A Wish for Christmas by Thomas Kinkade

didn’t have the energy to argue. Feeling beat down and embarrassed, he allowed George to help him off the rails and get back in the walker.
    “You can rest up on the table,” Gena told him. “Do you want some help?”
    “I can do it, thanks,” David insisted. He slowly made his way back to the table, exhausted and hanging on to his walker like a life preserver. He didn’t want to admit that he needed help but realized if someone didn’t give him a hand, he might end up on the floor. For real this time.
    As he reached the table he looked toward George, but Gena stepped up and before he knew what was happening, she wrapped his arm around her shoulder, put her arm around his waist, and easily lifted him up so he was sitting on the table.
    Man, she was strong. He had about an entire foot of height and sixty or even seventy pounds on her. How had she done it? It was like a magic trick.
    When he looked down at her, the corner of her mouth had edged up just a tiny bit. It wasn’t what you would call a smile, not even close. But David could tell his shock had amused her.
    “What’s the matter, David? Do you feel all right?”
    He nodded and quickly looked down at his sneakers, realizing he had been staring at her. “I’m fine.”
    “Would you like some water?”
    “Yes, I would. Thanks.”
    She took a frosty water bottle off the side table and handed it to him, then continued to write on his chart as he drank.
    He had to say one thing for this routine. He wasn’t staring out a window, lost in a fog. He felt more alert and focused than he had for weeks.
    When Gena finally looked back at him, he expected her to give him an assessment of his condition. Instead, she started asking more questions—questions about his injuries, his operations, and how long it took to recover from each.
    “Let’s see, I’ll start from the top and go down,” he began. He had been asked these same questions so many times, he felt like a recorded announcement. Was she too lazy to just read the chart? “I had a fractured skull and a concussion, dislocated shoulder, broken collarbone and arm ...”
    “Right arm?” she said, her eyes scanning his file.
    “That’s correct. It was fractured. I needed a plate in there. A few broken ribs, punctured lung. All that wasn’t so bad. The legs, that was the worst of it,” he said. “Both of them got smashed when the Humvee turned over.”
    “You were fired on?” she asked.
    “Yeah. I was in the motor pool, a mechanic. My team was sent to service a vehicle not too far from the base.” But any time you left base, there was danger of an attack, even on well-patrolled roads. “The Humvee we were traveling in was fired on.” David paused. It was still hard to recount the story without getting emotional. “We were hit, and it turned over.”
    Gena cast him a rare, sympathetic look. “You were lucky you got out alive.”
    “Yes, I was. My sergeant pulled me out before the whole thing exploded. He was a real hero.”
    Not me, David thought. I didn’t do very much. Just managed to come back in one piece. Sort of. It made him uncomfortable when people praised his service, as if he had been incredibly brave over there. He knew what real courage was. What real sacrifice was. He didn’t feel he deserved to be called anything like that, not next to a man like Nolan.
    Gena held him in her dark, steady gaze. “So you sustained substantial injury to both legs. And on the right, the hip as well.”
    “Correct. The right leg seems the worst of it. Even though the left one’s still pretty messed up.”
    Not a very precise medical description, he knew, but it about covered his condition.
    “How did you feel after the hip replacement surgery?”
    “The first or the second?” he asked. “They screwed something up the first time. The wrong size ball joint or something. They had to take a do-over.”
    “Right. A second surgery. How did you feel after that one?”
    “I was in pain. I still am,” he