Rock Bottom

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

DANIKA

They gave me details. So many pointless details about loss of cartilage and muscle tissue. Painful details about irreparable damage to my uterus. Endless details about surgery and physical therapy. The gist of it was: I was now a cripple, and I could never have children. My response to that reality; I will not let this define me. So help me God, I won’t even let it slow me down. I wasn’t a dancer anymore, and I would never get to grow a child inside of me. Those were facts. I refused to cry about it, or if I did, to even so much as acknowledge those fucking useless tears. I would find something else to define me. I just had to figure out what.

Bev took time off work to take care of me. I was shocked, as I’d never known her to take more than a week of vacation from work before. But she took nearly a full month off for me.

She helped me around the house, kept me company, kept me sane.

“Why are you so good to me?” I asked her at one point. “Why have you always been so good to me? I’m such a burden to you, and you’ve done so much to help me. We both know I can never repay all of your kindness.”

Bev gave me the saddest smile, and one of her soft hands moved, as though in slow motion, to stroke over my hair. “Oh, you poor girl. Don’t you know?”

I blinked at her and shook my head, completely lost. “Know what?” I asked her.

“You were never a burden, Danika, and this isn’t kindness.”

I shook my head at her again, my brow furrowing in confusion. “If it’s not kindness, then what is it?”

Her eyes filled with tears, and the look on her face made my heart turn slowly in my chest. “My dear, this is what’s called family.”

I was completely undone by that. I began to sob, the sounds loud and harsh and broken. She just embraced me, murmuring soothing words into my ear, her soft voice filled with tears.

Family, I thought, absolutely floored by the thought. Family, I realized, my mind flashing back through the years of Bev and Jerry’s unfaltering generosity, their unfailing kindness. Family.

The thing I had yearned for had been mine without me ever having to ask. It was just there, through better or worse.

Family.