Even Footing

Every day at 6: 40 am, Claire zipped up her coat, slid the back door open an arm's width, and prodded the slicked surface of her driveway until she found a stone about the diameter of a split pea.

Too flat, and she'd lose it through the sole of her sock by midday. Too rough-edged, and it would work its way through the sock fibre by early afternoon. Somewhere in-between - no bigger than a full corn cob kernel - that would lodge comfortably against the arch of her left heel.

In the mudroom, she cleared any dirt from the stone's surface against her jumper cuff, tipped it into the opening of her left shoe, and gave it a light flick to settle it into the indentation in the insole.

Stepping in, she rose to her full height.

She felt a sharp pinch dig upwards into the back of her foot, her left pelvis rise slightly to avoid contact, and her right knee absorb more of her body weight.

Perfect, she breathed, releasing a small puff of air in the cold room.

Claire made her way into the kitchen and began to boil water to make tea, aware of Julian's presence as she limped to the fridge. Step, limp. Step, limp. It required very little effort on her part to appear injured - the rest was supplied entirely by instinct.

The moment he detected the shuffle of her shoe on the hardwood floor, Julian lowered his shoulders slightly. Skipping the usual greeting, he retrieved the blue ceramic cup from the shelf above the hob and filled it with coffee before passing it to her.

"Kept dry overnight," he said, brushing his lips across her hair as she lowered herself onto the kitchen chair. "Leg behaving?"

"A bit sore," she replied, accepting the cup. "And you?"

"Like steel." Julian smiled thinly, dragging his damaged leg towards the table.

The milk lorry had T-boned their Honda on the A-road on a grey October day roughly 2 years ago, skidding over 3 lanes of packed snow and ice, before Julian managed to wrench the steering wheel away.

The impact to Julian's leg had been devastating. After 3 operations to insert a 7-inch titanium bar into his thigh, he was left with a mottled purple scar running the length of his left thigh down to his knee, which pained and bulged noticeably on colder days. He had been advised by his physio in March that he would limp for life.

Claire escaped with considerably fewer injuries: a fractured fibula, torn lateral ligaments, 2 months cast immobilisation and 4 months attending physiotherapy appointments twice weekly.

Dr Patel examined her final X-ray in June and beamed. "Looks perfect, Claire, healed completely! Full ROM, get out of here and never come back!"

Driving home that afternoon under bright blue skies, she unloaded the contents of her shopping baskets from the car without support, and navigated the entrance steps to her home without compensating. Each step felt equal, her bare feet landing on the wooden floorboards with an even cadence.

Beaming with pride, she opened the door into the kitchen, intending to unload the bags and celebrate with Julian.

He was at the worktop rinsing his hands with a cloth. As she entered the room, his gaze dropped from her face to her feet and followed the movement of her ankles over the floorboards, smooth and natural.

Her smile faltered. The tendons in his jaw clenched as his eyes remained locked on her bare feet, with no sign of relief or happiness. Only a desolate, vacant stare, as though witnessing his companion escape the wreckage.

"Positive from Patel?" he asked in a low, neutral tone.

"Yes," she replied quietly. "Seemed to heal well."

"Good." He folded the cloth and placed it neatly on the worktop before trundling upstairs, leaving Claire to carry the bags.

Over the following 4 days, the atmosphere in the house grew tense and subdued. Julian barely spoke to her, ignoring her in mealtimes and sleeping rigidly on the outer edge of the bed. She would attempt to reach over and caress his nape, but he would feign pain in his knee and twist away from her.

The following morning, before Julian had risen from bed, Claire crept down to the driveway in her slippers and selected a small pebble from the surface to place in her shoe.

When she appeared at breakfast, favouring her left leg, Julian hastened to pull out her chair. That evening, he drew her into his arms as they lay in the darkness, tucking his face into her shoulder and muttering: "Can't get away from that cold, can you?".

Claire rested her eyes, feeling the dull throb of the pebble in the arch of her foot. "No", she murmured. "I don't think so."

Within a short time, she learned to conceal her injury from Julian.

Initially a small pebble sufficed to cause her to limp, but by the end of the autumn her heel had developed a callous and she progressed to picking up shards of rubble from the roadside drainage. On leaving the bathroom after bathing, she would consciously limp over the bathroom floor before placing her foot back into her shoe, ready to go back to deceiving her husband.

Each evening, she'd spend time kneeling over the closed toilet bowl, scrubbing her left sock in the washbasin to remove traces of blood.

Only at her workplace did she allow herself some reprieve.

On arrival at her office parking each morning at ~9 am, she would remove her left shoe and place the offending stone on the foot-mat, proceeding to walk with a normal gait throughout the day. She would ascend the basement staircase in leaps, twirl in place between bookcases, savoring the freedom of mobility.

When returning to the car park after her 5 pm shift, she would replace the stone in her shoe, enduring the initial discomfort until making her way home.

"What are you doing turning down the promotion to head office?" her sister Nina questioned her, peering closely at her left shoe while Julian was in the garden. "Your mother mentioned she saw Dr Patel recently and he told her your injury had healed."

"He's not omnipresent in my foot, Nina. Occasionally my ligament tightens up..." she responded tersely, edging her gaze to where Julian was piling firewood in the shed. "Leave it."

"Claire, I haven't even asked if you're-"

"Just leave it."

When she informed Julian that she'd declined the promotion and daily travel of an hour and a half, he pulled his foot off the ottoman and massaged the arch of her foot, noting the swelling of the bone around a protruding piece of stone.

"That piece of road would've done real damage to your heel," he commented as he kissed her ankle, "Thank God you've stayed close to home. You can't imagine the pain of rebuilding yourself."

Claire allowed him to cradle her foot until it lost feeling. She resolved that she would end this pretence in the springtime. When the roads thawed and Julian's leg pain eased.

One evening at the end of November, as she rushed to bring in her shopping in a blizzard of icy rain, her stone inadvertently dislodged from its position and fell to the base of her shoe.

Approaching the house, weary and chilled from the cold, her body reverted to its natural function, allowing her to ascend the steps briskly without assistance from the rail or limping.

She shouldered the back door open, laid the shopping on the worktop, and turned to brush rain from her jacket. She paused as she noticed Julian standing still at the edge of the yard, holding the log carrier aloft.

His attention was focused on her feet as they climbed the steps, then on her shoes as she stood in the kitchen.

After a few moments, Julian made his way inside via the back door and shook himself free of snowflakes. He asked no questions.

Throughout their meal of soup and rolls, Julian observed her movements as she served the food. When she trailed her left foot as she passed to clear the dishes from the table, his expression remained impassive and cold as he stared at the bowl in his hands. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

She removed her shoes in the mudroom and slowly limped up the stairs to her bedroom, wincing at the strain in her leg muscles as she stretched her body out beside Julian.

She awoke at 3.15am, parched and alerted to the patter of rain on the roof tiles.

Finding the bedclothes opposite her had been thrown back, she hastily slipped out of the duvet and headed downstairs to fetch a drink of water, unaware of her limp as she shuffled down the stairs in her socks.

She descended the stairs evenly and with a steady rhythm.

At the far end of the ground floor hallway, she noticed the faint glow of a light seeping out from beneath the mudroom door.

Assuming that his leg had stiffened in the cold and he had descended to sit near the heater, she opened the door a crack to approach him.

However, Julian was seated on the stool next to his shoe storage, with his left leg extended.

On his lap was her left winter boot, with a small stone on the stool next to him, alongside her left sock - which had a light crimson marking at the arch of the foot.

In his right hand, he held another stone - larger and coarser in texture - which he proceeded to slot into the arch of her boot, adjusting the lining to prevent it from slipping.

Only upon completing this did he look up to see Claire standing at the doorway.

Standing with equal weight on both legs.

Both parties remained motionless in silence for several seconds, listening to the drumming of rain on the windows and the radiator cut out beneath their feet.

"I found your pebble in the washing machine in April," Julian broke the silence. "I kept quiet, but you weren't pretending to be hurt for the first time since the accident."

He removed her shoe from his lap and placed it by the matching shoe on the mudroom mat.

"You walked up the steps quicker than normal," he added. "Your pebble wasn't causing enough pain."

He rested his hands on his thighs and continued to wait.

Claire stared at the pebble on the stool, her shoe by the wall, and her winter coat/keys on the pegs next to her. Over 6 months of self-harm to spare Julian the anguish of watching her recover.

Without hesitation, she approached him, retrieved her left shoe, and turned it upside down to discard the stone on the mudroom floor.

She snatched her coat and keys from the hook and stepped into both shoes, pulling the laces up securely. She turned the lock on the back door and walked out into the rain.

Without a glance behind her, she proceeded down the path towards the main road, savoring the sound of her feet striking the road.