my thumb and forefinger and pull them off the front of the diaper. AJ ended up doing that part, too.

As soon as he pulled down the front of the diaper, we were both hit with a powerful stench. “Oh my god!” AJ gasped, looking down in disgust. “I… I don’t think I can do this…”

I laughed. “Oh, come on, like your shit doesn’t stink? Suck it up, AJ.”

“No… really…” He had started to gag and retch. At first I thought he was just joking, but as his whole body heaved, his mouth gaping open, I realized the horrible noises coming out of his throat were real. He couldn’t help his reaction.

“All right, go,” I said, afraid he was going to hurl right then and there. “Get out of here!”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. AJ ran out of the room, leaving me to deal with the squirming baby and shit-filled diaper. I managed to fold the diaper over onto itself so Mason wouldn’t kick his feet into it and make an even bigger mess, but that was about as far as I got by myself. I couldn’t lift his legs to pull the diaper out from under him or put the new one in place. I couldn’t even open the container of wipes, let alone get one out or wipe with enough pressure to properly clean Mason’s bottom.

“Nick!” I called. “I need you!”

I wasn’t sure he would be able to hear me from all the way downstairs; I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs to yell as loudly as I used to be able to. But he must have been listening, or maybe AJ had sent him up.

“I knew that chickenshit wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he said, rolling his eyes as walked into the room.

I shook my head. “What’s he gonna do when he has kids of his own?”

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t, ‘cause that’s a scary thought.”

I moved my chair back out of the way as Nick took over changing Mason’s diaper. I thought I would have to talk him through it, but surprisingly, he seemed to know what he was doing. I watched with disbelief as he wiped my son’s butt and slid the new diaper underneath it, facing the right direction and everything. He pulled up the front, fastened the tabs from the back to secure it around Mason’s waist, and started snapping the bottom of his onesie back together.

“Where did you learn to change a diaper like that?” I asked him, watching his long fingers nimbly working the snaps. “Do you have a secret love child we don’t know about?”

Nick laughed. “No. My mom taught me when Aaron and Angel were born so I could help her out. She was pretty overwhelmed, with twin babies and a toddler, plus BJ and me, so we tried to help take care of the younger ones as much as we could. It’s been, like, two decades since I’ve changed a diaper, though, so forgive me if I didn’t do it right – I’m a little rusty.”

“No, you did great!” I replied quickly. “I’m grateful – and impressed!”

He just smiled, his cheeks turning pink. “There you go, little guy,” he said as he pulled up Mason’s pants and sat him up on the table. “Good as new.”

“I stand by what I said before: You’re gonna be a great dad someday,” I told him, smiling, too. For all his flaws, Nick had a good heart. I hoped one day he would find the kind of happiness I’d had with Kristin.

But as I watched him interact with my son, taking care of him in a way I no longer could, I felt a pang of sadness. My smile faded as I realized I was actually a little envious of Nick, who was healthy and whole and capable of having any woman he wanted. He had the rest of his life to find someone to settle down with – unlike me, who had met my soulmate when I was twenty, married her at twenty-eight, and would spend the rest of my life without her. In a wheelchair. While Nick’s future was full of possibility, mine had never felt more bleak. Mason was all I had left, and I couldn’t even be there for him the way I wanted to. It made me feel worthless, like I was only half the man I had been before the accident.

Dr. Austin, my psychologist at the rehab center, would say that was just the depression talking. He had assured me it was a normal part of the grief process and would eventually go away. In the meantime, I took my prescribed antidepressant and tried to ward off the negative thoughts in my head, but it wasn’t easy. None of this was easy.

“You ready to go back downstairs now?” Nick asked me, as he picked Mason up off the table.

I nodded, but as I rolled out of the room, a framed photo caught my eye. It was from Mason’s newborn photoshoot less than nine months ago, a beautiful, black-and-white, close-up shot of Kristin cradling him as I leaned over her shoulder. Both of us were looking down at the little baby we had created with identical expressions of love, neither of us knowing our time to raise him together would be so short. I paused to stare at it, a lump rising in my throat as my eyes welled with tears.

“Kev?” Nick had stopped behind me, still holding Mason in his arms. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah,” I choked out and hastily pushed the handle of the joystick on my power chair, forcing myself to keep moving forward.

***