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“You’re paralyzed from the neck down.”
Luka heard the words the doctor said. They dropped into the space like two-ton boulders hurled into a still pond. Luka heard, but didn’t process.
“I’m sorry?” he whispered, flicking his gaze to his guitar, which sat on a chair near his hospital bed. “What was that?”
“All you can move is your fingers.” The doctor glanced down at his clipboard. “The accident shattered your spine, severing one of your cervical nerves…”
As the doctor droned on, his heartsong anywhere but in the room, Luka zoned out. He’d never walk again. He’d never play his guitar. He’d never...
I’ll never have my sea legs. The thought was so absurd, Luka barked out laughter, interrupting the doctor’s report. The man blinked at him.
“No, no, sorry.” Luka furrowed his brow. “This all seems so… so surreal. I can’t believe any of it.”
“The shock will pass.”
Luka wasn’t so sure about that.
***
Ondine was a fabulous nurse. The most gentle Luka had ever hired, and man, had he hired some terrible nurses.
She bathed his face with a damp cloth, giving him his Monday spongebath. “Am I being too rough with you?”
Luka told himself he no longer missed shaking his head. That he’d get used to all of this some day. But the accident had destroyed his life months ago, and all he could do was move on.
“No, thank you.” Luka lay in his bed, covered merely with a towel. He could feel the warmth on his face from the cloth, but more than that, he could see the warmth in Ondine’s smile. “You’re doing great.”
Ondine’s pretty lips turned up at the corners. She continued bathing him, turning him on his side like a useless lump of clay and manipulating him with grace.
She always narrated what she was doing (“okay, now I’m cleaning your back”), and sometimes chatted about what she’d been up to on her days off. “So Alexandra--my cousin--is getting married next weekend. She’s been a real bridezilla. What a nightmare for the groom, am I right?”
Luka smiled. Ondine choosing to share her life with him gave him a view into the outside world. He'd isolated himself completely, so he didn't know if he was ready to go out yet, but... Ondine's stories were still good. “What sorts of chicanery has she been up to?”
“Ooooh!” Ondine squealed, and Luka’s smile widened. “Chicanery is a great word! Okay, so, she’s basically been like… ‘Melissa, you have cancer and you’ll be bald for my wedding, so you’re not a bridesmaid anymore.’”
Luka whistled, one of the few pleasures left to him, along with Ondine’s gossip. He was grateful he could still make music. “Really? What does the groom think about all this?”
Ondine chuckled, turning Luka over and lifting the towel. She gently dragged the rag down his belly, which tickled in the little sensation Luka could feel. “I’m doing your stomach now.” Ondine winked at him, endearing her to him further. “He’s too much under her thumb to stick up for her bridesmaids.”
Luka cackled. “That’s terrible.”
Ondine manipulated Luka’s limbs, lifting his arm to clean it. “What about you, Luka?”
“What about me?”
“Would you…” Ondine hesitating was always an intriguing prospect. Luka never knew what she was going to say next. “Would you ever get married?”
Luka raised his brows. He mulled over the question. He would be useless to any bride, not even able to get to the toilet himself. “Yeah. Yeah, I thought about getting married before, but now…”
“Now what?”
“If I could gesture to all of myself, I would.”
Ondine’s face appeared in his vision. She looked spitting mad, her brows drawn down and her eyes hard. “Never, ever denigrate yourself, Luka Couffaine. You are just as whole of a person now as you were before your accident.”
“Denigrate.” Luka’s grin was a sad, shallow thing, but it seemed to loosen Ondine’s shoulders. “Now there’s a million dollar word.”
Ondine laughed, lightly smacking his shoulder. “I’m serious, you big goof.”
“I know, Ondine.” Luka’s grin turned real. Ondine would always stick up for him, and Luka was grateful. Even when he was giving up on himself, she never would. “I know.”
***
Years later, as Luka directed his power wheelchair down the aisle to wait for Ondine to meet him at the altar, he reflected on her words. She’d said them often: he was still a whole person just like he was before.
After a while, he’d begun to believe her. He’d been broken physically but not mentally. She’d picked up the pieces of his shattered life and put them back together.
And now, watching her walk down towards him wearing a white wedding dress, Luka had never felt more whole.