Tanja was already in her coat and shoes when Pete reached the apartment.
"I said nine, not ten past. If I'd meant ten past, I'd have said so."
The flowers didn't mollify her, so he told her a sob story about how Wilson had flat-lined just as he was getting ready to leave the hospital. He'd need a better story tomorrow; Tanja was a nurse, after all, and wouldn't buy the kind of bullshit that Lisa was selling Louisa.
"The woman who dropped her off after school said a lot of things that I didn't understand," Tanja added.
"Did she realise that you didn't understand her?"
Tanja shrugged.
By the time he remembered the Russian word for moron the 'moment' was over, so he merely said, "Next time, give her a pen and some paper, so she can leave me a note."
Maybe Tanja wasn't the best solution to his problem. To Lisa's problem, he corrected himself. Except that it wasn't really her problem. He'd thrust this situation upon her and he'd said he'd fix it, at least as far as Rachel was concerned.
"Is she asleep?" he asked.
Tanja nodded. "Same time tomorrow?" she asked.
"Yes. No, wait! There was something about …" He had no idea what the Russian word for 'physiotherapy' was, so he substituted, "Gymnastics, exercises." He went to the pin board in the kitchen, remembering that Rachel's schedule hung there. Lo and behold: 'Physio' was entered neatly on Tuesday and Friday afternoon at four p.m., but there was no clue as to where it was or how she got there. He'd have to ask Rachel how it worked.
"I'll phone you," he told Tanja.
He helped himself to leftovers, some kind of dumpling with a zesty filling. Then he settled down in front of the television with beer and chips. It was around one a.m. when he heard sounds from the hall. He leaned forward, grabbed the DVD-player remote, and switched the player off – only just in time. Rachel appeared in the living room in her pyjamas, wide awake. She stared at the TV with interest.
"What are you watching?"
He squinted at the screen – he'd been too bothered about getting his porn off the screen to worry about what might be showing on the television. It looked innocuous enough; it was a broadcast of some stage performance. Opera, to be exact. Verdi or Puccini or something like that, he guessed.
"Pete, what are you watching?" Rachel asked, impatient now.
He listened for a few seconds. "Rigoletto," he said.
"Is it a musical?" Rachel asked, wheeling herself into the living room.
"Yeah, but without the catchy tunes." It shouldn't take long before she got bored and took off for bed.
But Rachel refused to oblige. "I like their costumes." She pitched herself out of the wheelchair onto the couch in an inelegant but practiced move. "Can I have some chips?"
He handed her the bag wordlessly.
"They don't talk at all; they just sing," Rachel observed. Then, "I can't understand them."
"That's because they're singing in Italian."
She digested that. "So how do you know what's going on? Or is it like ballet, where you have to know the story?"
"Shouldn't you be in bed?"
She ignored him. "So what's going on? Oh, I know that music! That's the deodorant ad."
"Does your mom allow you to watch television in the middle of the night?"
"She doesn't watch television in the middle of the night. She reads, so if I wake up I'm allowed to read."
"So go read."
"But you're watching TV!"
Her meaning was clear. As long as he sat here in front of the screen, she felt entitled to do so too. He stretched out his hand for the chips, which she gave him without resistance. He huffed in resignation and watched what was going on, trying to remember the plot. They were nearing the final denouement, he figured.
"She is in love with the duke, the guy wearing red and gold. That hunchback is her dad, and he's trying to make her see sense."
"Doesn't the duke love her?"
"No, he just pretended to." Or maybe he believed he did, but he didn't really.
"Oh, because he wanted to kiss her," Rachel said wisely. "What are they doing now?"
"They're spying on the duke. Her father wants to show her that the duke, uh, kisses all sorts of women, not just her."
"Oh, and now the duke is flirting with that other woman, right? The daughter's gonna be so angry with the duke for kissing that other woman, isn't she?"
"No, she stays stupid." Like Wilson regarding hospitalisation.
She cocked her head, listening intently. Finally she said, "They're all singing different songs, aren't they?"
"It's a quartet. Each singer has his own melody and libretto – that's what they call the lyrics – but the melodies intertwine, wind around each other."
"Okay, shush! I wanna listen," Rachel admonished him. Her attention span when listening to explanations was limited to thirty seconds. She stared at the TV intently, tipping and turning her head from side to side without letting the screen out of her sight. He suppressed a smile of amusement when he realised that she was trying to separate the four melody strands acoustically. With a television that size and no Dolby Surround she didn't stand a chance.
When the quartet was over she said, "That was kinda clever, giving each of them their own song, 'cause it was about something different for all of them, wasn't it? The duke was flirting, that other woman was going all, Get your hands off of me! on him, the girl was sad, and the dad … was mad. It was different and still the same song."
Different perspectives, different agendas. Life was like that.
Rachel fidgeted. "What happens next?"
"Dad pays someone to kill the duke; daughter finds out and gets very stupid."
"Huh?"
"She switches places with the duke and gets herself killed instead."
She digested that. "Oh, that's sad. But I guess it would be sad too if the duke died."
He looked at her down his nose. "Why? He's a jerk."
"Yeah, but she loves him."
"Doesn't make him less of a jerk." Why, again, was he arguing with an eight year old?
Rachel took the bag of chips from him. "She'd still be sad if he died, so it would be a sad story. … I could invent a new ending for it. I like writing new endings for stories when they end all stupid. I wrote a new ending for Charlotte's Web after Mom read it to me."
A Rigoletto fan fiction. This was what the world had long been waiting for!
"You wanna read my ending for Charlotte's Web?"
He shuddered. "No – but I'm sure Wilson will love it."
Rachel brightened. "Really?"
"Sure. He must be bored in hospital, and he'll love a new story." That'll teach you to shut me out, Wilson!
"Okay. And I'll also write … what was this one called again?"
"Rigoletto."
"I'll also write a Rigolotoe story." She pulled herself back into her wheelchair, unlocked it, and turned it around.
"Wait!"
She stopped.
"Why did you get up in the first place?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Just did. I often wake up during the night."
He'd noticed that already. "It wasn't because you needed the bathroom?"
"Don't think so," she said, but he could hear the indecisiveness in her voice.
He got up heavily. "Bathroom it is," he said with false cheer.
"I can do it myself!"
He looked down at her stubborn face and said, "Suit yourself. Lemme check whether everything is there." He went ahead and opened the door to the bathroom that she used. Lisa must have had it completely refitted; everything from the washbasin to the soap dispenser was wheelchair accessible, the toilet had a special seat and a grab rail mounted next to it, the shower was roll-in, with a shower seat and grab rails. Next to the toilet were dispensers for gloves and antiseptic solution. He couldn't see any catheters, but he could make an educated guess: the cupboard under the washbasin. Bingo!
"Wash and disinfect your hands, and then I'll leave you to it," he said.
She frowned at him, proving that he was wise to supervise the cleansing process, but did as she was told.
"Disinfect your girly parts and call me if you need help," he said before closing the bathroom door behind him. He leaned against the wall, wondering what he'd gotten himself into.
The door bell was ringing. And ringing. And still ringing.
He raised his head and yelled, "Wilson, go get the door!"
Silence. Then the door bell jangled again. Where was Wilson? … Whose bed was he in anyway?
And then he remembered. He sat up, hopped to the door of the guest room on his remaining leg, opened it and yelled, "Hang on a sec, I'm coming!" The ringing stopped, mercifully. He looked down at himself: pyjama pants and a T-shirt. It would have to do. He grabbed his crutches and went to open the door.
Outside stood a young woman of about twenty. "Oh!" she said when she saw him. "I'm Chrissy. I've come to take Rachel to school."
He turned back into the apartment, hollering, "Rachel!" To Chrissy he said, "You can come in."
"Isn't she ready?" she asked.
He shrugged; he had no idea. There was no sign of Rachel. "Rachel," he called again.
"Where's Dr Cuddy?" Chrissy asked.
"Not here," he said tersely.
Rachel came out of her bedroom still in pyjamas, rubbing her eyes blearily.
"Oh, my goodness," Chrissy said. "She isn't even awake yet! Rachel, we have to leave in five minutes."
"What's the time?" Rachel asked.
"Twenty to eight," Chrissy said, staring at Pete accusingly.
No one had told him that he had to wake Rachel.
"Come on, let's get you dressed," Chrissy said to Rachel, indicating that she should turn her wheelchair around and go back into her bedroom.
"But I haven't had any breakfast. Have you made pancakes?" Rachel asked Pete.
Sorry – again?
"There's no time for that, Rachel," Chrissy said, to Pete's immense relief. "I'll get you something on the way."
"I haven't been to the bathroom yet either."
"Then go quickly!" Chrissy tapped her foot impatiently.
"It takes a long time though."
Chrissy didn't get it, but he did. Rachel meant her bowel programme. "Skip the poop party this morning," he said, eager to have this disruption moved outside his sphere of influence. Chrissy frowned at his choice of words.
Rachel looked close to tears. "But then it'll all come out in school!"
Chrissy glanced at the clock in the hallway. "Look, if we don't get moving now …"
Rachel's face crumbled. "I can't," she wailed.
Chrissy turned to him. "I have to be in class in thirty-five minutes. If she doesn't come with me now, I'll be late!"
"And I care, because?" he said.
Chrissy's mouth tightened. "Because I'm paid to take her to school, not to get her ready and do … whatever needs to be done in the mornings, while I miss my class. She's ready in five minutes, or I'm leaving without her."
Pete looked at Rachel. There was no way she'd be ready in five minutes, even if they skipped every form of ablution and he made her a sandwich to eat on the way. And she'd definitely have a melt-down if he tried to force her out of the door: her point that she'd have a crap catastrophe in school was a valid one. If she didn't empty her bowels, they'd do so by themselves.
"Leave her here; I'll take her to school once she's ready."
"Are you sure …?" Chrissy asked, hesitating.
"Do you have a better idea?" he interrupted brusquely.
"No. No, I guess not. Well, see you tomorrow."
When she had left, the full horror of what he'd let himself in for struck him: he'd have to get up at an ungodly hour to cajole or coerce an eight year old morning grouch with mobility issues into going through an extensive and strenuous morning routine – for a whole week! He hobbled into the kitchen, switched on Lisa's coffee machine, and sat down at the table, his head in his hands.
"I'm sorry," said a small voice from the door.
He looked up. Rachel sat there looking chagrined. "Not your fault, kid," he said. He should have figured that an eight year old wouldn't miraculously turn herself out all spick and span for school without some sort of input on his part.
"Do I have to go to school?"
"I need coffee. Then we can talk."
He put a mug under the spout and pressed the button. The machine whirred as it ground the beans. When the mug was filled, he added milk and lots of sugar. He drank slowly, savouring the taste (Lisa's coffee machine played in a completely different league from the bog-standard percolator in the first-floor apartment), repressing all misgivings about what awaited him during the course of the day. After about five minutes he was ready to face the day and the challenges thereof.
Rachel was still sitting at the door, waiting for him to say or do something. He rose heavily. "Let's get cracking," he said. "What's for breakfast?"
"Can you make pancakes?"
Yes, he could, but he didn't feel like it. "How about eggs and bacon?" he suggested. He'd stocked the fridge downstairs liberally with both before starting Wilson on his chemo; since he hadn't eaten there for days there had to be some left. Rachel nodded doubtfully. "Okay, I'll get the stuff from downstairs while you start your daily ablutions."
"Huh?"
"Go take a dump!"
"Ah, okay."
Ninety minutes later Rachel was finally fed, cleaned and dressed. "Can I go and see Mom at the hospital?" she asked.
"Midgets – that's you – are only allowed to visit from four till eight," Pete said. This was actually true, although he wasn't above bending the truth a bit to suit his convenience.
"Do I really have to go to school?" she said again. "If I go now, I'll be in trouble for coming late."
"If you don't go, you'll also be in trouble." And I'll be in trouble, he added silently.
"I won't be a bother," Rachel continued hopefully. "I won't disturb you if you have to work."
She didn't want to go; he didn't want to take her there, and above all, he didn't want to waste time explaining to TPTB at her school why she was two hours late. On the other hand he didn't want to keep an eye on her the rest of the day.
"How does that physio thing of yours work?" he asked.
"Mom picks me up from school and takes me to the hospital."
"Which hospital?"
"Mom's hospital," Rachel said as though stating the obvious. "She goes back to work while I do physio. Then, when she's done, we go home."
Okay, that was simple – the first thing so far that proved to be easier than expected. He came to the next point on his agenda: "Your mother has given me a list of things she needs …" He pulled out his phone and scrolled to the list. "Her bathrobe. Her contact lens fluid …"
Rachel was already gone.
He'd probably have been twice as quick without Rachel getting in his way with her wheelchair or insisting she could get at things that were way out of her reach, but it kept her busy and gave him time to go through Lisa's drawers and inspect the contents.
"You think she's gonna need that in the hospital?" Rachel said doubtfully, looking at the lingerie and underwear that he'd spread out on Lisa's bed.
"I'm doing negative sorting: the things I take out of the drawers stay here, the stuff I leave inside the drawers gets packed," Pete improvised.
"Sounds like a crappy method," Rachel opined.
"Sounds like someone is using naughty words."
"Who's talking?" Rachel demanded. When that elicited no reaction from him she added, "Pot, meet kettle!"
He bet she'd picked that one up from him. "Go find a pair of sneakers," he said. "And you can pick a perfume for her." Much use that would be since Lisa wasn't allowed to shower, but hey, if it made her happy …
While Rachel, testing every flaçon in sight, spread a nebulous haze through the room, he went through the music on Lisa's iPod.
Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner (he had a pleasant vision of Lisa shaking her booty to 'Private dancer'), Bryan Adams: mainstream rock for someone who had been a teen in the eighties – no surprises there.
Janis Joplin, Nirvana, Amy Winehouse: a hint of pseudo-rebelliousness.
Some Beethoven, Carmina Burana, Tchaikovsky: light classical music, the equivalent of chick lit.
Mumford and Sons: the type of bland fare he'd expected.
Wait, Professor Longhair? Now that was a pleasant surprise.
There were a few playlists: Yoga (esoteric New Age stuff), Running (she'd probably yanked that list from the internet), Rachel (oh, good grief!).
"Hey, you listen to Big Time Rush and Rihanna?"
"Yeah, sure! They're cool." Rachel said. "This one or this one?" she asked, holding up two bottles of perfume. "They both smell good."
"Pack both," he said. He scrolled further down her playlist. "The Nutcracker?"
"I've seen it three times already. It's lovely! I wish I could dance like that," Rachel said wistfully. "I want to dance like the Sugar Plum Fairy."
Yeah, and he wished he could fly.
"Mom says maybe one day I'll be able to walk."
"What spinal cord injury level do you have?"
"T10. If I do my exercises, maybe I can walk one day."
With a frame or leg braces, for short distances – and only if she was lucky. But it wasn't his job to point that out.
Rachel wheeled her chair to the bed and placed the perfume in the carry-all that Pete had found in the hallway closet. "And then I can learn ballet," she said, staring at him challengingly, probably reading his doubts from his facial expression. "Mom says that there's a lot of research into something that sends electric currents into your spine so it learns how to make you walk."
He'd read about that, but no matter what improvements medical research came up with, learning ballet would be beyond her capabilities.
He got up. "I need to check up on Wilson. Get rollin'!" He waved his hands towards the door.
Rachel grinned triumphantly. He narrowed his eyes at her – he wasn't desperate to take her to school, but there was no need for her to know that. He'd been foolish to let her badger him into allowing her to sleep at home, but that could be remedied.
"I'll drop you off at school on the way," he said casually, picking up the car keys.
"It's past eleven," Rachel said. "If you bring me in now, it'll be too late for you to go to the hospital, 'cause you'd have to return almost straightaway to pick me up again."
Her cockiness grated on his nerves. He waved his hand magnanimously. "I'm prepared to stretch myself if it'll further your education. Unless …"
Rachel frowned. "Unless what?"
"Unless you spend the night at Louisa's place. The next two nights," he amended quickly. The stress of the morning must have affected his bargaining skills.
Rachel chewed on her lower lip, looking phenomenally like her adoptive mother. "How are you going to pick me up?" she asked.
"With the car," he said, the non sequitur causing him to wonder whether she wasn't the brightest bulb in the drawer.
"'S not what I meant. Are you on the pick-up list? Because if you aren't, they won't let you take me. And Chrissy can't pick me up on Tuesdays, 'cause she's got classes. That's why Mom does it herself."
He stared at her.
She shrugged, her cheeks dimpling. "Let's go to the hospital," she said.
It wasn't half as bad as he'd thought it would be. He'd hardly arrived at the ICU, Rachel in tow, when one of the nurses whisked her off to the paediatrics playroom. An hour later another nurse offered to take Rachel to the cafeteria for lunch during her own lunch break. Although he managed to hide his gratitude for the offer behind a snarky comment that featured 'pity for cripples' and 'unfulfilled mothering instincts', he couldn't keep his jaw from dropping in genuine surprise when the nurse, instead of kicking him in the balls like he deserved, not only took Rachel as offered, but also brought him back a burger with fries and a soda, unasked.
"Dr Cuddy must be really popular," he muttered to the head nurse, his mouth full of fries.
"Oh, I think it's your personal charm," she rejoined, arching a brow at him.
He snorted.
She looked at him over the screen of her computer. "You're quite a handful, but we all admire your dedication. You've lost him to Dr Cuddy, and yet you're here every day, making sure he's okay, fighting with the doctors so that he gets the best possible care."
"Lost him?"
"Yes," the head nurse said, puzzled. Then she flushed. "Weren't you and Dr Wilson a couple before he got engaged to Dr Cuddy?"
"Who on earth told you that?"
She was bright red by now. "No one. I mean, we assumed that you and he …. because, well, he was refusing to see you, and then came the news that he and Dr Cuddy are engaged, so we thought there was a connection."
"You thought he's refusing to see me so Dr Cuddy doesn't go all green-eyed," he summarised.
The head nurse nodded.
He took a large bite of hamburger, turning this development over in his mind. As far as he could make out, it made no difference whether the ICU believed that he and Wilson used to do the dirty. He could, of course, point out that the person he'd dated was Lisa, not Wilson, but that was absolutely no one's business. Funny – he'd been worried that his former connection to Lisa and his past might be uncovered, which would have resulted in the nurses shunning him like a leper. Instead, he'd been labelled 'gay', so now he was everyone's darling. (Women were odd that way.) He was in two minds about that: it wouldn't improve his chances of getting into that D-cup nurse's panties (not that he had the time to hit on her as long as he was minding Rachel), but it induced the female nurses to treat him like one of their own and it got him any number of perks. So then, gay it was. He'd be happy to be gay for Wilson if it got him what he wanted.
He spent the next few hours watching cartoons with Rachel in the waiting area of the ICU before heading for Lisa's ward just before four.
"Mind her stomach: she's got a big, fat scar there and she won't appreciate you pounding on it," he said to Rachel. "And she won't be able to carry you or lift you out of the wheelchair."
"Yeah, yeah," Rachel said dismissively, only half listening.
How little his warnings had penetrated her skull became clear when she saw Lisa in her room, hooked to an IV and looking like death warmed over. Rachel stopped short, peering into the room.
"Is Mom gonna get well again?" she asked in a whisper, even though Lisa couldn't possibly hear them.
"She'll be fine. She should be able to walk around a bit; go in and tell her to take you to physio. Oh, and – you were in school and had lots of fun, the teacher praised you, lunch was disgusting, and …" He cast around in his mind for something that could have happened. "And Barry tried to copy from you, but you wouldn't let him."
"Who's Barry?"
"Isn't there anyone in your class called Barry?"
"Naaaa. That's a stupid name. Matthew keeps trying to copy my sums."
"Okay, then Matthew copied your sums."
Rachel crunched up her nose. "Mom usually knows when I'm lying."
"Only when she's interested in knowing the truth. At the moment she wants to believe you went to school, so she'll believe you. In you go!"
He watched from outside as Lisa greeted Rachel and struggled to get up. Rachel babbled non-stop, seemingly oblivious to her mother's discomfort. It took them about ten minutes to make it out of the room, Lisa leaning heavily on the IV pole. A nurse came at a run when she saw Lisa leave her room.
"I'm taking Rachel to physio on the fourth floor," Lisa said.
"I don't think …," the nurse began.
"He'll go along," Lisa cut in, nodding in Pete's direction.
He made a show of looking behind him in search of the person whom Lisa meant, which made Rachel grin, but Lisa, looking anything but amused, crooked a finger at him.
Their pace was frustratingly slow, even with Lisa leaning on the wheelchair and him pushing her IV pole, and when they reached the physio centre she collapsed gratefully on a bench outside the treatment rooms saying, "Will you lift Rachel onto the table inside the second room, please? She can get changed into her sweats herself once she's up there, but she's supposed to be ready when the therapist comes."
He nodded and followed Rachel into the room, leaving the door open. Rachel parked the wheelchair in front of the therapy couch and turned to him expectantly, arms outstretched. He'd done this twice already today, heaving her in and out of the car, and it was no fun. He slid one arm under her legs and the other behind her back, lifting her out and up once she was clasping his neck firmly.
"Ufff," he said as he plonked her onto the table.
"My sweats are in that cubby hole," Rachel said, pointing to one of the walls.
He got the bag she pointed out and handed it to her. Then he looked over at Lisa. "You want to go in to watch her while she gets changed?" he called.
Out in the corridor, Lisa shook her head wearily. "She'll be fine – she has never fallen off the table."
He peered at Lisa. She obviously wasn't going to move. "Get changed," he said to Rachel, half turning away from her so that she wouldn't feel observed, but so he'd notice any untoward movement out of the corner of his eye. There were gymnastic balls of varying sizes in one corner of the room, so he sat down on one of them, bouncing up and down gently while juggling two, and then three spikey balls.
"Will you teach me how to juggle?" Rachel asked.
He stopped what he was doing to lean his chin on his hand in mock thought. "Lemme think. … No," he said. "Are you changed?"
She was. He dumped the balls next to her and hobbled out to Lisa, who was observing him with narrowed eyes.
"What?" he said, lowering himself onto the seat next to her. "You trust me to stay with your kid overnight, but not to watch her while she gets changed under your eyes?"
Lisa chuckled soundlessly. "I was watching you, not guarding her. You're limping and your shoulder is acting up."
He was surprised she'd noticed, considering that her state was substantially worse than his. All that heaving first Wilson and then Rachel in and out of cars, beds and what-not had taken its toll. His stump was sore and his shoulder screamed bloody hell and damnation every time he moved his arm backwards or upwards. "Arthritis," he muttered. "It's no biggie."
"I know you have arthritis," Lisa said. "You already had it when you still had your leg, but you refused to switch to a sensible cane or switch the cane to your left hand, which is what every physiotherapist at the hospital said you should do."
There was nothing to add to Lisa's personal version of, 'You're a stubborn ass and I always told you so', so he kept his mouth shut. The physiotherapist came rushing by, gave Lisa a quick wave and disappeared into the therapy room.
Lisa continued inexorably. "Are you taking anything for the pain?"
"You mean, like … Vicodin?" he asked, pulling his eyes wide open.
"Idiot! No, I mean something mundane and ordinary and below your dignity, like ibuprofen."
He was taking ibuprofen (and it wasn't exactly helping), but he'd be damned before he let her meddle with his health.
She changed her position on the bench to face him, grimacing as she did so. "Look, pain's no fun …"
"Oh, really?"
Instead of yelling at him (which she normally did when he slapped her down), she leaned back and closed her eyes. "We have massage therapists at the hospital. I can write you a scrip." She opened her eyes again, giving him a sideway look. "You've never said no to massages."
He scratched his thumb through his stubble, contemplating her offer. Unlike Wilson, Lisa hardly ever referred to their common past, much less referenced it the way she'd just done twice. Like him, she preferred to pretend it didn't exist. Her present lack of inhibition could be down to the painkillers she was on, or maybe …
The stubble! He'd noticed long ago that she seemed disconcerted whenever she saw him unshaven, but he had put it down to disapproval of his scruffy state. A stupid mistake: Lisa tried to be immaculate herself (and was failing spectacularly at the moment), but she was hardly ever bothered when Rachel spilled food over herself or had toothpaste stains in her face or forgot to brush her hair, so it was unlikely that his failure to shave before ten a.m. (or four p.m., as it might be) fazed her.
No, it wasn't the fact that he was unkempt that bothered her; she was rattled by the memories that bubbled up whenever he turned up unshaven and rumpled. He'd seen photos of himself between infarction and amputation, most of them featuring a rakish three-day stubble and crumpled shirts. He examined himself: crumpled clothes, check; three-day stubble, check (okay, more like 'one-week beard', but still); messy hair, check.
As long as he was clean-shaven and dressed in ironed clothes, Lisa managed to distinguish between Peter Barnes and his evil alter ego, Gregory House. But now that he'd reverted (albeit unintentionally) to the bad boy look of former days and she was too numbed by painkillers to think clearly, old patterns were resurfacing. Lisa was having a flashback of sorts. If he didn't watch out, she'd go into panic mode.
But if he was careful, he might be able to touch her for some information about his past.
"Fine, write me a scrip," he said, as much to keep her happy and gabby as in the hope of getting pain relief. "Anything else that helped?"
"Hot baths. Long hot baths. You'd turn yourself into a prune."
That might have alleviated his arthritis to some extent, but by no stretch of imagination could massages and hot baths have dealt with the chronic pain stemming from his debridement.
"What medication did I take?"
She gave him a puzzled stare. "Hydrocodone. And then some more hydrocodone. You also tried oxycodone and methadone. Morphine for breakthrough pain." She twiddled with the top button of her gown, muttering, "At least, I hope it was only for breakthrough pain."
"Yeah, yeah." He knew all that – it had been in the Mayfield files. "I mean when I was sober."
"Ibuprofen and the occasional muscle relaxant," she said.
"That was all?"
She shrugged. "That was all I knew about. You weren't taking Vicodin on the sly, in case you were wondering: you had regular screenings at the hospital which you always passed."
"What – even after I relapsed?"
"No, I called them off after your relapse." She flushed at his quizzical look. "There was no sense in screening you for 'secret' drug abuse when you were doing it openly."
"So what happened to all the pain while I was clean?"
"It was there – but you were distracted."
He frowned at her.
She twisted a lock of her hair. "You could – can – only focus on one thing at a time, so any distraction meant that you were able to shove your pain into some back corner of your mind. Wilson made an art form of distracting you: monster trucks, foosball, soaps. If it could catch and hold your attention when you were in pain, then it was a winner and Wilson would endure it stoically."
He remembered a conversation with Wilson a year ago. "So Wilson doesn't like monster trucks."
"I have no idea." Lisa waved a dismissive hand without raising her arm. "But he hated your soaps. And he went patient hunting more than once just to make sure you were occupied."
His mind conjured up an image of Wilson luring hapless patients into his lair for him, Pete (no, he should say 'House') to feed on.
Lisa continued, "According to Wilson, my sole duty as your boss was finding cases for you so you'd be busy. I think he only accepted our relationship because it diverted you."
A knot formed at the pit of his stomach. "So the pain wasn't real."
"What do you mean, it wasn't real?"
"If it could be combatted with ibuprofen and distractions, then it wasn't real!"
She blinked at him. "You seriously want my opinion on this?" He was silent, which she apparently interpreted as an affirmative. "I think that when you were on Vicodin it numbed your pain to the extent that you didn't realise when you exerted your leg too much. You'd pace around your office, you'd ride your bike, you'd go breaking and entering with your fellows, and every time you felt a twinge you'd pop another Vicodin so you could keep doing whatever it was you were doing." She rolled her hand illustratively. "When you were clean you knew ibuprofen wouldn't as much as put a dent in your pain if you didn't watch out, so – you watched out. You hated it – leaving your bike at home in cold weather, taking long hot baths, doing physio regularly – and you pretended it didn't do much good, but I can only remember a few scattered incidents of breakthrough pain, whereas when you were on Vicodin …"
"Mo-om!" Rachel called.
The door to Room 2 opened and Rachel came out with her therapist.
"Dr Cuddy, I'm sorry to bother you with this while you're convalescing, but it is noticeable that Rachel has been neglecting her exercises. Her muscle tone has deteriorated considerably. She says she has a nurse taking care of her. If you could instruct her to do the exercises with Rachel …"
"Nurse," Lisa said blankly.
"Yeah, Tanja," Rachel said.
"Right," Lisa said, trying to focus. "Right. Tanja. … I need the instructions in …" She looked at Pete helplessly.
"Russian," he supplied.
"Right, Russian," Lisa said with more assurance.
"Russian?" the physiotherapist echoed.
"Is that a problem?" Pete said. "Or is adequate medical care restricted to anglophone patients?"
The physiotherapist bristled. "I don't know what your issue is, but …"
Lisa held up a tired hand. "I'm not up to this. Do you have pictograms?"
The physiotherapist huffed, turned on her heel, and riffled through the drawers of her desk. She came back with a chart that had pictures and instructions in easy English. "We give these to children. Maybe Rachel can explain them to her."
"I don't know any …," Rachel began.
"That'll be fine," Lisa interrupted smoothly, taking the chart and passing it straight on to Pete. "I'm sure Tanja can read enough English to cope with this."
"If not, Pete can do the exercises with me," Rachel suggested brightly.
"That," Lisa said with a malicious smile, "is a brilliant idea, honey."
Six days. Six days until Lisa came home and he could move back into the downstairs apartment. He'd download an app that kept track of the days – no, the hours! – and when his stint as monkey minder was over, he'd go to a bar and then to a nightclub and then … do all the things that guys did when they'd served their sentence and were released back into freedom.