She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [111]
This day, Celeste called with a request: “Steve will be getting out this afternoon. I want to bring him in for a haircut, pedicure, and manicure.”
“Sure, I’ll juggle things and make room,” Donna said. When she worked things out, it required Celeste giving up her nail appointment and rescheduling it for two days later. Celeste sounded miffed, but she agreed.
That afternoon, Celeste signed Steve out of HealthSouth and, with the physical therapist, helped him from his wheelchair into her Cadillac. At Davenport Village, Justin and Christopher helped him back into his wheelchair. Moments later, although she’d pledged to be his nurse, Celeste left. Instead, Kristina and the two boys pushed Steve around the shopping center. It was the first time he’d seen the completed Davenport II, and he grinned proudly at the sprawling two-story shopping center.
“Look at that,” he said. “Look what I built.”
He stopped in at PakMail and said hello to the owner. Then they made their way to Studio 29 for his haircut. At the salon, every task proved painful for Steve. Getting in and out of the stylist’s chair, bending his head back for a shampoo, even putting his feet on a stool for the pedicure, brought pain. The stylist hurried him through, and Kristina and the boys helped Steve into her car. For the first time in nearly four months he drove into the long, tree-shaded driveway at Toro Canyon. He was home. But he couldn’t get inside.
The carpenter had been there for months working on projects for Celeste, including new bookshelves, but she hadn’t gotten around to ramps for the stairs until the day Steve came home. When he arrived, the ramps weren’t done.
Justin and Christopher couldn’t wheel him into the front of the house with the three flights of stairs, so they rolled him around to the back. There, too, there were stairs without ramps. Finally Justin, Christopher, and the carpenter all hoisted him up to the landing and wheeled him into the living room. Inside the house, the railings had been installed, but again they encountered an obstacle, this time the stairs to the master bedroom wing. Steve stood up and, with Justin helping, tried to walk up the stairs. His abdomen covered with scar tissue, with each step he grimaced in pain.
It took half an hour from the time he pulled into the driveway until Justin wheeled Steve into the master bedroom, and he and Christopher helped him into the four-poster bed. The last time he’d laid there was the night he was shot, but that didn’t appear to dull the excitement for Steve. He looked elated to be home.
Kristina kissed him good-bye, and she and Justin ran off to a photography class. Soon, Christopher left. By then Jennifer had arrived from work, and she climbed on the bed beside him. With Meagan on the floor at his feet and his new puppy, Kaci, on the bed between them, they watched 20/20 and talked. Steve looked exhausted but happy. When he fell asleep, Jennifer put on his oxygen machine, covered him with a blanket, kissed him on the forehead, and tiptoed off to bed.
Celeste still hadn’t come home.
“I can’t keep my nail appointment. Steve’s dying,” Celeste told Donna Goodson at Studio 29 on the phone the next morning. “I don’t want him to die in the house, so I’m taking him back to the hospital.”
“Don’t worry,” Donna said, amazed that she’d bothered to call with Steve so ill.
That morning Celeste had taken Steve to HealthSouth for a physical therapy session. She complained the entire time, saying they’d discharged him too soon.
“I don’t want to come back here,” Steve told her. “I want to stay at home.”
“He can’t even go to the bathroom. It took two of us to help him last night.”
“I did things here,” he said. “I did things in rehab. I can do it.”
Ignoring what Steve wanted, Celeste called Dr. Coscia. “I want him readmitted,” she