Free A Wish for Christmas by Thomas Kinkade Page B

time, flip the calendar ahead to a day when you’ll feel better. I know you will, too—someday. Day by day, things will get better for you, David. I know it seems overwhelming right now. Like when I lost your mother. But you’ll get through all this.” Jack paused. David could tell he was searching for the right thing to say. “Coming off a battlefield, leaving army life, that’s a heck of a lot to handle. Especially after what you’ve been through. The important thing is that you came back. You’re alive. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t get lost in your pain. Don’t give up on yourself.”
    David didn’t know what to say. He knew his father meant well and was trying to help. But he’d heard this all before. It was impossible to look ahead to some sunny someday, when his future stretched ahead long and dark and frightening.
    Now it was clear that he didn’t even have Christine to hope for anymore. That was a blow. His physical injuries had wiped out all his plans, everything he had wanted. What would he do with his life now? He had no idea.
    David looked across the table at his father. He has good intentions, he realized, but he really doesn’t have a clue about what I’m dealing with.
    “Dad, I know you believe I’m going to make a full recovery and be just the way I was when I left. But not one single doctor so far has told me that’s what will happen. Every day that I wake up dragging around this dead foot makes it seem more and more unlikely,” David said bluntly. “I’m going to be this way the rest of my life. I have to face it.”
    “David, David.” His father shook his head, as if he really didn’t want to hear the truth so plainly spoken. “You don’t know that for sure. You could get the feeling back anytime. That’s what I heard them say. The nerves aren’t damaged, they’re just in shock or something—from all the operations. Let’s try to think positively, okay?”
    David felt a lump of emotion well up in his throat but swallowed it back. He nodded, saying nothing, trying hard not to have an angry outburst at his father for all this . . . this “happy talk.” As if he wasn’t walking right due to some weakness of will, or because his thinking was too negative. Because he was being too honest with himself about the hopelessness of the situation.
    “Maybe the physical therapy will spark up something in your muscles, get things working again,” his father added. “The last doctor you saw thought it might.”
    David was scheduled to start physical therapy tomorrow, with a new therapist at the VA Center in Beverly. He had already had some PT and unlike his father, didn’t expect any miracles.
    “A small chance, he said,” David clarified. “But I need the therapy anyway. I just want to get rid of this damn walker.”
    Jack nodded, looking encouraged. “That’s a goal, a good one. Start there. That’s all it takes.”
    David rubbed his chin. He thought about Christine again, even though he didn’t want to. The expression on her face when she had first walked into the house. The way she had looked at him. It might have all gone differently if he hadn’t been standing behind the walker and had faced her on his own two feet.
    “All right. Fair enough,” David said quietly.
    “Maybe by Christmas?” his father asked.
    Now he was setting a deadline? Putting the pressure on? “Yeah, maybe . . . What’s the difference?”
    Jack shrugged. “It’s good to set a date. Even if you don’t make it. Which reminds me of something . . .” Jack suddenly jumped up from his chair. “Wait right here. I have something for you.”
    Where would I go? David wanted to ask him. But he held his tongue.
    Jack ran into the little room off the kitchen that served as his office and quickly returned with a brown shopping bag. “Here, this is for you. An early Christmas present.”
    David took the bag and took out a box that was inside. He could see what it was from the label. “A