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The second injury did not surprise him as much as the first. Everyone had believed that Dick would be the first one to go; his arm is really something, everyone had said, he’s bound to be drafted, and to a good team, too. Dick had felt the expectation heavy on his shoulders; it was his left one that tore under the weight. Then everyone had said nothing. Dick had shrugged off the silence over his cast, because the doctor had told him that his life would be his, just not with baseball. And life was not all about baseball. His coach later told him that he was a wise high schooler for knowing that so early on. Dick had shaken his hand once and left the field.
This second doctor told him a different story. Too many things broken, a crucial piece destroyed. Too dangerous the force. He would need to change his life. It would be his, the second doctor said, just not with his work nor full use of his right leg. Dick accepted the prognosis. The acceptance came easy to him, for a reason he did not fully understand.
Maggey was waiting for him outside the hospital. There was a half-wilted bouquet of pink tulips in her hand. “Marry me,” she said.
It was everything that Dick had wanted: white picket fences enclosing green lawns upholding his lovely Maggey. He would raise dogs and maybe even kids in their house. He would clean the windows so they let in the unhindered sunlight. He would learn how to cook and make lunchboxes every day, although Maggey might have to eat sausages for a very long time.
And yet Dick hesitated. “I don’t know what to say, Maggey,” he said.
“You don’t love me,” Maggey said, her lower lip quivering.
“It’s not that,” Dick tried to explain. “I just want to see where my life is going, Maggey.”
Maggey wiped back her tears; she tried to smile. She too wanted to understand. She too wished to see that great unfolding along the broken seams. Maggey gave Dick an embrace and Dick waved her goodbye. He gave back her flowers; they would keep her company.
Dick stood by himself, on his own legs. He had stayed in the hospital for several months, during which he had many visitors, even Mr. Edgeworth who had paid off all the bills. He now felt terribly alone; he would have to deal with it. Life stood watching him with its vast and unblinking gaze.
He took a tentative step. He stopped and took a breath, willing his eyes above ground. On a vacant lot by the road, his vision rested. There was an absence, but through that lack something sang. Empty glasses were strewn about in unknown patterns; the wind cried through their insides calling for things Dick did not know. Tufts of grass slept through the ungiving stone, sighing.
To the side, Dick found, was a sole patch of light. He shuffled over and held out his hand, as if beckoning to a dog. The warmth met him halfway and it held him for some time.
Does it ever end, this sadness? He did not have an answer. Dick reckoned that no one did, and that was why everyone he knew in the courtroom and its surrounding offices, the people he knew from work but never really invited over to his house, found themselves busy all the time, even now. Even years later they would be so. Dick found great comfort in that future and only felt a tiny bit selfish about it.
Dick got up. The pain would require some getting used to. Tomorrow he would try walking a little farther; the day after he might try the park; the day after that the path by the river with its glittering waters. He would do that. That he could do. The long distances spread their wide arms before him. His hulking frame limping across the sidewalk like a behemoth, heading vaguely in the direction of his unlighted home, Dick had a thought clear and bright and it seemed to him like the truth, or something better. Everything is waiting for you.