Page 116 of Prodigal Son

The prospect returned, breathless, red-faced. He’d run all the way down and back up. “Here you go.” He thrust a frosty ice pack toward her. “Need anything else?”

“No. Thanks.” She cast one last glance toward the tall, smiling man – still tall, still smiling – and then ducked back in the room and shut the door.

When she turned around, Albie wasn’t there.

“Shit!” She lurched forward, tossed the ice pack on the bed, and went looking for him.

She didn’t have to look far. The door to the bathroom stood open, and Albie stood just inside it, one hand braced on the counter, and the other on the towel bar hooked to the wall, head hanging down between his shoulders, breathing harshly through his mouth. When they’d come home, his brothers had dressed him in real clothes: soft-looking sweats, and thick socks, and a faded old blue t-shirt with the signature black dog silk-screened on the front. She knew he hadn’t lost any weight – it had been less than a day since the explosion, and such a thing wasn’t possible – but he looked small to her now, his shoulders bowed, and his arms shaking, and his knees bent like he was having trouble holding himself upright.

“Don’t fall down,” Axelle said.

“I won’t.” But he didn’t move, and he kept shaking, and falling was a real possibility.

She stepped forward, ducked under one of his arms, the good one, without the cast, and looped her arm around his waist.

“Don’t,” he said, but he held on to her. “Ax, this is…”Mortifying, he didn’t say, but she knew.

“I know,” she murmured. “Here, what do you…?”

“Just. If I can get closer.”

They shuffled, and the amount of weight he rested on her alarmed her; he was weaker than he’d pretended, weaker even than she’d thought.

“Should I…”

“Outside. Please. God.” He closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth. “I can at least piss by myself.”

“Alright.” She slipped from beneath his arm and made sure he was steady. “There’s a towel bar right there.”

“Yeah, I got it. Thanks.” Tight, embarrassed.

She closed the door to give him as much privacy as she could, and retreated back to her chair beside the bed. She didn’t sit, though; found instead that she didn’t want to be still. She took the chance to straighten his blankets, tug them all into place, and fold them down fresh. Fluff his pillows.

She heard the toilet flush, and the water run. And then, after, a tentative call of, “Axelle?”

She didn’t try to tell herself that she didn’t hurry to the bathroom. “You alright?” she asked as she opened the door, heart thumping.

He stood in front of the sink, hands braced on the counter, head bowed.

“You alright?” she asked again, softer this time.

He breathed through his mouth a few times, then gave a twitch that fell somewhere between a nod and a head-shake. “Just…dizzy. For a second.”

He wasn’t going to ask for help outright, she realized.

“Let’s go back to bed.”

When she stepped up beside him, she looked into the mirror and saw that his gaze had lifted; they locked eyes a moment.

She’d known he hated this – he’d been fighting the meds, after all – but in that second, she saw just how much he hated it. The helplessness, and the feeling of being useless; sidelined as the whole rest of his family prepared to go to war.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and meant it.

He shrugged and looked away. “Help me back to bed?” Voice small and shamed.

“Sure.”

He went without a fuss.

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