The Trophy Exchange by Diane Fanning

He tried to convince her that getting psychological help was not a sign of weakness. Lucinda agreed with him up to a point – it was good thing for other people, not her. She did not want or need the space or the encouragement to whine. “ It ’ s counter-productive, ” she insisted. She ignored his continued urging to take advantage of these services.
    But Lucinda didn ’ t miss a single occupational therapy appointment. She worked with focused diligence on her exercise routine at home. She still stumbled over objects she didn ’ t see, ran into furniture and walls and kicked Chester on occasion, but every day seemed a little easier and the accidents further apart.
    In a month, she was ready to return to the shooting range. To get there, she ’ d make her first solo drive in her newly equipped car. The day and the route were perfect for her first excursion – no rain in sight and no highways involved. Her fear and anxiety, though, made the three-mile drive feel like a long distance trek.
    At the range, her shooting earned a clap on the back from the instructor. She wasn ’ t the proficient shot she used to be, but every bullet hit the target. She was determined to practice hard until she regained her nickname “ Dead Eye Pierce ” . She sneered at herself at the bitter realization that her moniker now had an added layer of significance.
    On the personal front, her adaptation to normalcy missed the mark by a mile. Her girlfriends cajoled her back to the whirl of happy hour mixers and private parties. She entered the social fray mentally prepared for the stares and the heavy presence of unasked questions on the faces of those she met. She had not anticipated her biggest problem in group settings but it hit hard at a crowded cocktail party.
    She chatted away as usual without a thought about the gestures of her arms that always moved to the rhythm of her words. She was not aware of the woman who approached her left side until she backhanded her in the face. Lucinda flushed and stammered out her apologies but got nothing in return but a grumble and a hard stare.
    She vowed to break the habit of moving her hands when she spoke. It was harder than she thought it would be. Before she opened her mouth, she grabbed one hand with the other and held them both tight against her body. If she relaxed for a moment, though, her hands went into motion again. After smacking a few more people, she decided she needed to stop talking in public altogether.
    She spent a few nights clutching her hands together and kept her lips sealed, responding to conversation with nods and shakes of her head. Her dulled interaction soon left her standing on the sidelines looking and feeling uncomfortable. If anyone did approach her, she was certain that they only did so out of pity. Soon she stopped mingling altogether – her social life was reduced to conversations with Chester .
    For weeks, girlfriends called trying to urge her out of her shell and back into the world. She rebuffed them all, getting ruder with each refusal, and soon the phone stopped ringing. Her friendships with other women dried up and blew away like delicate rosebuds left unwatered in the midst of an unrelenting drought. Only one of her relationships seemed unchanged and unfettered by her injury – the one with her old high-school boyfriend, Ted.
    Her interactions with him, though, were work-related and serendipitous. He had a wife and kids. She had Chester . Her life now consisted of her rehabilitation, her quiet time at home and regaining her job, a task she pursued with the dogged diligence of a newly recruited fanatic. Ambition and striving were her closest friends.
    Her driving skills improved. Her shooting skills excelled. She ran an endless gauntlet of political hurdles to return to active duty in the field. Although there were no existing policies in her department prohibiting her from patrolling a beat with one eye, many administrators objected to the precedent it might