“Your progress has begun to decline,” the doctor added. “I’ve told you this before, but you haven’t seemed to catch on. Pain is a signal from your body to your brain telling you that something is wrong. When your knee hurts, that does not mean push harder. It means back off. Sit down. Give yourself a break. If you keep abusing yourself this way, Lieutenant, you’ll be back in a wheelchair by August.”
“I’ll never be back in a wheelchair. Sir.” Frisco said the word sir, but his tone and attitude said an entirely different, far-less-flattering word.
“If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life sitting down, then you better stop punishing a severely injured joint,” Dr. Horowitz snapped. He sighed, taking a deep breath and lowering his voice again. “Look, Alan, I don’t want to fight with you. Why can’t you just be grateful for the fact that you can stand? You can walk. Sure, it’s with a cane, but—”
“I’m going to run,” Frisco said. “I’m not going to give up until I can run.”
“You can’t run,” Steven Horowitz said bluntly. “Your knee won’t support your weight—it won’t even properly extend. The best you’ll manage is an awkward hop.”
“Then I need another operation.”
“What you need is to get on with your life.”
“My life requires an ability to run,” Frisco said hotly. “I don’t know too many active-duty SEALs hobbling around with a cane. Do you?”
Dr. Horowitz shook his head, looking to Joe for help.
But Joe didn’t say a word.
“You’ve been in and out of hospitals and PT centers for five years,” the doctor told Frisco. “You’re not a kid in your twenties anymore, Alan. The truth is, the SEALs don’t need you. They’ve got kids coming up from BUD/S training who could run circles around you even if you could run. Do you really think the top brass are going to want some old guy with a bum knee to come back?”
Frisco carefully kept his face expressionless. “Thanks a lot, man,” he said tightly as he gazed sightlessly out of the window. “I appreciate your vote of confidence.”
Joe shifted in his seat. “What Steve’s saying is harsh—and not entirely true,” he said. “Us ‘old guys’ in our thirties have experience that the new kids lack, and that usually makes us better SEALs. But he’s right about something—you have been out of the picture for half a decade. You’ve got more to overcome than the physical challenge—as if that weren’t enough. You’ve got to catch up with the technology, relearn changed policies…”
“Give yourself a break,” Dr. Horowitz urged again.
Frisco turned his head and looked directly at the doctor. “No,” he said. He looked at Joe, too. “No breaks. Not until I can walk without this cane. Not until I can run a six-minute mile again.”
The doctor rolled his eyes in exasperation, standing up and starting for the door. “A six-minute mile? Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”
Frisco looked out the window again. “Captain, you also said I’d never walk again.”
Horowitz turned back. “This is different, Lieutenant. The truth—whether you believe it or not—is that the kind of physical exertion you’ve been up to is now doing your knee more damage than good.”
Frisco didn’t turn around. He stood silently, watching bright pink flowers move gently in the breeze.
“There are other things you can do as a SEAL,” the doctor said more gently. “There are office jobs—”
Frisco spun around, his temper exploding. “I’m an expert in ten different fields of warfare, and you want me to be some kind of damn pencil pusher?”
“Alan—”
Joe stood up. “You’ve at least got to take some time and think about your options,” he said. “Don’t say no until you think it through.”
Frisco gazed at Joe in barely disguised horror. Five years ago they’d joked about getting injured and being sucked into the administrative staff. It was a fate worse than death, or so they’d agreed. “You want me to think about jockeying a desk?” he said.
“You could teach.”
Frisco shook his head in disbelief. “That’s just perfect, man. Can’t you just see me writing on a blackboard…?” He shook his head in disgust. “I would’ve expected you of all people to understand why I could never do that.”
“You’d still be a SEAL,” Joe persisted. “It’s that or accept your retirement as permanent. Someone’s got to teach these new kids how to survive. Why can’t you do it?”
“Because I’ve been in the middle of action,” Frisco nearly shouted. “I know what it’s like. I want to go back there, I want to be there. I want to be doing, not…teaching. Damn!”
“The Navy doesn’t want to lose you,” Joe said, his voice low and intense. “It’s been five years, and there’s still been nobody in the units who can touch you when it comes to strategic warfare. Sure, you can quit. You can spend the rest of your life trying to get back what you once had. You can lock yourself away and feel sorry for yourself. Or you can help pass your knowledge on to the next generation of SEALs.”
“Quit?” Frisco said. He laughed, but there was no humor in it at all. “I can’t quit—because I’ve already been kicked out. Right, Captain Horowitz? As of fourteen hundred hours, I’m outta here.”
There was silence then—silence that settled around them all, heavy and still and thick.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor finally said. “I’ve got to do what is best for you and for this facility. We need to use your bed for someone who really could use it. You need to give your knee a rest before you damage it further. The obvious solution was to send you home. Someday you’ll thank me for this.” The door clicked as it closed behind him.
Frisco looked at Joe. “You can tell the Navy that I’m not going to accept anything short of active duty,” he said bluntly. “I’m not going to teach.”
There was compassion and regret in the bigger man’s dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” Joe said quietly.
Frisco glared up at the clock that was set into the wall. It was nearly noon. Two more hours, and he’d have to pack up his things and leave. Two more hours, and he wouldn’t be a Navy SEAL, temporarily off the active duty list, recovering from a serious injury. In two hours he’d be former Navy SEAL Lt. Alan Francisco. In two hours, he’d be a civilian, with nowhere to go, nothing to do.
Anger hit him hard in the gut. Five years ago, it was a sensation he’d rarely felt. He’d been calm, he’d been cool. But nowadays, he rarely felt anything besides anger.
But wait. He did have somewhere to go. The anger eased up a bit. Frisco had kept up the payments on his little condo in San Felipe, the low-rent town outside of the naval base. But…once he arrived in San Felipe, then what? He would, indeed, have nothing to do.
Nothing to do was worse than nowhere to go. What was he going to do? Sit around all day, watching TV and collecting disability checks? The anger was back, this time lodging in his throat, choking him.
“I can’t afford to continue the kind of physical therapy I’ve been doing here at the hospital,” Frisco said, trying to keep his desperation from sounding in his voice.
“Maybe you should listen to Steve,” Joe said, “and give your leg a rest.”
Easy for Joe to say. Joe was going to stand up and walk out of this hospital without a cane, without a limp, without his entire life shattered. Joe was going to go back to the home he shared with his beautiful wife—who was pregnant with their first child. He was going to have dinner with Veronica, and later he’d probably make love to her