The First Stone (16 page)

Reef finished shaking her hand. Stood there awkwardly, unsure what to say.

“I've got more people to meet, so I'll just leave you in Shelly's capable hands!” Granter all but shouted. “You take care, Reef!” And he was off.

The office was suddenly silent, and Reef could heara slight ringing in his ears. He shook his head and Shelly smiled.

“Jim is one of the most effervescent people you'll ever meet,” she said, pulling up a chair for Reef to sit in. She sat in one beside it.

“If that means loud, you're right,” he said, glancing around the room as he sat down. Its neatness and organization reminded him of Colville too. Even the frames on the wall, two of which held photographs of children while a third contained a certificate of some kind, seemed perfectly parallel to the floor and each other.

Shelly laughed softly. “Jim's been helping us out here ever since he retired. Ten years before that, he was one of our patients, which is what makes him such a terrific volunteer. He knows firsthand what goes on in our facility, knows what the patients are experiencing even before they do.”

Granter a patient? “What'd he break?”

“He was helping a friend build a garage and he fell from the roof to the concrete footing. He broke his back.”

“Fuck,” Reef muttered, then noticed the immediate disapproval on the woman's face. “Sorry,” he said.

She nodded. “You'll have to watch the language here, Reef.”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking of Colville's extra Jobs. “I been tryin'. You just surprised me. I thought a broken back meant you were paralyzed for life.”

“Fortunately, Jim's spinal cord wasn't severed, but his injuries required months of extensive physiotherapy.”

Must be quite the place, he thought, then realized he'd said the comment aloud.

She smiled. “We're very proud of the work we do here. And we're very grateful for the work our volunteers do, too.”

Reef frowned. Looking down at his hands, he said, “You should probably know—”

She interrupted him. “I know you were assigned here by a court order. I don't know any of the particulars and I really don't care to know them.”

Reef looked at her closely to see if she was telling the truth. Couldn't.

“The only thing I
do
need to know,” she continued, “is that you're ready and willing to help out. Our staff is far too busy to babysit someone who doesn't want to be here in the first place.” She paused, clearly waiting for an answer to the question she had not asked.

If it were up to him, Reef thought, he'd be heading toward the elevator right now. No, he did
not
want to be here. Or anywhere
like
it. But it
wasn't
up to him, was it? And, he thought, if he had to be somewhere, it might as well be this place. The sooner he got started with this shit, the sooner it'd be over.

The woman obviously mistook his hesitation for uncertainty. “If it's any help, Reef,” she said quietly, “you're not the first person the court has assignedhere. In fact, some of them have turned out to be our best volunteers.”

Reef wasn't looking to win Volunteer of the Year at this place or anywhere else, just do his time and get out. But there was no need to tell her that. She could think he was Saint fucking Christopher if she wanted to. As long as she kept off his back, they'd get along fine.

“I'm ready,” he said.

Shelly spent the next half hour explaining the various ways that volunteers helped out. They were not permitted, of course, to assist with any kind of medical or therapeutic procedures, since these could be performed only by qualified personnel. But there were many other duties that focused on improving the quality of life for patients at the facility. “Some volunteers,” she explained, “are more comfortable doing one-on-one work, visiting with patients who don't have families close by, for example. People like that really appreciate having someone to talk to or to play cards with, and in the good weather volunteers often take them outside for walks or just sit with them for a bit in the sun.” She went on to explain that others preferred to work with groups of patients. “We have volunteers who do things like get a group of people together and show a movie downstairs on the third floor, make popcorn, things like that. Then there are volunteers who do programs in the evening—bingo, for example—and sometimes they bring in people they know who can demonstrate activities like painting, craft design, you name it.” Shelly smiled. “We even had someone do archery with one group.”

Besides their involvement with individual patients and organized activities, volunteers also assisted the staff directly. “They help set up barbecues, accompany patients from one part of the hospital to another, help them get their food and so on. The list is endless. At least you won't have to worry about the time being long. The staff will keep you hopping.”

When she had finished, she asked if Reef had any preferences regarding how he might help out. His preference, of course, was to put as much distance as he could between himself and every gimp in this place, but he thought for a moment. “I don't see myself doin' things with a group,” he said. “Maybe one on one with somebody. Or I could just help out the staff doin' some of the things you told me.”

“I'm sure Jim filled you in already on the different kinds of injuries this facility treats. Any particular floor you think you'd be more comfortable working on?”

Reef had long forgotten which floor was which, but he knew what he
didn't
want to do. “I don't wanna work with stroke patients.”

“What makes you say that?”

Reef paused, wasn't sure how to continue. Then, “My grandfather had a stroke. It's what killed him.”

“Oh, I see.”

He was sure, of course, that she didn't see.
Couldn't
see. He'd actually been grateful for the stroke. Had, in fact, once wished it had come sooner. It was the one thing that had finally stopped the drinking, the rages, the flood of empty threats he'd never stood up to, never challenged. Wished he could have but never did. If he'd believed in God, he'd have thought the stroke was an answer to an unspoken prayer. But he knew it wasn't. Not when he saw what it did to his grandmother. He'd hated watching her look for any sign of improvement, any reason to hope. She'd held her husband's hand for days in the hospital, rubbing it softly, all the while talking to him, telling him over and over that everything was going to be all right. But it wasn't. Not then. Not ever. Even then, the cancer was growing inside her. It just hadn't told anyone yet.

“I don't assign new volunteers to the eighth floor anyway,” Shelly continued. “Or the seventh, for that matter. Patients who've had strokes or lost limbs often require a level of patience and compassion that even professionals take a while to develop. Over time, though—”

“That's all right,” Reef said. “What about the mus …” He'd forgotten the term.

“Musculoskeletal. That's on the sixth floor. How about we put you there to start?”

Reef would have preferred she put him on a bus backto North Hills, but that wasn't going to happen. The judge had made sure of that. “Fine with me,” he lied.

After giving him a quick overview of the sixth floor and introducing him to the medical personnel in the musculoskeletal unit, Shelly Simpson had left him with a nurse named Carly Reynolds, who put him to work almost immediately. “We can always use another body around here to help out,” she said. She glanced at her watch. “In fact, I've got a job for you right now. You're on traffic control.”

He waited for an explanation.

“In the next few minutes, that elevator door is going to open and two wheelchairs are going to come out full tilt.” She seemed to notice the surprise in his eyes and laughed. “No, I'm not clairvoyant. It's just that two of my patients usually come up from physio at the same time, and if someone isn't here to stop them, this hallway turns into the Indianapolis 500.”

As if on cue, the elevator binged and the doors opened, revealing two people—a young woman and a man about Carly's age—in wheelchairs, each jockeying to be first off.

“Hold it!” Carly ordered, sticking her hand out like a crossing guard.

The two looked up and grinned sheepishly. “Busted.” the young woman said.

“Reef,” said the nurse, “meet the bane of my existence.

Brett Turner. And this is her partner in crime, Ron Sheffield. Guys, this is Reef Kennedy. Hall cop.” She punched out the last two words for emphasis. “Reef here is going to help me make sure everyone observes the speed limit.” She leaned toward Reef and murmured, “Whatever you do, don't get your feet in front of them.”

Turning to her partner, the young woman groaned. “Looks like the hall Nazi has reinforcements. We're screwed.”

Her partner laughed. So did the nurse.

Reef moved forward, keeping an eye on his feet.

It turned out that Brett was as much help as she was hindrance. She gave Reef a tour of some of the other floors, including the second and third, where, she said, the “real action” was.

It was when he saw the physio gym that Reef began to wonder if he'd be able to handle this volunteering thing after all; the patients he saw there were a far cry from Brett Turner. An old man sat hunched over in his wheelchair pulling on a rope attached to a weight, and, despite the encouragement he was getting from the therapist working with him (and despite the fact that the weight couldn't have been more than a couple of pounds), it was all he could do to pull the rope a few inches. To his right, a middle-aged woman was attempting to walk between two parallel bars but had managed little more than a halting, snail-pace shuffle.

At the far end of the gym, a man in his late twenties or early thirties was trying to walk up a ramp whose incline was minimal, but even from the door Reef could hear him groaning with exertion. Across from him on the far wall was a basketball net, and Reef thought whoever'd hung it had one christly sick sense of humor. It was obvious that no one here would be using it.

The third floor, which contained the general recreation area, was much less depressing. Many of the walls found on the other floors were absent here, allowing for a large, open area beyond the elevators that served as an entertainment center. The room contained three large sofas and several armchairs and recliners, separated here and there by tables covered with books and magazines. Off to the left were higher tables on which lay a chess set, cribbage board and assorted games. To the right was a large-screen projection TV with VCR and DVD player, and near the windows at the far end stood a regulation-size pool table. He thought briefly about Jink and Bigger and knew they'd have a ball on the third floor, momentarily pictured them hanging out there then shook his head to clear that image. Those two would level the place.

He also thought about Scar. Brett reminded him of her, and not because of her hair—where Scar's was the red of kids' crayons, Brett's was much lighter, more blond than red. No, their similarity lay more intheir manner: completely genuine. What you saw was what you got.

During the tour, Brett introduced Reef to a number of patients, most of whose names he forgot the minute she said them, so focused was he on their various physical limitations. It was like a freak show, only free. Many were missing something—an arm or a leg: others had all the parts but these seemed to have a life of their own. Or no life at all. Most of the time he looked away, but not from any courtesy on his part. They creeped him out. And every one of them knew Brett.

“She's a wild one,” warned a bald man with a handlebar mustache who was slowly pushing a metal walker down the hallway. “Nearly knocked me down twice this week already.”

“Yeah, well, next time signal when you're turning,” Brett retorted impishly.

Reef was surprised people weren't pissed off at her. If
he
said the kind of things she did, he'd be sure to get a dirty look—or worse—but everyone she met seemed to enjoy her comments and many stopped to chat. Watching her carrying on with the other patients, he wondered what had brought her to the rehab. Shelly Simpson hadn't told him he couldn't ask.

“So,” he said later as he rolled ‘her wheelchair toward the elevator for the ride back up to the sixth floor, “you fall down some stairs or something?”

Brett turned to look at him and grinned. “You're not real subtle, are you?”

Reef reddened, unsure if he'd offended her. “Look, uh—”

“Or something.” Brett said.

“Huh?”

“You asked if I fell down some stairs or something.”

Reef was surprised. “Off a roof?” he asked.

“Out of an airplane,” she said.

“Yeah. Right.”

“No, really. I did.”

“You fell out of an airplane.” He waited for the punchline.

“Well, actually, I jumped.”

“Look,” Reef said, not bothering to mask his annoyance, “if you don't wanna tell me—”