Normally Jack Helm would not have been up till about five P.M. on his day off but today he was out of bed at one.  He pulled on his clothes, fixed a sandwich then went to the hospital to see Norma.  She was obviously in pain and distraught.  He tried to raise her spirits without success.  He looked at his watch.  It was nearly three thirty.  He had another thing on his mind that must be taken care of now.  He drove to the police station, parked in a visitor’s space and went in.  He asked where officer Merris worked and was pointed to the conference room.  As he walked in he saw her, resting on her crutches, looking at the charts on the wall.

“Hello.”  He said, rather detached.

“Hi, I’m surprised to see you.  Can I help you with something?”  What she really wanted to say would have been inappropriate.

“I just dropped in.  I wanted to talk to you about my partner, Norma, the gal with me when we picked you up is in the hospital.  Would it be too much to ask.  She is really down.  Could you go in and see her?”
“Don’t you think that might upset her more, seeing another amputee?”

“Well, I was thinking that maybe you could show her you can go places, do things.  She needs to see her life isn’t over.  That’s what she keeps saying.”

“Let me see if I can drop in but I’m probably not the best one, I’m sort of crippled up myself right now, or didn’t you notice.”

“On the contrary, you are the best, she knows it is going to be months till she gets her leg and is back to normal.  Seeing you on crutches may be the best thing for her.  You’re working.  She knew you were shot again.”  He noticed her face wrinkle up but he was not sure what he said that caused the problem.  It would not take long for her to tell him.

“You really don’t understand being an amputee, do you?  Being an amputee is not like breaking your leg and having it in the cast, when it comes out in six weeks it’s stiff for a few days or weeks but then it’s like new.  Been there, done that when I was thirteen, know how much it hurts, what it’s like to have the bone set, how much the cast itches, and how it took about three weeks to get back to running after the cast came off.  But with an amputation, it is forever.  And when she gets her new leg it isn’t all going to be just fine.  There are hundreds of things you take for granted that she can’t do.”