Forever: A Lobster Kind Of Love (6 page)

I put my car in park and grabbed my phone off the dash. I had to take a picture of this. No one would ever believe me otherwise. We had deer all over the place in Pennsylvania, but this was a sight to see and I‘d almost hit him.

I got out of the car, snapped a few pictures of the moose, then a couple selfies with the moose in the background. Never in my life would I have thought I would cross paths with a moose outside of a zoo.

Now I had to pee again, thanks to my iced coffee…and my laughter. I was laughing. I was actually laughing. It felt almost foreign to me because I hadn’t laughed this much in a long time…and there was no one here to see it.

I think the moose was actually smiling at me.

Did moose smile?

As I pondered the idea of whether moose smiled, I decided to make a quick video since he seemed so photogenic.

“Hey guys, I would like you to meet my buddy, TINY. He made me laugh today. A moose warmed my heart and made me laugh. Maybe this is a sign, Tiny is my buddy. Say Hi, Tiny!”

I proceeded to focus and zoom in on the moose I’d named Tiny. I could’ve sworn that moose was smiling at me. Let Facebook be the judge. As I uploaded the video, I thought,
Sometimes you have to stop and smile with a moose. Fuck smelling flowers, I needed something bigger than a rose
.

Tiny decided he was done with his fifteen minutes of fame, and just like that, prodded off into the dense tree line. As I got back behind the wheel, my GPS read that I had less than an hour before I reached Eastport. I called Ethel, my new landlord, and left a message letting her know I would be arriving soon.

When I finally made the decision to leave Nazareth and called Ethel for the first time, we were on the phone for over two hours, and I knew then, that was where I needed to go. She described the small apartment of her mother/daughter style house. It was completely furnished with all utilities included. Ethel had a two-bedroom apartment on her side and a smaller one-bedroom apartment was on the other, adjoined by a mudroom.

She said the apartment was vacant going on two years and she was more than happy to rent it out. Her home was paid for, and she’d given me a huge deal on the rent.

One more hour of this drive and I was still amazed I hadn’t popped one Xanax. I’d laughed today, a full belly laugh that almost made me piss my pants. For once, the tears in my eyes were of joy, not from thinking of my boys’ death. It was a start. Maybe the sign “Welcome to Maine-The Way Life Should Be” had been a big hello from my boys along with Tiny; you couldn’t get any bigger than that!

It was a nice 69 degrees with clear skies and I was surrounded by gorgeous scenery. It was distinctly cooler here for June, and I knew I was closer to my new home as the smell of salt carried heavy in the breeze.

I hadn’t seen a decent place to grab coffee for hours. This was definitely something I’d need to navigate because I needed my iced coffee. A nice big mall would be nice, too. I haven’t shopped in a while, either, except for the basic necessities.

Well isn’t this some shit, don’t take a Xanax for a day and the compulsion to shop returns. Well, they certainly didn’t list that as side effect on the bottle
.

The last eight months had been a long road served in a wheelchair. Regardless of how much sensation I had or how high something was jacked up, I still couldn’t walk. I had resigned myself to that fact a long time ago, before the doctors and therapists did, but I went along with it anyway. I knew they thought I’d given up, but quite the contrary. I just wanted to go home.

I was probably in the best shape of my life right now, aside from my non-working legs. I had physical therapy sessions every weekday. Besides sitting around and trying to figure out what to do with myself, or reading a book, there was nothing else to do in rehab except eat. The food was great here, but these guys, all they did was eat. It was one thing to be disabled, it was another thing to be fat and in a double-wide wheelchair. That was not going to be me. If I was not in therapy, I was in the gym.

The Alphas came on Saturdays to work out. Most of the guys just sat in their chairs and watched them work out, but those modified workouts have kept me lean and chiseled, despite the super fattening food they fed us.

I loved food, but I saw how these guys packed on the pounds so easily. The anti-depressants they pumped everyone up with didn’t help either. I‘d stopped taking them a long time ago. I was not depressed; I just needed something to do.

I couldn’t fish anymore, so I worked out. Carla and Tiffany, the Alpha girls who came in on Saturdays, had been awesome and always have smiles on their faces when they arrive. I was going to miss those girls. They were definitely the ringleaders and usually a group of five or six others tagged along, but they were the constants.

Supposedly, there were Alpha groups all over the country. I didn’t know about any in my small town, we didn’t even have a Dunkin Donuts or a mall. You had to drive all the way to Calais to get things like that.

Pedro had been gone for three months. He’d decided to stay in New York even though his family lived in Pennsylvania. He said there were more opportunities for veterans in New York City. I hoped he was doing all right. He was a ‘walker’, so that was a blessing. Pedro sent me a short letter with a baseball card, of himself, last month. He’d joined some handicapped baseball league through the Veterans Association.

Hey Ryan,

I’m getting settled in New York. The VA hooked me up with affordable housing. It’s small, but it’s mine and it’s close to the VA. Check out the baseball card! How cool is that? I’m playing right field and loving it. Otherwise, I am working at a small dive bar on the Lower East Side so I have my days to myself. Hope you are doing well and get out soon. Keep in touch bro!

Best roommate ever,

Pedro

My day had finally arrived, my day of release. I’d waited for the ambulance that would take me home to arrive. The trip had me on another mobile bed, which was fine with me. I could use a nap. I had taken it easy at the gym this morning. I didn’t want to get all sweaty and then have to lie in my sweat for six or seven hours on the drive home. 

The ladies in the kitchen made peanut butter cupcakes with the letter “R” on them for lunchtime dessert. Shelly, the cook, packed me a few for the road. If those EMT’s thought they were getting any of Shelly’s cupcakes, they had another think coming. She knew what I liked and while you never heard much out of her mouth, her food spoke volumes. 

Eventually, my ride showed up. I had pretty much said goodbye to everyone at lunch over cupcakes, so there was no hoopla with me leaving. Rodney, my favorite orderly, insisted on lifting me into the gurney. I guessed that was how the big guy got his hug in on the sly…and that was okay with me. 

This crew was different from the crew that did the original transport. I don’t know why I even thought it would be the same guys. There had to be a zillion ambulances in New York City. 

“Ready to get outta here, Ryan?” the EMT that had driving duty said as he stood at the rear doors.

“Yeah man, let’s roll. Get me home by 8:00 and lobster rolls are on me.” 

He laughed and shook his head. “We work for private ambulance service man, we can’t afford lobster anything.”

“Lobster rolls are the hot dogs of Maine,” I told him. “Trust me, you don’t want to leave Maine without having one or two or five.” 

He seemed to like that idea and closed the rear doors with a smile before heading to the driver’s seat. 

As we pulled out of Woodhaven Rehab, my view was reversed. Leaving through the brick columns, the green sprawls, headstones, and monuments filled the back windows and the only thing I could think as we pulled down the drive was, I made it out alive. 

I called Dougie and asked him to meet me at the house. He’d set things up at my house, from the ramp to my front door to the getting the cable turned back on. My house was a Cape Cod, and I was not far from the bay, so I’d had my house raised to prevent flooding. 

I couldn’t wait to be back in my own home again. The EMTs were more quiet and subdued than the crew that had brought me here, and shortly after leaving Manhattan and heading north out of the city, the EMT riding in the back with me had his nose in a murder mystery novel while the driver sang along with the radio. By the time the skyscrapers disappeared in the distance, the gentle rocking of the ambulance had lulled me to sleep.

I turned down the radio looked for house 4462 on Deep Cove Road. As I watched the numbers count up, I smiled as I found it. I turned down the driveway and looked around at the view.

I was on sensory overload. I took in the landscape of the gorgeous white two-story home on the waterfront with plush green grass and tall pines all around the property line. I had to be dreaming.

As I dug down in my bottomless pit of a purse, I jumped when someone banged on the passenger side window. My heart rate picked up quickly and I could barely see the top of a gray head of hair as a small fist pounding the window.

“Lydia, is that you? Are you okay? Get out of that car right now so I can hug you, young lady. I have been waiting two months! Don’t make an old lady wait any longer.” I assumed Ethel Greenway, 75-year-old spitfire, all of 4’10” weighing probably around 100 pounds soaking wet, was bouncing around the front of my SUV before going over to the driver’s side.

Her messy bun bobbed up and down on the crown of her head as this little senior Energizer bunny hopped over to open my door. She stood there staring at me with a huge smile as I clenched my necklace.

I can do this. Deep breath
. I tried to give myself a mini pep talk.

“You coming out or are you planning on sleeping in the car?” I couldn’t help but smile as Ethel’s words snapped me out of my internal pep talk. She held her hand out and as I placed my hand in hers and stepped out of the SUV, she pulled me into a hug.

She patted my back. “Welcome to your new home, sweetheart. Let’s go get you fed and talk some. Then, I can show you your apartment and you can get settled. But first, some food, we need to get some meat on these bones.”

She didn’t know my full story, so there was no sorrow or pity in her eyes, but I was sure she knew I had a past. She enthusiastically dragged me into the house to be fed. As I followed Ethel’s lead, I soaked up the details of her home.

This house was huge, and she lived here alone. I wondered to myself,
how does she keep up with a house this size?

Ethel interrupted my assessment and announced, “We are going into the kitchen. I made some lobster rolls and coleslaw. I hope that’s okay? You do eat lobster don’t you?”

I couldn’t help but smile, “Yes, I eat lobster. That sounds wonderful.”

She glowed with excitement. “Well, okay then, you have a seat and I will put a pot of coffee to brew and we can talk.”

I looked at Ethel with gratitude. “Thank you.” I felt this amazing connection with Ethel already. She was like an adopted grandmother; I’d never had living grandparents growing up. They’d died long ago when I was an infant.

Sitting at the table with Ethel, the food in front of me looked and smelled amazing. She beamed from ear to ear. I caught her looking at me as I gazed into my plate. “Lydia, don’t be shy. Just dig in and eat. It looks like you could use a good meal. Just wait until you taste fresh Maine lobster. You will want it every day. If it were any fresher, it would still be crawling.”

I smiled at her words, then, as I took a bite of my lobster roll, I had to refrain from moaning out loud. It was like a food orgasm in my mouth, and I savored each delectable chew. I smiled with a mouthful and I managed to say, “Oh my God, this is amazing!”

Ethel just shook her head at me. “Honey, that is nothing. That’s just a sandwich! I just threw that together quick. I figured you would be hungry after your long drive getting here.”

After we finished our sandwiches, Ethel took the small plates away to the sink and refused to allow me to help clean up. She brought over two steaming cups of coffee and sat back down dropping two sugar cubes from the bowl into her own cup.