Chapter 26

Johanna came to pick me up before I was even through with my first cup of coffee on Monday morning. I guess that one look at the bags beneath my eyes was all it took for her to sit down at the other end of the table and wait on me to finish without much complaint. Her sole grumble seemed halfhearted at best when Mrs. Paylor poured her a cup as well.

"Where are Matthew and Peeta?" she asked, glancing to the empty seats beside us.

I swallowed a mouthful of toast as quickly as I could chew it. "Peeta and his teacher are already working in the library, and Matthew was gone before the rest of us were up. Even Mrs. Paylor didn't see him."

"You mean that he never came home last night," Johanna scoffed. "I've never known him to be an early riser, and I don't doubt for an instant that he is still in bed—even if that bed isn't his own."

"Who else's bed would he be in?" I asked. I wasn't innocent about what she meant, but just couldn't picture Matthew doing something like that. He seemed too staunch to be having an affair.

She shrugged, failing to look as nonchalant as she'd hoped. "There is talk that he visits a widow on the other side of town quite frequently. He pays for the apartment and the bills, and she keeps her legs wide open like any good mistress should."

Snorting, I set aside my now-cold cup of coffee. "It's more likely he fell asleep at his office."

"If you say so," Johanna sighed. "Now, let's get going. I told Nurse Lyme I would have you at the clinic by nine."

It didn't look strange at all to me when she slid behind the steering wheel even though I had never seen a woman drive a car before. I should have known that Johanna wouldn't have a driver. It didn't fit with a single thing I knew about her, that she would be one to wait for a car to be driven round for her. She wore her independence like a suit of armor. I envied that.

We arrived at the clinic just before nine, and Johanna motioned for me to follow her inside the shabby looking little building past a group of haggard looking souls waiting in line. Some of them were obviously injured, like the old man clutching at bloodied rags around his hand, while others were sick and hunched over with wracking coughs. The sight of these people clawed at my heart in a way nothing had in quite a while. Even back home where a lot of folks had next to nothing, I hadn't seen so much suffering.

"Don't dawdle," Johanna admonished me, her eyes never so much as landing on the line for a moment. I'm sure she had seen it before.

We hadn't gone very far inside of the building when an imposing figure dressed in a nurse's uniform appeared. She was hard faced with blonde hair tucked up beneath an impeccably starched cap. For the briefest second her gaze traveled over me, but I couldn't tell by her eyes what she thought.

"Katniss, this is Nurse Lyme. She coordinates the clinic," Johanna explained.

"So you're Mrs. Mellark?" she asked flatly.

I nodded. "Johanna said you needed nurses."

"And are you a nurse?" A blonde brow shot up at me mockingly.

"I assisted Dr. Abernathy back home in..."

She let out an irritated groan and raised a hand. "That is beside the point. Are you or are you not a trained and educated nurse?"

"I didn't get any schooling for it, if that is what you're asking, but I worked for Dr. Abernathy for over two years," I argued.

"That still doesn't give you the skills that an educated and fully trained nurse would have," she replied icily.

I pulled myself up to my full height and looked her directly in the eye. I'd had too many people tell me that I was lacking something these days, and too many people trying to stare me down like I was some kind of insect. I wasn't going to take it anymore. "Educated or not, I am still a pair of able hands to bandage wounds and clean up piss and vomit. Not only am I trained enough to do it, but I'm willing. How many others do you have lined up right now?" I demanded. "I see more patients than volunteers out there."

I must have said something right that day, because from then on I was simply accepted into the circle of volunteers at the clinic like it had been my place all along. Nurse Lyme introduced me to the few other regular volunteers and before I knew it, I was wrapping bandages and assisting in cleaning wounds.

As days passed, I found myself feeling energized in a way that I hadn't felt since coming to the city. Though I wasn't educated for the job, nor was I overtly compassionate, somehow nursing came naturally to me. I didn't become frantic as the pressure mounted like many of the other volunteers did. The line of people waiting out in the lobby didn't weigh on me as much as the patient in front of me. I was able to hone in and do a job that really let me help in a way that I had never been able to before. For the first time in my life, I felt like maybe I was finally finding worth in the community around me. The people I cared for and the nurses and doctors I worked with didn't see me as "Katniss Everdeen, the poor little orphan girl" or "Mrs. Mellark, the rich woman." I was making my own way. The feeling was addictive.

My initial arrangement was to help out two days a week at the clinic while Peeta was working with Finnick. I reasoned that I really wouldn't be missed. Peeta didn't seem to need me, and there was no reason for me to sit around and do next to nothing, was there? Somehow, two days became three in the blink of an eye, and aside from Matthew's haughty remarks about the family not being in dire enough straights for me to work my fingers to the bone, no one seemed to care. Peeta was becoming more and more distracted while I was at the clinic, and I barely noticed. He stopped smiling like he used to when I walked into the room, and he didn't make his usual ridiculously sweet remarks when we were alone. The truth was that we hardly spoke. In the evenings, we usually retired to the library where I rolled bandages for the war effort while he practiced reading or typing. It was almost like—aside from sharing a bed—we had never been married at all. Just under a month after we'd been married, the fragile state of things between us began to show its cracks.

The sky had opened up that day and dumped out buckets of rain that felt more like waterfalls than drops. With many of our patients either not able or not willing to brave the storm, the clinic had been slow enough that day that Nurse Lyme shooed most of us volunteers off home. I had been expecting to find Mrs. Paylor at the door and Peeta in the library with Finnick when I got home, but as I opened the door, no one greeted me in the darkened hall.

"Hello?" I called.

"Katniss!" I heard Peeta's voice from down the hall—just as I had expected to—but I wasn't expecting to hear the desperation in his voice.

I raced down the hall and threw open the library door to find Peeta sprawled on the floor with a deep gash on his forehead. The feet of his prosthetic legs were in a tangle and his canes were flung out of his grasp. Dropping down to my knees beside him, I immediately began to inspect the damage. "My God!" I gasped as I inspected his wound.

"I fell," he murmured, turning away from my ministrations. "Can you help me back to my chair?"

"All right," I agreed without thinking. Looking around the room quickly, I suddenly realized that his chair was nowhere to be found. "Where is it?"

"The bedroom."

He didn't offer any explanations as to what he was thinking leaving the chair that far behind, and I didn't ask. It was safer that we not talk as I retrieved it for him and helped him back into it. In fact, we didn't speak a single word the whole time I cleaned his cut, either. I think we both knew that whatever was coming was not good.

"You're lucky. I don't think you need stitches," I said finally as I set aside the unused gauze.

"Wonderful," he replied flatly.

I crossed my arms over my chest and prepared for battle.

"And just what the hell did you think you were doing anyway?" I demanded.

Peeta rolled his eyes. "I was wondering how long it was going to take you. You did better than I thought you would."

"Don't change the subject!"

"Wouldn't dream of it," he snapped. "Why would I want to avoid telling my wife that I tripped like a toddler when I was on my way to go take a piss?"

"But why weren't you using your chair and why were you alone anyway?" I demanded, unrelenting. Somewhere in my mind, I was aware that this whole scenario was hurting him like hell, but I couldn't find that part of myself at the moment. I was too angry. All that mattered was that I wanted answers.

"Mrs. Paylor took the day off, and Finnick is visiting a friend. I don't need to be watched like an infant. I'm a grown man, and if I want to try to walk like one, I damned well will," his voice was soft, but there was an iciness to his tone that was downright dangerous.

"But Haymitch said..."

"I fucking well know what Haymitch said. And the doctor confirmed his theory last week at the hospital, if you must know, but I don't care. I need to walk! Anyone who says otherwise can go straight to Hell." He slammed his fist down on the armrest of his chair so hard that I'm surprised it didn't crack.

"Does that include me? Is that why you didn't tell me that you even saw the doctor?" I asked, feeling the prick of unwanted tears behind my eyes.

"This has nothing to do with you," he told me stubbornly.

I tried shake off the pain that his words caused, but I couldn't quite manage it. "Oh, I think you've made that abundantly clear."

"Katniss, you just don't understand," he said softly. "I just want... I don't even know how to explain it to you. I can't put into words everything that's been happening lately, and I didn't want to upset you when you finally seemed happy."

"Try," I pleaded, letting the anger seep away.

"I need to be more than just a cripple."

"You're not just..."

"Don't try and tell me I'm not. I am a cripple. I will be for the rest of my life. Don't think you can erase that," he told me, biting his lip.

Cripple. The word was so ugly, and didn't sum up a one-hundredth of who Peeta was. To hear him call himself that after all he'd managed to accomplish lately cut deeper than I could bear. How could he not see that? "I hate that word," I said weakly.

"Get used to it. I'm sure we'll both be hearing it a fair bit." Peeta heaved a sigh and pushed at his wheels uneasily. "That's why I have to be more. I have to prove that I can still be more than just the parts I left behind in France."

"But you already are more!" I insisted.

He shook his head. "I know you believe that, and I want to believe it, but I can't think of myself that way just yet. There is so much I can barely do for myself or can't do at all. I need to push farther. You're the one that got me started towards being more independent. Can't you see that I just can't give up now?"

"I can help you, Peeta. You don't have to do this all alone. I would have gone with you to see the doctor. I can cut back at the clinic and help you in your lessons. I'm here to help you," I said, reaching out for his fingers.

He squeezed my hand without smiling. "You're my wife now, Katniss, not my nurse. Maybe I'll be able to accept your help again. Maybe someday, I'll even be able to accept myself the way I am now. Right now, though, I hate myself for how much I can't do."

"What do you want me to do?" I tried to swallow the lump that had been steadily forming in my throat.

"I don't know." The sheer desolation in his tone was unlike anything I had heard from him even in the first days we had known each other. "The worst part is that I truly do realize how much I have going right in my life. I know that I should feel better. Things are going well. I have a wife. I'm beginning to become independent again. Still, there's this part of me that can't stop hating myself for every breath I take. It's like my body is the one enemy I can't conquer. In a way, I'm more depressed now than I ever was before."

Unable to think of a single thing to say, I grabbed his hand and held it tight. I wished that I had known he felt like he did. I wished we had never left Mellark House. I wished a million things at that moment, but couldn't put them into words. I knew that there wasn't a damned thing I could say to change the way Peeta felt. We sat in silence, listening to the rain for what felt like forever before Peeta spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"For what?"

Peeta shrugged. "For a lot of things. But right now, mostly for snapping at you and for not telling you about the doctor."

"I understand why you're so angry. There are times when I still get angry for you. I just don't want you to forget that I'm here for you. And that I love you. I have faith in you, Peeta—maybe even than you have in yourself." I kissed his fingers, still entwined with mine.

"Sometimes I ask myself if I'm dreaming. It's hard to believe that anyone like you can even be real," he said with a sad smile. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tight to him, and buried his face against me.

"I guess I'm real after all," I murmured as I threaded my hands through his curls.

He chuckled into my ribs. "Either that or I'm mad as a hatter."

"Does that make me Alice?" I laughed as an evil thought crossed my mind. "Your mother would make a wonderful Red Queen."

It took some doing, but by the time the skies cleared in the evening, Peeta almost seemed himself again. We curled up on the couch with a copy of Through the Looking Glass, and I was reluctant to leave his side. It scared me that I might not be able to see all of the cracks beneath his surface. I doubted that I would ever really know what the war had cost him, and I knew that I could never heal all of his wounds. The helplessness ate at me as I sat there with him that night, and I prayed that I could take a page from his book and force a smile to my voice.

I sent a note to Johanna and Nurse Lyme in the morning that I wouldn't be coming to the clinic that day. At that moment, I felt less guilty about letting strangers down than I would have felt leaving Peeta. I'd simply made up my mind that I wouldn't leave him that day. I didn't even ask if it was all right for me to sit in on Peeta's lesson that day; I simply took a seat in one of the arm chairs near the fireplace.

"Katniss, how wonderful of you to join us," Finnick said with a conspiratorial grin after I greeted him. "It just so happens we need a set of working eyes today. So lovely of you to volunteer!"

"And just what I am I volunteering for?" I asked suspiciously.

His grin widened. "Why, you're about to make yourself unneeded in the morning."

"Finnick, exactly what are you trying to force my wife into?" Peeta demanded, obviously feeling less obliging than I was at the moment.

"Nothing shocking or scandalous, I assure you," he answered with a chuckle. "Just going to arrange your wardrobe a bit. It's easier to not look like you've been dressed by a blind man when your closet is in order."

We spent most of the day sorting through the clothes in Peeta's closet. It was my job to describe the color of each garment as Peeta got reacquainted with each one while using his sense of touch. The whole idea of the "lesson" seemed basic enough. I had just assumed that I would be the one to keep the closet in order or the servants would. But then Finnick produced a selection of buttons in various shapes and sizes along with a thread and needle.

"I sew a button into the seams of some of my clothing to serve as a marker of which are which," he said, undoing his shirt sleeve to illustrate. He led Peeta's hand to it and continued, "Do you feel the anchor on this one? That tells me that this shirt is a dark blue. I have a smaller one with rounder edges on my lighter blue one. It's a system that I've worked out with the help of my tailor, and I'm sure you'll come up with one of your own. For now, though, let's just use these ones I've brought from the school."

"I hate to put a damper on your plan," I murmured with a sigh, "But I'll probably have better luck getting blood on the clothes than I will buttons."

Finnick let out a hearty chuckle. "You're not here to sew. Peeta's going to do the sewing."

By the end of the afternoon, my ribs hurt from laughing. We had sorted his closet and started sewing the buttons on most of his shirts, but it seemed like so much more. It felt good to be a part of Peeta's life again, even in such a small way. There was a closeness building between us once more that I hadn't felt since before Delly and Effie had come to Mellark House. I wondered if maybe there was hope on the horizon, and if the smiles Peeta gave me that day were any sign, I could actually believe there was.