Tempted by Dr Morales

In his dreams, he skied down mountains and did all the things he had never had time to do—Juan’s focus had always been Martina, family and work.

He could hear the nurses, doing the two a.m. rounds, approaching the four-bedded ward, and Juan tried to haul himself out of the memory, tried to get back to kissing Cate, except he couldn’t dictate his dreams and he couldn’t erase his memories, and as the REM stage deepened a very natural reflex occurred.

‘Hey, Juan.’

‘I apologise.’ Juan didn’t need to look at the mirrors placed over his bed to know the sheet was tenting and that he was erect; instead, he stared at the ceiling as Graciela tried to catch his eye. ‘Juan, it’s natural,’ Graciela said. They spoke in Spanish, Graciela, as always, practical—she was nearing retirement and had worked on the spinal unit for years. Graciela was more than used to young men finding themselves paralysed, used to the strange sight of a beautiful, fit body that might never move independently again and the humiliation a new spinal-cord injury patient faced regularly.

Yes, Graciela was kind and practical, it just didn’t help now as she and Manuel rolled him onto his side. Juan was burning with shame in a bed in the Buenos Aires hospital he worked at.

Had once worked at.

Juan didn’t want that part of his life over. Yes, he played upbeat for Martina and his family, insisted if there was a little improvement he could lecture and teach; but tonight the future, one where he could function independently, let alone hold another’s life in his hands, seemed an impossibly long way off.

‘Juan…’ Manuel tried to engage with Juan. ‘We still don’t know the extent of your injury. You have spinal swelling and until…’

Juan closed his eyes. He didn’t want hope tonight, he felt guilty that compared to his roommates there was a thin hope that his paralysis was not permanent; he just wanted to close his eyes and go back to his dreams but he knew he would not get back to sleep, knew that this would be another long night.

‘You need a haircut,’ Graciela commented as she washed his face. ‘Do you want me to arrange one for you?’

‘No.’ Juan made a weak joke. He had been on his way to get his thick black hair trimmed when the accident had happened—it grew fast and he had it trimmed every couple of weeks. Always he had prided himself on looking immaculate, dressing in exquisitely cut suits and rich silk ties. Tonight those days seemed forever gone. ‘I’m not risking that again.’

‘How’s Martina?’ Graciela tried to engage Juan as they started the hourly exercise regime, moving his limbs and feet and hands. Martina had been here until eleven and Juan had pretended to be asleep the last two times the nursing staff had come around. It was important to know what was happening in the patients’ lives as they adjusted to their injuries. ‘Is she still worrying about moving the wedding date?’

There was a long stretch of silence before Juan finally answered, ‘We broke up.’

‘I’m sorry, Juan.’ Graciela looked over at Manuel, who took over the conversation.

‘What happened?’ Manuel asked. He wasn’t being nosey—the mental health of their patients was a priority, and he chatted as he moved Juan’s index finger and thumb together and apart, over and over—as they did every hour—and then moved to rotating his wrist. Both simple exercises might mean in the future Juan could hold a cup, or do up a button, or hold a pen.

‘We just…’ Juan did not want to discuss it, still could not take it in, could not comprehend how every aspect of his life had now changed. ‘It was mutual.’

‘Okay.’ Graciela checked his obs and shared another look with Manuel. ‘I’ll see you a bit later, Juan. Hope-fully you’ll be asleep next time I come around and I won’t disturb you.’

Asleep or not, the exercises went on through the night.

Graciela moved on to the next bed, leaving Manuel to hopefully get Juan to open up a bit. Since his admission Juan had remained upbeat, insisted he was dealing with it, refusing to open up to anyone, and Graciela was worried about him, especially with the news of the break-up. Relationships often ended here; patients pushed loved ones away, or sometimes it was the other way around and the able-bodied partner simply could not cope with a world that had rapidly altered.

‘Hey, Eduard.’ She smiled down at the young man, who gave her a small grimace back and moved his eyes towards Juan’s bed. ‘Is he okay?’

‘He’ll get there.’

For the first time Juan didn’t think he would.

There was one thing more humiliating than a massive erection in full view of the nurses. It was starting to cry and not being able to excuse yourself, not being able to go to another room and close a door, to thump a wall, not even being able to wipe your own snot and tears.

‘Let it out, Juan,’ Manuel said as he covered Juan with a sheet and saw his patient’s face screw up and tears fill Juan’s grey eyes.

‘I…’ He didn’t want to let it out, he had held it all in and he wanted to keep doing so. There was young Eduard in the next bed. He’d only been here for three days and Juan didn’t want to scare him—Juan had been trying to cheer him up today.

He just couldn’t hold it in any more.

The sob that came out was primal, from a place he had never been.

‘Good man,’ Manuel said.

Juan lay there sobbing as Manuel wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He was in hell and humiliated and scared and everything he’d tried not to be.

‘Good man,’ Manuel said, over and over.

He’d been a good man, Juan thought. He’d done everything right, everything had been in place—an amazing career, a loving fiancée. He had been a good man.

‘No more…’ Juan said, incoherent almost as he sobbed.

But there was more and tonight he let it out.

Graciela stood there and wiped Eduard’s tears as they glimpsed for the first time Juan’s desolation and rage, and she swallowed a couple of tears of her own.

All Juan’s roommates cried quietly along with him. Two had been there before, giving in to the grief and the fear in the still of the night, and Eduard soon would. There was no privacy in their worlds right now and all the men had heard the painful exchange between Juan and Martina.

All were with Juan as finally he gave in and wept.

No one was with him, though, when, eighteen months later, Juan woke up in a foreign country, feeling the desolation all over again.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_558c4ccc-146d-5151-98b6-a8135d2a733b)

‘HOW HAS YOUR week been?’

Cate stopped for a brief chat with her neighbour as both women headed for work. Bridgette and her husband James were both in the police. It was nice being neighbours with fellow shift workers and, over the summer, Bridgette and Cate had spent several afternoons lying in one or the other’s garden and putting the world to rights.