The Chair (35 page)

“Getting this IV out of my arm.”

The nurse eased Corin’s hand away from his arm. “I can see you’re trying to do that, but why don’t you let us handle the removal when it’s time?”

“What’s your name?”

“Dondelar Myers.”

“You’re a nurse here?”

“Yes.”

“I need to talk to someone who can tell me the condition of A. C. Avena.”

“I’ve already checked on him—”

“And?”

“He’s stable. More than stable. He’s doing well.”

“I gotta go see him.”

“We’d like to watch you a little longer.”

“I’ve been asleep off and on for twenty-nine hours even though someone kept waking me up every five minutes.”

“Every few hours, to make sure your concussion was nothing more than that.”

“I think I’ve maxed out on getting a good night’s rest.”

“You had a concussion. You needed the sleep. We gave you—”

“Not to be rude, but I really need to see my friend.”

“Your friend went home. Signed himself out.” The doctor sniffed. “There’s no way we would have released him this early even with his wife being a nurse.”

“But he’ll be okay?”

Dondelar sucked in his lips and didn’t answer.

Heat filled Corin. No. Not A. C. “What happened to him?”

“You should talk to him or his doctor.”

“He’s my best friend.” Corin sat up in bed. “He saved my life on Thursday. Tell me, please.”

“Are you sure you want to hear it from me?”

“Positive.”

Dondelar shrugged. “Mentally he’s fine, but the bullet grazed an important area of his spine. It looks like he’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

Heat scorched Corin’s body and his knees went weak. Not possible. Not possible! It was a sick joke. “What?”

“I’m sorry.”

Corin’s pulse spiked and he swallowed hard. It couldn’t be true. “I need to get out of here.”

Dondelar looked his watch. “In two more hours I’m supposed to run you through a few tests to make sure you’re okay, but I’m betting you’d like me to run them now and get you released ASAP, hmm?”

A
n hour later Corin stared at A. C.’s doorbell, bathed in the soft glow of the porch light, wishing some of it would seep inside him. He needed light. Something to show him the way out of the downward spiral that had become his personal slide into futility.

He squeezed his quads, trying to find the right words to speak when he stepped inside. What could he say? “Sorry? It won’t happen again? Try sitting in the chair one more time and maybe that will fix things?”

Corin felt like he was swimming in an ocean of guilt so vast it made the Pacific look like a kiddie swimming pool.

Finally he lifted his hand to A. C.’s doorbell and started to press his forefinger into the button. It felt like trying to move a solid steel wall. He pressed harder and heard the familiar ding of A. C.’s chimes inside.

The door opened a few moments later. “Hey, Cor, how are you?” A. C.’s wife, Dineen, stood in the doorway, a tired smile on her face.

“Feeling like a pretzel someone decided to double twist just for the fun of it.”

“Don’t let yourself go there; he’s not mad at you.” Dineen beckoned him inside and stepped back.

Corin raised his eyebrows.

“He isn’t, trust me.”

“He should be.” Corin stepped into A. C.’s entryway.

“Why?”

“I’ve ruined his life. He’s not going to walk again.” Corin shook his head. “The irony of perpetuating the same horrific fate on my two best friends—”

“What did you do to him? Coming to rescue you was his choice, not yours.”

“What did I do?” Corin stared at her. “Other than put him in a position where he’ll be paralyzed from the waist down? Where his concrete company will go up in gray dust? Where he won’t be able to play with his kids? Nothing other than that.”

Dineen shook her head, took his hand, and pulled him into the living room. She sat on the flowered couch and motioned him toward the love seat next to it. “What did he write back when you texted him to ask if you could come over?”

“Nothing, just ‘Yeah, come over.’” Corin glanced at the hallway leading to the back of A. C.’s house. “I figured this is when he confirms the bomb has exploded and destroyed our friendship and tells me to get out of his life.” Corin glanced down the hallway again.

“Do you even know my husband? Even if he was paralyzed, he wouldn’t abandon you. Ever. Your friendship means the universe to him.”

Corin rubbed his neck under his chin. “Next to Shasta, A. C. is the person I love most in the world.” Corin leaned forward, his knees on his elbows. “He is a better friend than I deserve.”

“Not true.” She smiled, a teasing look in her eyes.

A shot of adrenaline pulsed through Corin. What had she just said? That even if he was . . . “Are you telling me he’s—?”

“Yes, Cor, I am.” Dineen winked. “I thought that line might have skated right by you.”

“Are you telling me he’ll walk again? The nurse told me—”

“The nurse should’ve stayed quiet. The doctors say there’s a 99 percent chance he’ll walk again. I like those odds.”

“Me too.” Corin let out a breath with more force than he expected. “I like them a lot.”

A monsoon of relief flooded through Corin. He’d assumed the worst. That at the very least A. C. wouldn’t be able to walk again—maybe worse. But this? Back to normal? Corin needed news laced with hope. Any more bad would break him. And there wouldn’t be enough horses and men to put him back together again.

Corin leaped to his feet. “I gotta go talk to him.” He smiled at Dineen and slowly shook his head. “You don’t know how glad I am to hear that.”

She returned the smile but while the smile remained on her face, the happiness she’d shown earlier faded from her eyes. He’d known Dineen almost as long as he’d known A. C. Something was wrong. The story had another chapter Dineen wasn’t telling him. Tears misted her eyes and she took a halting breath.

“What?” Corin sat back down.

She shook her head.

“Talk to me, Dineen.”

She waved her hand through the air. “It’s not that big a deal.” Dineen blinked back her tears and tried to smile. “It’s going to be fine; he’s going to be fine. Really.”

“What is it?”

“No, not from me. Go talk to him, Corin. It’ll be good for you.”

As he walked toward A. C.’s family room the air seemed to thicken. Every gray cloud had a silver lining, and every white cloud had one that’s black—and he was breathing in the darkness.

Corin stood in the doorway leading to the family room. The UFC 52 championship bout between Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell played on the sixty-two-inch big screen A. C. bought three years ago and a framed eleven-by-sixteen photo of his daughter playing soccer hung over the built-in bookshelves that didn’t have any books on them.

A. C.’s wouldn’t be spending his time laid up reading the greatest novels from the past or present.

The back of his friend’s thick head poked up above his lounge chair like a miniature mountain. Sitting up was a good sign, yes?

As he watched the two warriors battle on screen, Corin guessed what Dineen hadn’t wanted to tell him. “Is it true?”

“Hey, Cor. What’s going on?”

Corin eased around the couch and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Is it true?” Corin motioned with his head toward the screen.

“That I can’t take my shot at the title?” A. C. pointed at the screen, then offered a smile mixed with sadness. “Yeah, true. It’s gone.”

“No, don’t say that.” This couldn’t be happening.

“It’s a good thing, Cor.” A. C. pulled himself up in his chair and immediately slumped back down to where he’d been—pain shooting across his face. “What kind of life would that have been? Traveling all the time, beating my body up so I couldn’t move by the time I was fifty? Nah, I always wondered if I should do it even if the shoulder was good and now I have my answer.”

“You cannot be telling me this.” Corin cradled his temples between his palms and pressed hard.

“It’s a good thing, bro.” A. C. laughed. “Seriously. You know I wouldn’t say it unless I meant it.”

Corin paced from A. C.’s window looking out on his backyard to his blue couch and back to the window. “Next you’re going to be describing what you’re going to do since you can’t do concrete work anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s quite the additional bonus surprise, huh?” A. C. ran his fingers through his thick sandy blond hair. “So Dineen told you, huh?”

“What?”Corin stopped pacing, turned to A. C., and blinked.

A. C. looked up, a puzzled look etched into his face.

“No.” Corin slumped onto the couch. “She didn’t tell me. I was being sarcastic.”

“The doctors say I’m going to be fine. I’ll be able to walk, run, do light construction, but putting the strain on my body that running a concrete company requires isn’t going to be happening.” A. C. winked. “Unless I do want to end up permanently in a wheelchair.”

Corin’s mind spun. How could he go from hope one moment to drowning in despair the next? He knew exactly how. It was all possible thanks to him, and thanks to the object that had turned his life and the lives around him into a 9.8 earthquake: the chair.

The chair that had introduced the most insidious lie possible. That there was a way out, a way to restoration with Shasta.

“What are you going to do?”

A. C. smiled. “I’ll sell my company.”

“And if you don’t?”

“I will.”

“And then what?” Corin was back on his feet, pacing again.

“You’re going to wear out the carpet.”

Corin ignored him.

“You think you’ve ruined my life, don’t you?”

“The chair has brought me nothing but pain, and I’ve spread it out to my closest friend in a liberal dose.”

“You did the opposite.” A. C. waited till Corin stopped pacing and looked directly at him. “You set me free.”

“What?”

“I have disability insurance. The policy is an excellent one. After three months are up, I’ll get 85 percent of my salary for a year and a half. Can we live on 15 percent less income? Yes. And I’ll have an abundance of time on my hands.”

“And how does that translate into being set free?”

A. C. reached for a manila folder to his left and opened it. He snagged a small stack of 8 ½ x 11 pieces of paper and handed them to Corin. He gazed at the one on top. It looked like a CAD drawing of multiple buildings spread over a five-or six-acre piece of land.

“What are these?” Corin frowned and leafed through the papers underneath. There were other architectural drawings, photos of bunk beds, Web addresses for canoes, volleyball nets, pickle-ball court supplies, and food distributors. He held up the papers. “What
are
these?”

“How long have I been talking about building a camp for down-and-out teenage boys and being the director of the place?”

“Since before you were in the womb.”

“Exactly.”

“How does Dineen feel about the idea?”

“She’s so pumped about it, it’s unreal.”

Corin walked over and slouched against A. C.’s pool table. “Answer me something honestly.”

“What?”

“Is this really what you want?”

“I don’t lie, Cor.” A. C. squinted as if in shock Corin would question his integrity.

“I know.” Corin folded his arms. “I just had to be sure.”

“Cor?”

“Yeah?”

“You need to consider something.”

“Okay.”

“If there really is a God behind this chair, then maybe He knows what He’s doing.”

Corin walked over to A. C. “Can I squeeze your head?”

“Do it, baby.”

He leaned down, hugged his friend’s head, and gave the top of it a rough kiss. “Life isn’t life without you in it, bud.”

“Same.”

Corin left A. C.’s house trying to believe good had come out of his friend being shot. But he couldn’t. Sure, A. C. would have the time, but where would he get the money? Camps were risky business, attendance had dropped off, and in this economy the trees full of money had withered.

And would A. C. really be able live on 85 percent of his salary? He’d never been flowing in extra cash.

Just before he got home, Tesser’s number lit up Corin’s new cell phone, “Hello?”

“Excellent news, Corin.” Tesser chuckled. “I’ve found authentic proof your chair was made by Christ. If we’ve had any doubts, they can now be laid to rest and won’t be resurrected.”

“I think I’ve believed for a while now.”

“This will solidify your well-grounded faith.”

“Tell me.”

“Nay, nay, nay. This you must see in person. Can you come to my house at say nine tomorrow morning?”

“Sure.” Corin turned into his driveway and shut off his Highlander. “Do you want to give me a preview of what you discovered?”

“No, I’m afraid that would spoil the surprise. And how I do ever so much want to see the look on your face when you see what I’ve found.” The professor stifled a giggle.

Corin didn’t bother to turn on any lights as he walked into his house. The only thing on his mind was sleep. But an hour later the land of zzz’s still eluded him, because something in Tesser’s tone sounded off and Corin’s brain was determined to figure out what it was.