Spring fancy

strapping weights onto her ankles and doing extended leg raises until her stomach and neck screamed for her to stop. Next she strapped the weights to her wrists and held them extended straight out from her sides until her facial muscles quivered and her pectoralis major felt ready to snap!

'What are you doing, Gardner?'

Winn dropped her arms and sank to her knees on the floor, panting, too breathless to answer.

Mrs. Christianson entered the gymnasiumlike room and stopped beside the hunkered figure. 'No matter how hard you push yourself, you can't make up for it, you know that' came her sympathetic yet firm admonishment. Winn shook her head, still breathless. Her hair flew and stuck to her sweating forehead and cheeks, and she gripped her knees, trying to make sense out of such useless waste as that suffered by Meredith Emery. 'The best I can do is offer to put someone else on the case if it gets to you. Will you let me know if it does?'

Winn nodded blindly. But the image of Merry's slim seeking hand lifting to her in entreaty filled the bleak depths of Winn's mind. She'd stick it out. That was the best thing she could do for the little girl.

That afternoon when Merry came back to P.T., Winn began a program of exercises whereby motion would be maintained-a flexion of the chin, rolling of the head, lifting of the arms-to prevent the child's skin from contracting and losing elasticity. She tried her hardest to instill confidence and optimism in Merry, but for the first time in her own career that sense of optimism was lacking in herself. The ten-year-old burn victim faced not only the enormous task of recovering motor movements and learning to live with a great deal of ongoing pain but would need to accept the horrendous fact that her appearance was defaced, then begin working upon the even more difficult assignment of attempting to regain a positive 'body image.'

At the end of the session Winn felt drained and depressed. How could anyone expect a ten-year-old to do all that?

The day had been one of the first ever when Winn wished to have any other career than the one she had. When she returned home, she immediately called Paul. She needed him equally as bad as Meredith Emery needed a physical therapist-perhaps worse.

'Paul, could you possibly break free to go to a movie or something tonight?'

'Oh, darling, I wish I could, but I've brought Arv home from the office because he's considering going into contract work, and he wanted to try out Rita and see what he thinks of her.'

Rita again! Was that all the man could think of? Anger and jealousy immediately surfaced, but Winn bit back the accusation and asked as calmly as she could, 'Then could you make it an early evening with Arv and come over here afterward?'

'Is something wrong, Winnie?'

'Well… yes and no.'

'What is it, darling?' To his credit he did sound terribly concerned.

'It's a patient at work.'

There followed a long pause. 'Oh.' She heard his hesitation and understood. He never knew what to say to her when she spoke of the unfortunate, the accident victims, the aged, the diseased. These were repugnant to Paul in some odd indefinable way. They were not perfect, and he found it difficult to deal with imperfection of any kind. Paul Hildebrandt coped best when working within a tidy sphere. 'Well, just a minute, I'll ask Arv.' Again a silence passed, then his voice came again. 'Listen, darling, I should be able to get over there in a couple of hours, okay?'

Disappointment welled. 'Okay,' she said dejectedly, 'see you then.'

'And Winnie?' He paused, then added, 'I love you.'

'I love you, too. See you as soon as you can make it.'

During those two hours Winn felt trapped in her own house. She simply did not want to be alone right now. She considered going over to her mother's but discarded the idea. Somehow her mother always managed to ruffle instead of soothe. She called Sandy but could sense her friend's impatience to get back to whatever she'd been taken from. Winn suggested they meet one day soon for a game of racket ball, but Sandy offered only a vague, 'Yeah, sure, maybe this weekend.' At the sound of Sandy's distracted voice Winn wondered if perhaps Mick wasn't waiting in bed for his wife to finish her telephone conversation. At the thought she was chagrined, and felt awkward and excluded-from what, she did not know. Perhaps from the charmed circle of those who shared a part of each day with one special person of the opposite sex. If only Paul were here right now. What she needed most was to be held, petted and perhaps made love to… slowly, expertly.

Joseph Duggan's face appeared in her mind's eye, and it brought an inexplicable shaft of longing that momentarily overrode her lingering depression over Meredith Emery.

I wonder if he ever thinks of me. I wonder how he's getting along with his dim vague Perkins hostess. I wonder if, when she needs him, he answers her beck and call, maybe makes love to her slowly, expertly, then cradles her head against his chest and lets her talk it out while lying in his arms.

Winn put on her sweats and went for a run that nearly dropped her in her tracks, for she'd worked out so strenuously at noon and had been under so much stress all day she was virtually exhausted.

Paul never came. He called at nine-thirty and apologized, and said Arv had stayed later than expected and would Winnie like to talk about it now over the phone?

No, Winn definitely would not like to talk about it over the phone. And anyway, her run, her weariness and the five-hour lag time between the two phone calls had helped her overcome the pressing need she'd carried home from the hospital.

* * *

But it was back afresh the following day and each day that week as she worked with Merry during her two scheduled therapy sessions. The child was bright, and it was easy to tell she had been very happy before the accident. She spoke of things like ballet class, gymnastics and ten-speed bikes, all of which she'd have to forgo for a long time. One day she said, 'Next summer we're going to go to Disneyland.' But the following day when Winn checked the child's chart, she read that Merry had had a very bad night. At 2:00 A.M. her breathing had been interrupted, and oxygen had had to be brought in.

Standing with the clipboard braced against her stomach, Winn felt suddenly nauseous. She reread the charted information, and a premonition lifted the fine hairs along her back.

She's going to die.

That night when she called Paul, she didn't ask, she told him she was coming right over and needed to talk to him. But when she explained about Merry, he quietly encouraged her not to bring her troubles home from work. It's best if you leave the patients at the hospital, darling, he said. Yet when she walked into the house, she'd once again stolen him away from Rita. Winn closed her eyes and huddled against Paul's chest, cinching her arms around his back, wondering if he was moved at all by human plight. Or was he threatened by it? Was that why he could not let it infiltrate his very analytical mind? It could not be data processed. It could not be broken apart and analyzed on a green screen. Thus, perhaps it was beyond his concern.

He asked her if she'd stay that night, but she declined, dreaming up an excuse about it being somebody's birthday at work tomorrow and how she'd baked a cake that still needed frosting before she went to bed tonight.

Back at home she slumped onto the foot of her bed and fell back, supine, staring at the ceiling. She understood fully for the first time why every instructor she'd ever had in her college medicine courses had adamantly badgered their students about the pitfalls of becoming emotionally involved with their patients.

Not only will it be painful to you, should they die, but if they don't, you must make sure they never grow dependent upon you. The mark of a good therapist is knowing when to withdraw his or her support and make the patient stand alone.

Her head hurt. Her neck ached. She wished she were at work so she could stretch out on a table and have one of the other therapists give her a massage. She wished she had said yes to Paul's invitation to spend the night. But she'd felt oddly reluctant to sleep beside him after his failure to understand her need for a sympathetic ear and an understanding heart.

The name 'Silicon Chip' came back to niggle.

Had Joseph Duggan been right? Was that all Paul Hildebrandt had for feelings-silicon chips?