I Lost My Legs Saving the Don

Isabella Vitale. We used to dance in the same ballet company.

"I'm going in to ask him." I pushed my chair forward, but the wheels caught on the threshold.

"I already did," the woman on the phone sobbed, stopping me. "He came home with me, but the very next day, he went straight back to her. After that, I stayed up night after night trying to find out where he was. I even begged him to stay because of what I'd sacrificed for him. The more fed up he got, the more scared I was to let go."

"How could you put up with it for ten years?"

"I never meant to put up with it for ten years. I just kept telling myself I'd give him one more chance."

I pressed a hand over my mouth. Tears slipped between my fingers. The call dropped, but I kept holding the phone, staring at the two of them on the other side of the glass.

Five years ago, I joined the company after an open audition. Isabella's father, Paolo Vitale, was the company's biggest donor. Whatever role she wanted, nobody dared fight her for it. But that season, the choreographer cast me instead.

On the night of the show, she told me my headpiece was in the wrong place and asked me to get it from the dressing room.

The second I stepped inside, the door locked behind me.

"We've got a VIP coming tonight, and my father's already taken care of everything. Why don't you sit this one out?"

I pounded on the door and begged her to unlock it. I had rehearsed that solo for three solid months. My mother had traveled six hours just to watch me.

But Isabella never looked back. Her footsteps quickly faded.

I pounded on the door until my fingernails started to tear away. Then I finally heard someone outside calling my name.

It was Dante Rossi, the Don who ran the Rossi family in Boston. He was also the guest of honor that night.

At an earlier company reception, he had promised to come see my solo.

When someone else walked onstage in my place, he asked the staff what had happened. They told him I had refused to go on at the last minute.

He didn't buy it. He came backstage looking for me and heard me pounding on the door.

When it swung open, my legs gave out. He caught me. The moment he saw my bloody hands, he sent for Isabella.

She was still wearing the costume that should have been mine. She swore it was only a joke.

Dante tossed the key at her feet. "A joke? Then how about you go sit in there for a while?"

She burst into tears and tried to use her father's name to get out of it.

The two families had done business together for years. She had never imagined Dante would humiliate her in front of everyone.

Dante didn't budge. He wouldn't let her leave until she apologized to me.

On her way out, she reached for his sleeve. He simply stepped aside.

By then the show was over. My mother was waiting for me in the empty theater.

The moment I saw her, I broke down. I told her all those months of practice had been for nothing.

Once again, Dante came to my rescue. He asked the theater manager to keep the lighting crew and the musicians from going home. Then he calmed me down, had me put my costume back on, and sent me back out onstage.

That night, the only people in the audience were my mother and Dante. Still, I danced with more heart than I ever had.

At the curtain call, he stood up and applauded. For the first time, I felt like someone truly appreciated all the hard work I'd put in, even when no one was watching.

After that, he asked me to dinner. I told him rehearsals ran too late. So he waited until the theater closed and took me for pasta at the little place on the corner that was still open. Little by little, I started looking for his car after every show. Eventually, I agreed to be his girlfriend.

During our first three years together, he came to most of my shows. He even set aside a dance studio for me at the Rossi estate.

I taught him to dance. He was always off the beat, and he would wrap his arms around me and refuse to let go. "Teach me. Then I'll only ever dance with you."

Two years ago, the Rossi family clashed with another family over business at the docks. One night, just as a family dinner was breaking up, the other side's men attacked the estate. Bodyguards burst in to get Dante out through a side door.

I followed him out. We had just reached the front porch when an explosion went off outside the estate walls, and the stone beam above us cracked.

Dante had turned back to call to one of the Rossi elders who had fallen behind. He didn't see it.

I shoved him toward the steps with everything I had. I didn't have time to get out of the way myself.

The beam came down and pinned both my legs.

The pain knocked me out.

When I woke up, I reached down and felt nothing but the empty fabric of my pants.

Both legs were gone below the knee.

The doctor said the crush injuries had been too severe. Surgery had saved my life, but not my legs.

Sobbing, I begged Dante to find other doctors. He held me, and he couldn't stop crying either.

That same day, he brought the Rossi elders to my hospital room and proposed to me in front of them.

He promised to stay by my side for the rest of my life. He would be my legs, he said, and take me anywhere I wanted to go.

At first, he really did stay by my side. He held my hand while they changed my dressings. He got up at night at the slightest sound. When he heard I could be fitted for prosthetics, he was even more eager to book the appointment than I was.

But the training didn't go well. My residual limbs ached constantly, and the prosthetics rubbed my skin raw.

I fell a few times, and I grew more and more afraid to stand. He would lift me back into my wheelchair and tell me it was okay to stop. From now on, he said, he would take care of me.

I believed him. I quit training and moved into the estate.

Six months ago, my old dance partner, Mara Keller, urged me to go to Switzerland and have my prosthetics and rehab plan reassessed. Dante said he couldn't stand to watch me suffer through it, so I stayed.

But for the past three months, he'd been coming home later and later. When the pain woke me and I called for him, the first thing he asked was whether I'd taken my meds. When I wanted him to sit with me for a while, he said he had things to do in the morning and called the caregiver instead.

I thought I was dragging him down. I hadn't even dared to send that one line asking him to come home earlier.

Now, through the glass door, I watched Isabella take his hand and put it on her waist. He looked down at her, smiling, and let her lean into his arms.

So he hadn't forgotten how to make a woman feel loved.

I just wasn't that woman anymore.