Hard Landing Ch. 06

"Yeah, pretty close. And I'll tell you she was pretty closed off and had a lot of hang-ups before the crash, so this doesn't surprise me. I don't want to say anything more without her permission though."

"And I wouldn't want you to. Tell you what, we don't normally do this, but would you like to come sit with us for a while and see how it goes? I'd ask that unless I ask you something, you try and not participate, just let her talk."

I followed him back into his office. Jo was sitting on his couch looking forlorn, her wheelchair next to her. I sat down next to her and she grabbed my hand and whispered "Hey, Blue," then turned her attention back to the doctor. "Thanks, Jim. I appreciate this," she said.

"Why don't we start with you telling me why you think you're going to be able to talk to me easier with Jill here?"

Jo looked uncomfortable, but said, "I'm not sure. I mean, I can't tell you why, but ever since I met her last July, I just... I just talk about stuff with her. Stuff I don't talk about with anyone, even my family. Stuff I've been trying to forget for years, or get over for years. She just draws it out of me. Just by looking at me, it seems sometimes. I mean, sometimes, most of the time really, I don't even feel comfortable talking about it. But I just... I just talk to her. The first night we met, I talked to her about my mom. I hadn't mentioned my mom to anyone for years before that night. Then I told her about my ex, Amy, which I never do with anyone. So, I don't know why. She just gets me to talk."

Dr. Allen raised his eyebrows. "Well that's the most you've said to me in three sessions, so we might have something here."

Jo's sessions with Dr. Allen became almost instantly productive. I'd come with her and just sit, holding her hand. They talked about the crash. Her guilt at not saving the entire crew. Her guilt at surviving when Sgt. Jackson and Eric hadn't. Her fear of being without the purpose she'd given herself, now that she was going to be medically retired from the Army. The pain of losing her mom.

I was surprised at how open Jo became in the sessions. Her discussions with Dr. Allen were wide-ranging and after a while she rarely held anything back. However, sitting in on her sessions was taking a toll on me. Her discussions about her mom. How her family had knitted tighter together in the aftermath of the loss. Not just with Steve and Henry, but Larry too, then later Suzanne and Jack.

I found that listening to her stories was causing pain from my own past to surface in my mind and I realized I probably had serious issues of my own to deal with. Particularly from when my parents basically disowned me when I came out as gay to them during my sophomore year in college, but also my father's general lack of supportiveness as I was growing up. My sister did her best to stay close with me, but since she'd had her son Danny three years ago, she'd spent every holiday and birthday with our parents. Where I was no longer welcome.

Sara's family had taken me in. Her parents, Renee and Doug, were great to me, and I called them mom and dad most times. They made sure I was invited to every holiday so I wouldn't be alone, but... it hurt. And listening to Jo talk about her family made my pain more present. It was tough. I wanted to be here for her, but I was pretty sure I needed to find a therapist of my own if I was to continue sitting with Jo in her sessions.

JO

"God damn it!" Jo yelled in frustration, as she fell to the knee of her good leg onto the padded floor.

Tony sighed. "Jo, I told you, you need to hold the rails."

It was Jo's first day with her new prosthetic foot, and she was having a hard time getting her balance. Part of it was that she hadn't been standing up without her arm over someone's shoulder or using a walker since the crash. Part of it was that she had just gotten the cast off her arm the day before, and the weakness in her wrist was distracting her. But she also wasn't listening to Tony, her physical therapist.

"It takes the body over three hundred muscles just to maintain balance while standing. They constantly make hundreds of tiny corrections every minute to keep you on your feet. And this new foot of yours, while a marvel of modern medical technology, has none of those muscles. You aren't going to be standing and walking on this thing today like it was your own foot. Or even tomorrow. You need to be patient."

She grabbed the rails of the therapy equipment and stood back up. "I've been in bed for eight weeks. I'm ready to be on my feet again. And I'm going to be on the six months side of 'running in six to twelve months' the doc told me about."

"Not if you fuck around and hurt yourself you aren't," he retorted. "I'll get you there as fast as you can, but you have to listen to me. Did you ignore your instructors in flight school?"

She grinned and started down the track again, holding the rails this time. "Most of the time, yeah. I already had four hundred hours of stick time when I joined the Army."

"How many hours do you have walking on a prosthetic foot?"

That sobered her up. "Okay, fair point." She knew she was grumpy because Blue was gone. She'd started leaving in the morning to go to work at her apartment and then coming back in time for Jo's late afternoon therapy session.

I really don't like not having her here, she thought. I know that's selfish of me, but—

"Jesus Christ, Collins. Focus, will you? You want to be walking again without using a walker? Or running? Pay attention." Little Voice was as pleasant as ever.

Yeah, she thought. Walking. Running. Then what the fuck do I do with my life?

"One thing at a time, Collins."

An hour later, and Jo was as drenched in sweat as if she'd spent the afternoon at her Cross-Fit gym. She couldn't believe how hard it was just to walk.

"Ready to head back to your room?" Tony asked, pulling Jo's wheelchair out for her.

"Seriously Tony? I thought I'd be done with that piece of garbage that now they fitted me with this thing. Can't I walk back?"

"Jo," Tony said warningly, "you can't push yourself too hard. Look at how much you're sweating from walking back and forth fifty feet here. Your room's a quarter of a mile away with no handrails. How do you think that's going to go for you?"

"I'm just tired of being pushed around in that piece of crap!" She pointed to the wheelchair.

"Hey, Chief, you badmouthing my new preferred transportation mode?" said Specialist Charles, rolling up to Jo from across the gym in a wheelchair that looked much sleeker than the basic hospital chair Jo was using.

"Liz!" Jo's face lit up. She tried to lean over to hug her crewmate, but her balance wasn't quite up to the task yet and she fell into Liz, who started to tip over in her chair until Tony sprang forward and caught them both.

"Still feel like walking back to your room?" he asked.

"Ha ha. No, I guess not." Once Tony had straightened her up, she plunked down in her chair.

"I'm done for the day, Chief. You have time to grab some coffee and catch up?" Liz asked.

"Yeah, I'm done until my group session tonight."

"What floor are you on?"

"Fourth, you?" Jo replied.

"I'm on the fourth too! We're almost like roomies!" They rolled together down the long hallway from the rehab center to the tower where the patient rooms were located. There was a Starbucks on the first floor and they found a table after ordering coffee. Most of the tables only had one or two chairs, leaving spaces for wheelchairs. There were at least a dozen customers in wheelchairs like themselves.

"So, how's your rehab going?" Jo asked after they got settled. "I just started on my foot today for the first time." Jo indicated the prosthesis attached to her left calf. It was titanium and composite material with an articulated ankle joint. It was currently wearing the matching Under Armor cross trainer to the one that she had on her good foot. The socket was custom molded to the stump of her leg with a neoprene sleeve that came up over her knee to hold it in place.

"Pretty good, I guess. Did they make you do the goals thing when you got here?" Liz sipped her coffee.

"Yeah," Jo said sourly. "Not my finest moment."

"Me either. I have no idea what I want to do now. I was such a bitch to Diane."

"That wasn't exactly my problem. I told them I wanted to get back in the cockpit and they told me to forget it."

"Jesus, Chief! Really? After what we went through, you want to go back? I'll be happy to never set foot in a chopper again. Well, put my wheels in a chopper that is." She looked down at her wheelchair and became lost in thought.

Jo watched Liz move away from the world as she sat there. She looked down at her metal and composite foot, that would eventually let her walk again, even run like she used to. I could have it a lot worse, she thought to herself, as she looked back at Liz. Some people already do.

"She's your crew, Collins. You're her commander. Show some leadership," Little Voice told her.

"So, Liz!" Jo said loudly, startling the younger woman out of her reverie. "Tell me some of the goals that you set."

"Uh, well, like I said I have no idea. I had two more years left on my enlistment then I was going to go to college. I think I missed most of the application deadlines for this year."

"So, what have you decided to do?

"Well," Liz said, setting her coffee down. She grabbed the wheels of her chair and idly began rocking it to and fro. "I decided for now to aim for something that has more to do with my physical recovery. I'm going to finish the Army Ten-Miler in October."

Jo blinked at her. The Army Ten-Miler was an annual race that started and ended at the Pentagon. After crossing the Roosevelt bridge and winding its way through D.C. it crossed back over the Potomac via the Fourteenth Street bridge into Virginia again. Upwards of thirty-five thousand runners participated every year. Jo had run it five times with a bunch of members of her unit when she hadn't been overseas.

"You want to... run... in the Ten-Miler?" Jo felt like she was missing something.

Liz chuckled. "No, Chief, I'm going to compete as a wheelchair athlete."

Jo flushed. "Ah, yeah, right, that makes more sense. Sorry."

"So, I have a lot of upper body work to do at the gym between now and then."

"Well, I can help you with that if you like. I've been bedridden for two months now, so apart from whatever Tony has planned for my leg, I have some catching up to do, upper body wise." She didn't mention she'd been in a coma for three weeks of those two months, although she was pretty sure Liz knew.

"Really" Liz seemed thrilled. "I was a runner before I enlisted and I haven't done much too weight lifting or upper body conditioning, so if you'd be willing to help me out, that would be amazing!"

"Sure, it'd probably be good for me to have a training partner. Let's meet with our treatment coordinators tomorrow and see if we can shift stuff around so we have like, let's say... two hours in the afternoon? Four times a week?"

"Chief, I am so there! This'll be great!"

"That's how you do it, Collins," Little encouraged her.

JILL

I was sitting in our suite, working on my MacBook after dinner Monday night. Jo had a group therapy meeting each evening, which obviously I couldn't go with her to that. I don't think she ever said a word in them, but Dr. Allen felt it was good for her to at least sit and listen.

I looked up at the knock on the door.

"Hey, Jill. It's Liz? Specialist Charles? From Jo's crew?" The young woman was sitting in her wheelchair at the open door to our room.

"Liz! Of course, I remember you, come in!" She rolled herself up to the table where I was working. "How is working out with Jo going?"

Jo was in her second week of learning to walk on her prosthetic foot. According to Tony, she was making remarkable progress. She had stopped using the wheelchair after the first week with her new foot and was walking all over the hospital with a cane. Tony said she'd be ready to try on her running prosthetic in another month. She'd been working out with Liz in the afternoons at the rehab gym.

"It's going good! I mean, I guess it is. I'm always sore as hell the day after we work out." She rubbed her triceps.

Liz was a pretty woman. She was about twenty-three, with shoulder length dark brown hair she kept in a ponytail, and I guessed if she'd been able to stand she'd have been somewhere between my and Jo's height.

"That's good to hear. I'm not much of a gym rat and I know Jo loves to lift. I think it's good for her to have someone to work out with."

"Yeah..." She looked uncertain all of a sudden.

"What's on your mind, Liz? Something bothering you?"

She hesitated, then said, "Look, I don't want to get all up in the Chief's business, but you and she are... together, right?"

"Yes?" I suddenly wondered if there was some young crush going on.

"Well, I'm worried about her."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"Look, I know we've all been through, well... the worst thing we could have gone through. But Jo..." she couldn't continue.

"What? Liz, it's okay you can talk to me. I won't rat you out to Jo."

"She just seems... lost. I'm not sure what's going on. Look I've been flying on her crew for almost two years. She's the most competent, confident woman I've ever known. I look up to her, you know?"

"I feel the same way," I said.

"But now, she's so tentative. Unsure of herself. I used to see her in the gym on base. She's was a fucking machine. I've never seen someone throw themselves at the weights the way she did. Fearless. Now she's... she isn't that anymore. It's like she's lost all her confidence."

"Well, she was pretty badly hurt, Liz. Maybe she's working her way back."

"It's not just in the gym though. We talk a lot while we work out and when we've gone afterwards to get coffee or a smoothie. I don't think she has any idea what's next for her. I mean, she's over the moon for you, I can tell. But I don't think she sees any... purpose in her life. She was the best pilot in the best medevac unit in the Eighty-Second. Now... I don't think she has any idea what to do next and I'm worried about her."

I sighed. "Yeah, me too. I don't know what to do about that. She was crushed when they told her there wasn't any chance of getting a waiver to go back and fly for the Army."

She looked at me. "You know she could get a medical waiver to fly in the civilian world, right?

"Yeah, but I'm not sure flying charter helicopters is her thing."

She hesitated again.

"What?" I asked.

"I don't want to assume you guys are dumb, but she knows there's lots of civilian jobs basically doing what we did over there, only with no one shooting at you, right?"

"Well, I guess that's true. But we haven't really talked about it."

"She should look into it. Also, before she the crash, she didn't talk about personal stuff much but she talked about music all the time. I haven't heard her say anything about it since we got back. Do you know if her broken arm did something so she couldn't play?"

I paused. I hadn't even stopped to think about that. We'd been so caught up in everything, getting her back to us, her surgeries, her rehab... she hadn't spoken once about playing since she woke up.

I suddenly realized I'd been focusing on getting her physically back to life without thinking about what she might need to be back IN life. She hadn't picked up a guitar since she woke up. She hadn't been outside of a hospital since she woke up. We hadn't done more than kiss since she woke up. There were many things she hadn't done.

"Liz, thanks for coming to talk to me. You've given me a lot to think about."

JO

The next day, Jo came back from her afternoon workout with Liz to find Blue sitting in their suite waiting for her.

"Hey babe, how was your workout?" she asked.

"Oh, the usual," Jo replied. She didn't seem all that enthusiastic.

"Well, let's get you showered," Blue said, standing up. "We've got things to do."

"What do you mean? What things?"

"That's for me to know, and for you to find out. C'mon, let's get moving."

Jill helped Jo get showered as she did every evening. Jo had gotten pretty good at standing on one foot, but Blue didn't like to take chances and kept herself within an arm's reach until she got herself dried off, then helped her hop back to the bed.

The usual routine was Blue would help Jo get dressed in sweats or gym shorts and an Army t-shirt. Jo would then go to her evening group therapy, then come back and they'd curl up in Blue's bed and watch TV or just go to sleep.

Which was why Jo was surprised at the clothes Blue had laid out on the bed this evening.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Clothes, Jo. Remember real clothes?" She had set out the outfit that Jo had worn to the Four Courts bar, the night she'd surprised Blue and sang for the first time in eight years. "You left these at my place back in January, so I figured it would be easier to bring this than buying you something new and hoping it fits." She knelt in front of Jo and started pulling the pants up her legs.

"But... what are we doing?"

"We're going out to dinner. I talked to Dr. Allen and you have the night off from group. As long as I bring you back in time for physical therapy tomorrow morning, we have a pass and I'm taking you out. I'm tired of us being together in a hospital, I want us to be together, out in the world. Stand up." She pulled Jo upright and got her pants fastened then handed her the black tank top to put on, then started changing her own clothes.

"But... I don't..." Jo looked uncertain, an emotion that had spent far too much time on her face lately.

"Jo, it's okay. I'll be right with you. We aren't going to ride the Metro, I think that would be too much for a first time out. But we're going to go have a quiet dinner, then if you feel up to it, we might do something else."

Blue had finished changing. She was now wearing a long, swirling blue skirt that almost matched her hair and a yellow silk blouse, with black suede ankle boots.

"But... I mean, we could order food in here and maybe watch a movie or something?"

"Quit being a wuss, and put on the monkey suit Collins. Jesus Christ, she just wants to take us to dinner, and the food here sucks," Little Voice said.

"Jo, you need to get out of here for a night. You haven't set foot outside a hospital in eight weeks. Now sit down and put your foot on. Tonight, it's my aircraft, okay?" Blue smiled at her and held the white linen button down top out to Jo.

The black velvet slippers she'd worn in January didn't quite fit on her new foot, so Blue helped her put on a pair of her sneakers. Her slacks were so blousy around her legs, that you could barely see her shoes anyway. She had a noticeable limp as they walked out the front door of the hospital, but with long pants on, she looked more like someone who might've twisted her ankle, rather than someone missing a foot.

As they walked out to the driveway, a red Prius pulled up and Jack Vance hopped out. "Hey, Jo!" he said, and rushed around the front of the car to grab her in a fierce hug. She was startled but hugged him back just as hard.

"Jack! It's so good to see you! What are you doing here?" Jack had come to visit with the rest of the band when Jo had arrived at Walter Reed, but she hadn't expected to see him tonight.

"Jack has generously agreed to help us out and be our driver tonight. No Metro, no cabs, no Lyft." Blue said.

He grinned at her. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you okay and up and walking..." He glanced down at her legs. "I mean. Mostly okay... I mean... Geez, sorry I'm being an idiot here."