When the Flowers Fall, You Are Free

In the third year after my brittle bone disease was confirmed, Pat Gilbert was the only reason I kept going.

She padded every corner of the furniture, laid non-slip mats across the floor, filled the bathroom with grab bars, and even helped me out of bed with the most careful hands.

Take your time. I won't let you fall.

Then Roderick Winfield came back from abroad.

He'd studied rehabilitation medicine, and he said the way Pat did things only reinforced my identity as a patient.

"The more you protect him, the less he dares to live like a normal person."

Pat stayed silent all night.

The next day, she pulled out the padding from around the house.

"He only won't walk because he's always afraid of falling. Let go, and it's really nothing."

Then she stripped the grab bars out of the bathroom.

"You have to learn to live with these risks."

She stopped turning me over in the middle of the night, stopped steadying me on every step of the stairs.

"You have to learn to rely on yourself."

Every time, Roderick stood beside her and nodded.

"Right. This is the correct approach."

Someone slammed into me in a mall corridor, and I clung to the wall, shaking with pain. When I lifted my head, the two of them were walking off side by side.

Roderick: "Hold on a little longer. He's almost able to be independent."

Pat: "How much longer?"

"Once he doesn't need you anymore, you'll be free."

The crowd surged past, and he took the chance to slip an arm around her shoulders. She didn't move away.

That night, I walked into the bathroom alone.

Water still ran across the floor tiles.

The hand gripping the doorframe slowly loosened.

By the time footsteps came from outside the bathroom door, my body had already lost its balance, and I went crashing down hard onto the wet tile.

My knee struck the hard porcelain with a dull thud.

The pain tore through my nerves in an instant, and I curled up around it, cold sweat soaking through my pajamas at once.

Pat and Roderick followed the sound to the bathroom doorway.

She saw me lying on the floor and panicked, moving on instinct to help me up.

I saw her alarm, and through the pain I reached out toward her without thinking.

Before, even the smallest bump and she would have carried me straight back to bed, checking every inch of bone, hardly daring to breathe too hard.

She would say, "Don't be scared. I'll take you to the hospital."

But Roderick reached out and caught her by the arm, his voice sure of itself.

"Don't help him, Pat. He's using the posture of the weak to pressure you. If you go to him now, you're just reinforcing his regression."

Pat stopped in her tracks.

She looked at me, and the alarm in her eyes gave way to a calm, distant coldness.

Roderick went on. "This is textbook overdependence. He knows you're afraid he'll break a bone, so every time he uses his body as a bargaining chip. You can't keep going along with it. You have to let him stand up on his own."

Pat pressed her lips together.

I lay in the cold puddle, a piercing pain drilling up from the bone in my shin.

She looked at me across the threshold, her voice dropping low.

"Lucius Henson, look. It's not like you've broken an arm or a leg, is it?"

I froze where I was.

Roderick gave a slight shake of his head, the way you'd look at a child throwing a tantrum for no reason.

Pat folded her arms, that tired coldness back in her voice.

"The floor's cold. When you're done with the act, get up yourself. I'm not going to spoil you without limits the way I used to."

My fingers, still reaching into the air, stiffened one by one.

So my falling to the floor wasn't danger.

It was an act.

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up against the wall, inch by inch.

With every movement, it felt like broken glass was stabbing deep in my shin.

Pat didn't look back. She only said to Roderick, "You're right. I used to spoil him too much."

Roderick pressed a cup of warm water into her hand.

"You've already done so well. A caregiver needs her own space to live too."

At two in the morning, the pain in my leg dragged me out of sleep.

My right shin had swollen all the way around, and even brushing it against the edge of the blanket made me suck in a sharp breath.

I pulled open the nightstand drawer and reached for the box of painkillers.

The drawer was empty except for a single bottle of ordinary vitamins.

I stared at the plastic bottle for a long time, my palm gone cold.

Holding on to the wall, I moved to the study one step at a time.

Pat sat at the computer, studying blueprints, the light of the screen falling across her face.

I set the vitamin bottle on the desk, my voice badly hoarse.

"Pat, where are my painkillers?"

She kept her eyes on the screen.

"You won't need them anymore."

I braced myself on the edge of the desk, knuckles white.

"My leg hurts. It hurts inside the bone. Just give me the medicine first."

Pat finally looked up, a faint crease between her brows.

"Roderick says you've already developed a psychological dependence on painkillers. This much pain is still within what you can bear."

Roderick came out of the master bedroom.

"Lucius, painkillers only relieve. You can't live on them forever."

Pat shook out one vitamin tablet and set it on the edge of the desk.

"Take this. Get through tonight and you'll be fine. Stop treating yourself like a piece of porcelain that shatters at a touch."

The pain bent me double, and I clung to the chair, unable to straighten up.

She closed the laptop and stood, as if her patience had finally run out.

"I have to be up early for work tomorrow. Don't drag this out too long."

Half-kneeling on the floor, I caught the hem of her clothes with my fingers.

"Pat, please."

Her steps paused for a moment.

Roderick lowered his voice. "Pat, he's testing how obedient you'll be."

Pat's hand tightened at her side, then she pulled her leg free and walked toward the master bedroom.

"If it hurts, get through it yourself."

The lock clicked shut.

I lay facedown on the cold floor, a tearing pain rising from deep in the bone, so fierce that even my breathing shook.

That was how I made it through until morning, still on the floor.

Pat walked over and tossed a set of hiking clothes down beside me.

She looked at me, drenched in cold sweat, her voice flat.

"Put these on. We're going out to a campsite this afternoon to see some old classmates."

I shook my head. The pain had left me too weak to even sit up.

Pat bent down, gripped my wrist, and hauled me off the floor.

"An outdoor setting is the most effective stimulus. You can't spend your whole life in a wheelchair, deteriorating."

The pull threw me off balance, and a red mark rose fast on my wrist.

"I'm not going. My legs can't walk."

Roderick leaned in from the doorway, his tone almost soothing.

"Lucius, running from it will only make your bones more brittle. Give Pat a little faith, come on."

Pat glanced at him, her eyes softening for a second.

When she turned back to me, her grip tightened.

"Behave. Don't make this hard for me."

The sunlight at the campsite was blinding.

A dozen or so people were gathered around the grill, all friends who had watched how carefully Pat protected me these past three years.

Someone spotted me and joked with a grin.

"Lucius finally decided to get on his feet, huh? Pat's had it rough these three years."

I stood at the edge of the uneven grass, propped on a hiking pole, my ankles cinching tighter and tighter.

Roderick handed me a cup of water and said to the group with a smile:

"Don't look at Lucius like he's disabled. Overprotecting him strips away his ability to survive. He can actually manage on his own now, right, Lucius?"

A dozen pairs of eyes settled on me.

I opened my mouth, but the pain choked the sound out of me.

Pat sat in a folding chair, tapping the tabletop with her fingertip.

"Say something. Stop making other people cover for you all the time."

Someone gave a small laugh.

"Brittle bone disease isn't terminal, Lucius. That's enough already."

"Right, Pat's revolved around you every single day. Anyone would be worn out."

"Roderick comes back and a few tricks later you've ditched the wheelchair. A professional really is different."

The words worked their way into my ears like soft nails.

I gripped the hiking pole, my body starting to shake beyond my control.

Roderick bent down and, as if by accident, pulled away the only empty chair beside me, the one thing I could lean on.

"See, the regression response is coming out. Don't be afraid, we're all here to help you."

His cologne came in close.

It was the scent that had been on Pat's clothes the night before.

I jerked back hard, my right foot came down in a hole, and I heard a single crack.

My whole body hit the ground.

Mud spattered across Pat's shoes.

The campsite went silent in an instant.

Pat looked down at the mud on her shoes and wiped it slowly with a wet wipe, her brows drawn tight.

I couldn't breathe through the pain, curled on the ground, my fingers dug into the grass roots.

"Get me back to the car, Pat. I'm begging you, take me away."

Before, at a moment like this, she would have crouched down without hesitation and lifted me firmly onto her shoulder to carry me off.

But this time, she only looked at me coldly.

"Are you done with the act?"

Roderick took hold of her sleeve and coaxed gently: "Don't blame him. It's withdrawal. If you go help him up now, the desensitization training is all for nothing."

Pat closed her eyes for a moment, then turned and sat back down.

She picked up a beer, her voice dropping low.

"Lucius Henson, stand up on your own and walk to your seat."

I looked up at her.

My vision was blurred with tears; all I could see was how close she and Roderick were sitting.

Roderick passed her a tissue, his fingertips lingering in her palm for a second.

She didn't pull away.

I looked at her in despair, my tears striking the mud: "And if I can't get up?"

Pat looked at me, nothing left in her eyes but a tired coldness.

"Then stay down. I'm not lifting you again."

Someone said under their breath: "Pat's finally toughened up."

Roderick raised his can and lightly tapped it against Pat's.

"Pat, you did great."

The whole crowd went back to laughing and chatting, and no one looked to see whether I was about to pass out from the pain.

Pat even laughed along with them.

The string inside me that had been pulled taut for three years suddenly snapped.

My fingers were still hooked into the mud, blood seeping from the edges of my nails, but I felt no pain.

Slowly, I pushed myself up.

Pat seemed to breathe easier.

"That's more like it. Stop making everyone revolve around you."

I threw the hiking pole aside and, step by dragging step, moved toward the road outside the campsite.

Pat didn't come after me.

With shaking hands I fished my phone from my pocket, meaning to call my orthopedic surgeon.

But before I could hit the call button, everything went black, and the searing pain swallowed me whole.

When I opened my eyes, Pat was standing beside the bed with a glass of milk.

"It's just a soft-tissue bruise. Nothing serious."

My hand went for my phone on reflex and closed on nothing.

"Give me my phone."

Pat looked away.

"Roderick thinks we should cut off your outside contact for a while. Otherwise you'll keep going to Dr. Matthews for painkillers and getting dependent on them."

Roderick came in carrying his notebook.

"Dr. Matthews's conservative plan isn't right for the stage you're at now."

"To keep it from interfering with your recovery, I deleted his number."

Pat held the milk out to me.

"Drink it. And stop looking at him like that."

I didn't take it.

Her patience ran out. She set the glass back on the table.

"The day you walk like a normal person is the day you get your phone back."

I didn't plead with her. There was nothing left in my eyes but a dull blankness.

The way I looked at her seemed to unsettle her. She turned and picked up the car keys.

"I'm taking you somewhere in a bit."

Half an hour later, she drove me to the foot of an abandoned pedestrian overpass on the edge of the city.

The steps were high and steep, the concrete edges chipped and crumbling.

My feet froze.

Three years ago, on this same overpass, Pat had almost missed a step. To catch her, I shoved her back and went tumbling down dozens of steps myself. Both legs shattered in multiple places, and it left me with a terror of stairs I couldn't shake.

From that day on, I never went down a flight of stairs on my own again.

Pat gripped my shoulders and pushed me toward the edge of the steps.

"Facing your fear is the only way to walk again."

I grabbed the iron railing beside me and held on for dear life.

"Pat, don't."

Roderick stood behind her, flipping open his notebook.

"Lucius, the muscle memory has to be rebuilt. You need to trust Pat. She's helping you."

Pat's palms pressed harder.

I was forced to the top of the steps, my support gone, both legs swaying like they'd give out beneath me.

"I'll fall and die."

Something flickered in Pat's eyes.

Roderick said in a low voice, "That's the fear talking. Don't let him drag you along with it."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and her voice hardened.

"Lucius, I'm so tired."

I froze.

Pat looked at me, her voice worn through with exhaustion.

"I just want you to go back to being the normal person you were, the one who could run and jump. Can't you spare a little sympathy for me too?"

I stopped struggling and let go of the railing.

Roderick slid an arm around her shoulders.

"Pat, step back a little. Don't give him any signals with your eyes. Desensitization is supposed to be like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon."

They withdrew a dozen meters away.

Under the overpass there was only me, facing that long flight of steps.

Bracing myself on the concrete railing, I lifted my right leg, the one webbed with old fractures, and set it on the first step.

A pain like a drill bored up my spine and into my skull.

I bit down on my lip and didn't cry out.

Over three hours I climbed four flights. My knees scraped open on the concrete, and blood mixed with dust smeared across the hems of my pants.

Every time I forced myself up, I could hear the faint "crack, crack" from inside my bones.

Pat stood off in the distance for a long time. At one point she took a phone call and turned her back.

Roderick scribbled in his notebook, glancing up at me now and then, a smugness in his eyes.

I could hear my own breathing, very faint.

So it turned out they didn't want me healthy.

They wanted me to stop being a burden.

By evening, I finally reached the top of the overpass.

Pat came up, saw me drenched in sweat, and frowned deeply.

She handed me a tissue.

"Wipe your face. See? You did it after all."

I took the tissue with a trembling hand, but inside, my heart was going cold, inch by inch.

For the next half month, I did my best to live the way I used to.

I stopped asking for the wheelchair. I stopped crying out in pain.

Every morning, breakfast was on the table right on time.

When Roderick came by to record my progress, I even handed him the recovery chart already filled in.

The look in Pat's eyes slowly softened.

She took me to see her friends, and to everyone she said Roderick's recovery philosophy had saved us both.

Someone praised how brilliant Roderick was.

Pat nodded, and there was a lightness in her voice I hadn't heard in a long time.

"He pulled me out of the pit too."

I sat quietly to one side, head bent, pinching the dead leaves off a pothos.

I'd bought that plant three years ago, the day I was discharged.

Pat had carried me on her back and spent forever picking it out, saying a home should always have a little life in it.

Now it sat on the balcony, its leaves gone dry and yellow.

I watered it every day, and still it withered, little by little.

Roderick followed my gaze and said with a smile, "Plants have to adjust to the natural environment too. You can't keep coddling them in a greenhouse."

Pat said, "He's right."

I nodded too.

"Right."

That evening, I went to the study to get something.

Without meaning to, I knocked a folder off the shelf beside the printer.

Among the scattered pages was an overseas posting confirmation, already signed.

Destination: Switzerland.

Term: three years.

Another was a plane ticket to Switzerland for the same day.

The name on it was Roderick.

The last few pages were a drafted agreement to dissolve our relationship.

One house, two million, and once the care arrangement ended, neither party would interfere with the other.

I sat down at the desk and read through those pages one by one.

So it turned out her rush to prove I could be independent wasn't because she hoped I'd stand on my own feet again.

She was only clearing the last obstacle to leaving.

The moment I no longer needed looking after, she could walk away without any weight on her.

Pat's voice came from outside the door.

"Lucius, I'm working late tonight. I won't be home."

I put the papers back where they'd been.

"Okay."

She seemed pleased by how calm I was.

"Get to bed early. Don't wait up for me."

"Mm."

The lock clicked shut, and I walked into the bathroom and looked at the bare walls.

The grab bars that once kept me safe, Pat had taken down with her own hands half a month ago.

She said I should learn to stop relying on things like that.

I found the phone Pat had hidden at the bottom of a drawer.

I opened the notes app and typed slowly.

"Your stomach medicine is in the second drawer on the left. Don't take it on an empty stomach."

"You're allergic to seafood. When you eat out, remember to always ask."

"Your knees ache on rainy days. Remember to turn on the heat."

"Don't overwater the pothos on the balcony. It didn't drown. Its roots have already rotted."

I stopped there for a long time.

"Pat, this time I won't call for you again, and I won't be any more trouble."

"You're finally free."

"Just as you wanted, I'm normal now."

"In the moment I let go, I am completely clear-headed."

Three in the morning, and the bathroom was thick with steam.

I set my slippers neatly outside the door.

The phone lay on the sink, the screen resting on that note.

Barefoot, I stepped onto the water-slick tiles.

The phone buzzed.

A message from Pat.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to Switzerland with Roderick.

There's an agreement on the study desk. Lucius, you can take care of yourself now, so let's end this with some dignity.

I glanced at it and pressed the screen dark.

The hand gripping the door frame slowly loosened.

The instant my body lost its balance, I closed my eyes.

The airport announcement had already begun hurrying the last passengers to board.

Pat stood outside the gate, refreshing the chat over and over.

Still no reply.

Her brow drew slightly together as the unease inside her spread, inch by inch.

Roderick urged her from beside her, "Pat, it's time to board."

Pat answered, but she still didn't switch on airplane mode.

The next second, an unknown call filled the screen out of nowhere.

She stared at the number for two seconds, then finally answered.

"Is this Pat Gilbert? This is an officer from the Southside Police Department. Mr. Lucius Henson has had an accident. Please come here right away."