Detour by Greaniis

Chapter 5.

 After leaving Greg and going home, Rebecca began looking at their house. The conversation they had opened her eyes to the true nature of his injuries. These were permanent. Sure, he would have prosthetics. But from what Greg said, he would still need to use a wheelchair at least some of the time. Even though her experience was more in private residence remodeling, Rebecca remembered from design school that there were different dimensions needed when dealing with wheelchairs.

She needed to refresh her memory of their bedrooms' layout. They had turned one of them into an office for her and Greg. They knew it would be the baby's room, but never had a chance to start it before Greg got hurt. This still wasn't a good time to work on that. She went back downstairs with her computer to the kitchen.

Their house was a cape cod: two floors, a large porch across the front, and two dormer windows peeking out of the low roof on the second floor. The porch was up two steps, the front door up yet one more step. The more she looked at their house, the more obvious the conclusion: it was not set up for a wheelchair. As she walked from room to room, she saw they were small and closed off by narrow doorways. This is going to take work, she thought.

The next day, Rebecca checked in with Greg first thing prior to heading to the design agency. She wanted to know how the first night went. He said it was lonely without her, but he slept all right. He looked forward to seeing her when she got there. He reminded her his first therapy would be at ten thirty.

"I probably won't get there by then," Rebecca said. "I'm on my way to the firm."

"Did they get a new client?"

"No," Rebecca replied. "Our house will need to get some things fixed so you can come home."

"Do we have money for this?" Greg asked.

"From what the insurance lawyer tells me, we'll have enough for a new car and some modifications at home."

"The equipment could get expensive."

"We'll talk about it when I get to the hospital. I'm about to get into the car."

That conversation reminded Rebecca there were a lot of specifics she didn't know about bringing him home. She had put all that out of her head while in the hospital. At that point, she had been dealing more with his moods, or lack thereof. She was also trying to get used to the idea that he had his legs amputated. She was thinking about that while driving into the office.

It didn't take Rebecca long to get to the agency. She was glad to be going in with the goal of modifying their house to make it more comfortable for Greg. For once, she felt like she was helping Greg get better. When she arrived, there weren't many people there yet, not that there were many in the firm.

The design agency Rebecca partnered at was led by Aiden, a man with a keen eye for design that pushed to get the right look in everything he completed. Karen was the only other designer alongside Rebecca. She had taken on the project Rebecca had been working on when Greg had his accident. From samples Rebecca saw floating around the office, it looked like she was doing a good job. Given that it was a design firm with three designers, Karen's aesthetic was similar to Rebecca's. They were a good match. They also had an account manager, who handled the money side of the business, and a secretary, who did the typical work of answering phones, talking with the county government to get permits and zoning, and handling filing. It was a small agency, but Rebecca had seen it grow in the five years she had come on board.

She hadn't told anyone what her plans were that day. The secretary and Aiden were the only people there when she came in.

"Becca," the secretary said, surprised. "We weren't expecting you today."