Free Redeem Me by Eliza Freed

harden after sorrow abandoned him. “No, I’m afraid you don’t.”
    Sean looks at me again, silently asking what the hell I’m doing, but I don’t respond. “Sean, we’re going to need your help to get Butch to the car.”
    Sean takes one side of Butch and we raise him to his feet. He’s able to walk using his cane and leaning heavily on Sean as I open the doors in front of us.
    “My box. Get my damn box,” Butch barks, and I grab the box containing God knows what. Sean eases Butch into my Volvo. It’s an SUV and higher than Butch’s car. I hope it’s easier to get out of. Sean closes the car door and walks me around to the driver’s side.
    “How the hell are you going to get him into the doctor’s office alone?” Sean asks.
    “I have Grandmom’s wheelchair in the back.”
    “Good luck with that.” Sean and I look back at Butch staring out the car window, his scowl firmly in place. “You, Charlotte, are going to have a very bad day.”
    “Just stay here and make sure they don’t steal anything. Have them stack any papers neatly and help them figure out what’s trash, recyclable, and so on. Here’s cash for the balance.” I hand Sean five hundred dollars. “I think it’s going to be between three and four hundred, but I wanted to make sure you had enough.”
    “Geez! Maybe I should give up physical therapy and start cleaning houses.”
    “You haven’t seen the whole place,” I whisper.
    *  *  *
    Butch and I ride silently to Dr. Grubb’s office. I park in the back and feel relief at the sight of a ramp rising up to the back door. I hop out of the Volvo as Butch tries to turn himself around and place his legs outside the car. I pull the wheelchair out of the back, open it, and wheel it up to him as if we’ve used it a hundred times.
    “What the hell is that?” he yells at me.
    “Why, it’s a wheelchair, of course,” I say, keeping the smile glued to my lips.
    “You’re out of your goddamned head if you think I’m getting in that thing.”
    “I am out of my goddamned head. Now get in the goddamned chair before you fall again and end up in some rehab facility with a hairless man named Rex giving you a bath every day,” I say, and wait.
    Butch’s face turns from anger to disgust and finally to resignation. “How the hell do I get in it?” he asks, not hiding his frustration.
    “We’ll get you standing the same way we did last night; then you’ll turn around and sit right into it.”
    Butch looks at me like that’s the stupidest idea he’s ever heard, so I know it’s okay to move forward. I hook my leg around the door to steady it and hunch over to help support him under the arm. As he rises, he wobbles but uses the door to steady himself. When I’m sure he’s stable, I move the door and pull the wheelchair over. This is exactly the way we used to transport my grandmother the last ten years before she died. Butch turns around and drops into the chair and I exhale, relieved. I bend down, open the foot flaps, and help him lift his left leg into it. His face contorts in pain. I hope the rehab facility was a threat rather than a prediction.
    It’s been a while since I’ve pushed a wheelchair and Butch is heavier than my grandmother was. I manage to only bang him into the railing and the doorway on the way into the doctor’s office. He’s mumbling the whole way and I catch, “stupid goddamned…no one asked you for any help…horseshit idea.”
    “Good afternoon, Butch,” the receptionist says sweetly, not taking her eyes off me.
    “Hello,” I say as I wheel Butch over next to the couch in the waiting room and take a seat with a magazine to minus myself from the equation.
    Dr. Grubb himself comes to the door. “Butch, you can come on back.”
    “Do you want me to come with you?” I ask, wheeling Butch toward the doctor.
    He turns around in the chair to face me in disbelief. “Are you out of your chicken-shit head?”
    “Yes,” I say without any emotion, and push