“I’ve never seen a gun handle,” Orchid said to Caleb. “What does the design look like?”
Caleb pulled out his smart phone. “Just Google ‘Geoffroy Gournet’,” he said. He showed her pictures of heron in flight, foxes chasing birds through a forest, all densely packed into a few square inches.
“Wow,” she said.
She looked up to see Veronica break open a roll, butter it and place it on Phoenix’s plate. Phoenix turned to murmur his thanks.
“Yeah, he’s a master engraver. Works out of a shed in his backyard. Sometimes one piece will take him months,” Caleb continued.
Orchid nodded. She wasn’t listening. She was floored by what else Phoenix might need that she wouldn’t even know to offer.
That night,Orchidscoured the Internet like she was about to defend her post-doctoral thesis. She looked up medical knowledge, therapies and daily living adaptations that she’d previously only skimmed, through metaphorical fingers, half-hiding from the information. She saw the hard work of amputees in rehab. She read about military research on prostheses to help wounded vets returning home. Some of the images were hard to look at. Finally, filled with a realistic set of knowledge, Orchid felt both saddened and hopeful for Phoenix.
Then, on a whim, she typedPhoenix mythologyinto the search engine. She skimmed the top resultsmythical, sacred, dies and is reborn. “A phoenix obtains new life by arising from ashes.” Orchid blinked. How prescient. Phoenix truly was reborn by arising from symbolic ashes.
It was nearly midnight. Orchid tiptoed downstairs in the quiet house for a cold drink. She passed the echoing stairway down to the basement level. She heard a sound like a groan.
Padding on bare feet to the basement, she listened. To the left, soft snores emitted from one room. Then, the sound came again, from the room directly in front of her, the room Betsy had pointed out as Phoenix’s.
The door ajar, Orchid tapped the solid surface. “Phoenix, you okay?”
No answer in the darkness.
CHAPTER 50
BROKEN BOY SOLDIER
Phoenix
Aww, shit.This was going to be a bad one.It’s all in your head. Just get up and get the meds.
As he forced himself to a seated position, groaning, he caught sight of a figure peering through the faintly lighted doorway.
“Who’s there?” he asked, doubling over in pain.
The figure flew to his side. “Phoenix, are you hurt? What do you need?” asked a familiar voice, strangely soothing even while its honey-sweetness brought the bitter taste of betrayal to the back of his mouth.
He squeezed hard, trying to replace the feeling of a bulldozer grinding his missing toes into concrete with the more manageable pain of his hand kneading the hell out of his leg.
“Phantom pain?” Orchid asked.
Her knowing and saying the phrase with composure surprised him long enough that he was able to pause. “Meds. In my bag. In the closet,” he said, spitting the words out between the throbbing.
She ran over and then back to his side within the space of two spasms. “How many?” she asked mid-stride, the bottle already open.
“Two,” he said, though part of his brain screamed for the whole container.
She wrapped his hand around two oblong pills then sprinted to the bathroom. He’d already swallowed them by the time she’d returned with a glass half full of tap water. He drank it anyway.
“What else can I do? Can I massage you?”
Rina would never baby me. She’d tell me to take my meds and suck it up.
His pain steepened, exploding through his mind. He couldn’t speak. He fell back onto the mattress, banging his leg, praying for relief.
Orchid’s hand, smooth and cool, found his leg and rubbed, tentatively at first, then firmly, rhythmically. He resisted, pulling away a little.I don’t need anyone. Then, though he hadn’t asked for it, touch by touch, her caress comforted.
With time, his pain eased until he returned from pure feral animal instincts to human sized agony.
