Chapter 74 | Shira Had An Accident

Chapter 74: Chapter 74 | Shira Had An Accident

Thursday evening became Friday morning and Friday morning became the kind of day that starts normally and then doesn’t stay that way.

Kai was up at four-thirty. Both rhythms present. He made tea, left cups outside both doors, sat with the notebook. He heard Shira’s door at four fifty-three. He picked up his cup and went to the living room doorway.

She was in the center of the room.

She ran the form.

Signal to the cutoff. Reduced rotation. The flicker arrived and held — five beats. Six.

She stopped.

"Six," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

She ran it again.

Six beats. Consistent.

She ran it a third time.

On the third attempt the flicker held for six beats and then something happened that had not happened before. The signal did not drop cleanly. It stuttered. Held for a seventh beat at reduced quality. Then dropped.

She went very still.

She ran it a fourth time.

Six beats. Seventh beat — stuttering, barely there. Eighth.

Then it dropped.

She looked at her arm.

Kai looked at her arm.

"Eight," he said.

"Eight," she said.

She sat with that for a moment.

Then she ran the form again and on the rotation . the point where she applied the reduced speed something went wrong.

Not with the nerve signal.

With the wheelchair.

The left wheel locked.

The chair jerked sideways under the rotation’s momentum. Not far. Not dramatically. But enough that her balance shifted and her arm came down wrong and she grabbed the armrest and stopped herself.

She sat.

She looked at the left wheel.

Kai was already off the couch.

"I’m fine," she said.

"I know," he said. He was crouching beside the wheel, not beside her. Reading the mechanism. The locking pin had slipped — a small piece of hardware inside the wheel brake assembly that had apparently decided this particular morning was a good time to give up.

He looked at it.

"Can you fix it," she said.

"Not without a replacement pin," he said. "The threading is stripped."

She looked at the wheel.

"How long has it been like this," he said.

"I don’t know," she said. Then: "The chair has been pulling left for two days. I thought it was the floor."

He looked at her.

"You thought it was the floor," he said.

"The apartment floor is not level," she said. "I’ve noticed it before."

"Shira."

"I know," she said. "I should have said something."

He looked at the wheel.

"I need to call the equipment supplier," he said. "They’ll have the part. But it’s just after five in the morning."

"They open at nine," she said. Immediately.

He looked at her.

"I looked them up," she said. "Three months ago. When the chair started making a sound."

"What sound," he said.

"A small sound," she said. "In the left wheel. I thought it would resolve."

He sat back on his heels and looked at her.

She looked at the window.

"You’ve been managing a failing wheelchair for three months," he said.

"It wasn’t failing," she said. "It was developing a fault."

"That’s the same thing."

"It’s a different framing," she said.

He looked at the wheel.

He looked at her.

He decided not to say the seven things he was thinking.

"Until nine," he said.

"Until nine," she confirmed.

He stood up.

"Can you navigate to the table," he said.

"I’ve been navigating this apartment for three months with a pulling left wheel," she said. "I think I can manage the kitchen."

He went and made breakfast.

============

He knocked on Mira’s door at seven.

She came out and found her chair and had the board up before she sat.

Something happened.

"The wheelchair," he said. "Locking pin in the left wheel. Stripped threading. I’m calling the supplier at nine."

Mira wrote: How long.

"Two days that she told me about," Kai said. "Three months that she’s known there was a fault."

The board came up immediately.

Three months.

"Three months," Kai said.

She lowered the board.

She looked at Shira.

Shira was eating. Looking at her bowl. She said, without looking up: "The chair was functional."

Mira picked up the marker.

She wrote something and slid the board across the table to Shira’s side without holding it up. Just pushed it across flat so Shira could read it.

Shira read it.

She was quiet for a moment.

Then she said: "That’s fair."

Kai looked between them.

"What did she write," he said.

"Something fair," Shira said.

Mira took the board back.

She ate.

Kai looked at his bowl.

’I will never know what she wrote,’ he thought. ’That’s fine. It landed. That’s what matters.’

He ate.

==========

He called the supplier at nine-oh-two.

The part was in stock , a standard locking pin assembly for Shira’s chair model. Same-day delivery if ordered before noon. He ordered it.

He came back to the kitchen.

Shira was at the window. She had the physio sheet open but she was looking at the street below rather than the page.

"Delivery by four," he said. "I’ll fit it when it arrives."

"I can manage until four," she said.

"I know," he said.

She looked at the street.

"Three months," she said. Not to him specifically. Just aloud.

"Yes," he said.

She looked at the physio sheet.

"I didn’t want it to be a problem," she said. "I didn’t want to need a new part. I thought if I compensated for the pull it would be manageable."

Kai sat down at the table.

"You compensated for a faulty wheel for three months," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"While running the Gale Strike form every morning," he said.

"The form doesn’t require the wheel to be functional," she said. "I position the chair and lock it before—" She stopped.

"You lock the wheel before the form," he said. "The locking pin was slipping."

"It only slipped this morning," she said.

"Because three months of wear finally stripped the threading," he said.

She looked at the physio sheet.

"Yes," she said. Very quietly.

He looked at the table.

He thought about saying: you could have told me. You could have told me the first time the chair made a sound and I would have ordered the part that day.

He did not say it.

He said: "The part arrives at four. Until then the chair is manageable for short distances. If you need to go further than the kitchen—"

"I’ll tell you," she said.

"Alright," he said.

She looked at the window.

"I’m not good at needing things fixed," she said.

He looked at her.

"I know," he said.

She was quiet.

"I’m working on it," she said.

He looked at the table.

"I know that too," he said.

She turned the page on the physio sheet.

He went to make tea.

======

At eleven the knock came.

Not the delivery , too early. A knock from the hallway. The rhythm of a neighbor.

Kai opened the door.

A woman. Mid-sixties. The apartment two doors down — he knew her by rhythm but had never spoken to her. Small frame, sharp eyes, reading glasses pushed up on her head. She had a covered dish in both hands.

She looked at him.

She looked past him into the apartment.

"I heard something earlier," she said. "Around five. A sound from this direction." She held out the dish. "I made too much rice porridge."

He looked at the dish.

He looked at her.

’She heard the wheelchair jerk,’ he thought. ’At five in the morning. And she made rice porridge.’

"Thank you," he said. He took the dish.

She looked past him again — not intrusively. Just the particular attention of someone checking that everything was actually alright rather than just appearing alright.

"My late husband used one," she said. "For eleven years. I know the sounds."

She looked at Kai.

"You have the right floors for it," she said. "Better than most buildings in this district. The joins are smooth. No gaps."

He looked at her.

"I hadn’t noticed," he said.

"I checked before I moved in," she said. "Old habit." A pause. "I’m Dorothy, by the way. Dorothy Callahan. Two-twelve."

"Kai," he said. "Thank you for this."

She looked at the dish in his hands.

"It’s just porridge," she said. "Don’t make it into something."

She turned to go.

He said: "Would you like to come in sometime. For tea."

She stopped.

She turned back.