Page 65 of Sloane

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t play for your team.”

His eyebrows went up. “How do you know, did you guys do it?”

Fuck! I walked right into that one.

“Colin! I’m not answering that!”

He turned to look at everyone else and nodded with pursed lips. “They did it.”

I could feel my face turning red.

“Oh my god!”

“Girl, you came in here glowing. Of course you did it.” He chuckled. “I mean, you look like a tomato right now, but you were glowing when you walked in.”

He handed the phone to Kelly, and Catherine looked at the screen over Kelly’s shoulder. They both said, “Aw,” in unison, then Catherine declared, “You guys are adorable!”

I glanced at the photo when I got my phone back and couldn’t help but smile. We were adorable.

“Now I just have to wait until his tour is up to see him again.”

“When is that?” Rory asked.

I shrugged. “He doesn’t know. He said it could be three months or it could be another year.”

Colin wrinkled his nose. “Ew, sorry.”

I felt a frown form on my face, and I let out a deep sigh.

“Yeah, me too.”

That seemed to bring the mood down, and everyone murmured their condolences and dispersed back to their respective desks.

Everyone but Catherine.

My boss laid a manilla folder in front of me.

“You have a new patient. Dan Murphy. Army Master Sergeant. He’s recently moved, and our facility is closer to where he lives now. He hasn’t been fitted for his permanent prosthesis yet, so he’s still using a temporary one.”

I opened the file and read Dan had a hip disarticulation from injuries he sustained over eight months ago from an explosion while serving overseas. My heart sank when I saw it was not far from where Sloane was.

Obviously, working in the Physical Therapy department at the VA, I saw my fair share of military personnel wounded in action. And it wasn’t uncommon for them to have incurred their injuries overseas. But this one hit me harder than it probably should.

Get it together! I am a fucking professional!

I read his treatment notes and saw that he’d had his temporary leg for a month and had been a dedicated patient while learning to use it.

That was promising. Often times when I got a wounded service member as a patient, they were still dealing with the emotional and psychological loss of their limb or mobility. Some were combative, some were depressed, some a bit of both—all normal stages of grief. But they weren’t usually very motivated to do their physical therapy. I’d found patients achieved the best results when they were receiving emotional support as well as physical therapy.

The more I read about Dan Murphy, the more I looked forward to our first appointment later that morning.

~~~~

I walked into the physical therapy room at three minutes to ten and found a man in a plain navy-blue t-shirt and black athletic shorts with a prosthetic leg. He had his hands over his head and was leaning to one side, stretching.

“Are you Dan?” I asked as I approached with a friendly smile.

“Who wants to know?” he grumbled as he straightened and dropped his arms to his sides.