Rocky Adams shook his hand to loosen the pain of the impact.\u00a0 Two large and jagged cuts webbed their way across his large hand, now speckled with several smaller cuts, all of which had already begun to well with blood.\u00a0 The room was filled with hand-me-down knick knacks and the echoes of Rocky\u2019s outburst.\u00a0 If Mrs. Lucile Adams\u2019 eyes were made up of the same crystalline material in the cheap mood rings her husband had bought her when they were kids, they would have flashed red, then cooled quickly to orange. The pink would flow in like honey, smoothing over the rage like a cool blanket.<\/p>\n
Wordlessly, because words never did them any good, she wheeled Rocky into the kitchen and toward the sink that the Wounded Warriors people had funded.\u00a0 Lucile pressed the down button and waited as the sink descended to Rocky\u2019s level.\u00a0 She remembered the day the special sink was installed.\u00a0 She\u2019d had to throw out the shards of her mother\u2019s glass dinner bell as well as Rocky\u2019s cracked toolbox that day.<\/p>\n
Still, Lucille took Rocky\u2019s hands in hers and shoved them under the cool water, minding his wounds, but involuntarily infusing the steel of her frustration in the action.<\/p>\n
She tried to focus on the cool fluidity of the water and its chilling presence on the wings between her fingers, letting its chill cool the sandy bits of red and swirls of orange.\u00a0 Her eyes crossed as she stared at the pillar of falling water, turned translucent with speed and bubbles, in the center of her vision. \u00a0She urged the image of the heavy stream of water to speed up the entrance of the slow moving pinkness of her love for the broken brute whose hands she held.\u00a0 She tried to imprint the calm image upon her mind and conjure images of smoothly rolling oceans.<\/p>\n
Yet she could not completely rid her mind\u2019s eye of the image of shattered ceramic on the floor.\u00a0 The cool blues and purples of the painted designs were cut apart crudely.\u00a0 They pushed fire into her veins that the accompanying image of her dead mother\u2019s gentle face could not extinguish.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until she began bandaging his hands at the kitchen table, which he had made for them before his second deployment, that either of them spoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou love me.\u201d Rocky said it like one might say \u201cOur couch is blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucile put the antibacterial cream back into her first aid kit and dug around for the gauze and scissors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see how,\u201d Rocky continued, speaking steadily.\u00a0 \u201cWhen I joined up, good ol\u2019 Papa Adams was glad to see I\u2019d finally joined the patriotic Adams\u2019 tradition.\u201d\u00a0 The \u201cbut\u201d to that statement was written in the furrow of his scarred brow.\u00a0 Lucile tried not to think about the past life that Rocky had run from when he was first deployed.\u00a0 Rocky\u2019s angry refrain that he directed at all the pitying visitors was, I didn\u2019t lose my leg because I was brave, I lost it hurrying into the woods to take a piss.<\/em><\/p>\n Lucile imagined the bath she would draw herself to get past this latest outburst.\u00a0 She wanted this night to end so that the next could begin, but Rocky wasn\u2019t done yet.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d like to say there is something that I do in this house that is good or useful, but really, I just mess shit up,\u201d Rocky shifted his weight in the wooden chair.<\/p>\n Lucile\u2019s eyes never left the gauze she was wrapping around his hand.\u00a0 His words hurt her too.\u00a0 The truth of them was cutting.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day, I tell myself today\u2019s the day I do something.<\/em>\u00a0 Do the fucking laundry or finish the mailbox.\u00a0 Make you laugh again, just once.\u201d\u00a0 Rocky\u2019s hand jerked, as if he was about to slam the table before he remembered that his wife was holding onto his injured hand.<\/p>\n Drops of salty water appear on the gauze on his knuckle.\u00a0 When a drop lands on his finger, he laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cBut instead, I bring you to tears.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucile continued pinning up the gauze.\u00a0 She\u2019d known Rocky since childhood.\u00a0 It was never an easy relationship.\u00a0 Everyone had told her to stop giving him more chances.\u00a0 But she knew him.\u00a0 And he knew her.\u00a0 She lived a constant cycle of oranges and pinks and could never relinquish the pink to be rid of the orange.\u00a0 They\u2019d held hands through so many life turns and merged their body heat through all the emotions on the ring\u2019s heat-sensitive spectrum.<\/p>\n She curled her fingers through his once more.\u00a0 She sighed.\u00a0 Kissed his hand. I love you, <\/em>she thought.<\/em>\u00a0 Words never did them any good.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works\u00a0Used<\/p>\n Almasy, Steve. “The Toll of War Now Includes More Amputees – CNN.com.”\u00a0CNN<\/em>. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.<\/p>\n “Handicap Accessible Kitchen Remodeling – Accessible Home Living.” Accessible Home Living. Genesis Framework, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.<\/p>\n “How Do Mood Rings Work? – HowStuffWorks.”\u00a0HowStuffWorks<\/em>. InfoSpace LLC, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.<\/p>\n Military InStep. “The Psychological Concerns of the Soldier Amputee.”\u00a0Military InStep:<\/em>. Amputation Coalition, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.<\/p>\n “PTSD: National Center for PTSD.”\u00a0Partners of Veterans with PTSD: Common Problems –<\/em>. Military Advantage, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.<\/p>\n “Wounded Warrior Project.”\u00a0Http:\/\/www.woundedwarriorproject.org\/programs<\/em>. Wounded Warrier, Inc., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rocky Adams shook his hand to loosen the pain of the impact.\u00a0 Two large and jagged cuts webbed their way across his large hand, now speckled with several smaller cuts, all of which had already begun to well with blood.\u00a0 The room was filled with hand-me-down knick knacks and the echoes of Rocky\u2019s outburst.\u00a0 If Mrs. Lucile Adams\u2019 eyes were made up of the same crystalline material in the cheap mood rings her husband had bought her when they were kids, they would have flashed red, then cooled quickly to orange. The pink would flow in like honey, smoothing over the rage like a cool blanket. Wordlessly, because words never did them any good, she wheeled Rocky into the kitchen and toward the sink that the Wounded Warriors people had funded.\u00a0 Lucile pressed the down button and waited as the sink descended to Rocky\u2019s level.\u00a0 She remembered the day the special sink was installed.\u00a0 She\u2019d had to throw out the shards of her mother\u2019s glass dinner bell as well as Rocky\u2019s cracked toolbox that day. Still, Lucille took Rocky\u2019s hands in hers and shoved them under the cool water, minding his wounds, but involuntarily infusing the steel of her frustration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/1555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}