All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 04

The justice looked absolutely shocked. "Five years? How did you survive?"

"I fingered out a way," grinned Andi.

As they splashed about, taunting each other, Miss Nicoletta whispered in Andi's ear, "Have you told him about the videos yet?"

Andi laughed, as if Miss Nicoletta had just told her a joke. "What videos?"

Miss Nicoletta motioned Andi to follow her back to shore. "My dear, if you weren't aware of these, then you had best discuss this with Paul." She pulled a tablet out of her beach bag and started a video that was downloaded to the tablet. "That is you, isn't it? After spending the afternoon together, I'd recognize those nipples anywhere, but there is no caesarean scar, so this must be quite old..."

The video showed a curvaceous woman in her mid to late twenties wearing a pink wig and a blindfold, tied naked to a bed. There were several men and women in the room. All were silent and seated in chairs, watching a young woman finger fucking the bound woman and sucking her nipples. When the bound woman began whimpering in desire, a man got on the bed and fucked her. This was potentially a video of Andi's impregnation.

"Isn't this man here your first husband?" asked Miss Nicoletta as she pointed to a man with a big grin who was seated next to the bed. Andi recognized that shit-eating grin immediately. It was definitely Frank Rosetti. "These videos were recently dumped on to the internet. You need to discuss this with your husband, the lawyer, so he can do something about this."

Andi froze in shock, her mouth opening and closing and her eyes wide open in horror. She took her glass of "Special Lemonade" and chugged it down. With trembling hands, she poured herself another glass and drank half of it.

"Adrianna? Adrianna?" asked Justice Atherton, but Andi wasn't responding. She knew now what she had to do.

"Adrianna?"

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Lucy started singing into her microphone as she ran,

"I search myself, I want you to find me

I forget myself, I want you to remind me

I don't want anybody else

When I think about you, I touch...

"All right, enough singing," interrupted Gus, "Your blood oxygen level is down to 93."

Although Lucy didn't know it for a fact, she was sure that Gus knew what the next word was in the Divinyls tune she was singing; she was very sure that she was in love with Gus now, and the way he acted on New Year's Eve showed he was at least in lust with her, maybe in love. She was on her second lap of the island, and she was simply keeping up her edge. Lucy intends to be in shape for her cross-country bicycle run planned for July. Gus is also in training.

It's his job to monitor her vital signs, make sure she remains hydrated and, most important, to keep her awake on the road during the cross-country ride. Gus also needs to keep her bikes in top shape.

His job is to tell her stories to keep her awake during the evening parts of the ride. During the long, horribly boring ride through eastern Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, he needs to keep her entertained. Audio books from Audible.com are great, but they don't answer questions and they don't explain what they're talking about. Lucy asked Gus to pick a book to read to her, something that is not only entertaining but deep, something to keep the mind working on those late nights on the central United States' prairies. Being a huge fan of JRR Tolkien, she expected him to warm up with 'The Hobbit' and save the Lord of the Rings for the long rides, but no, for today he picked a book that he absolutely loved: Genesis.

Gus knew each of those 66 books of the bible personally, but he loved Genesis. He started out with "In the beginning..." and read it not with fake Charlton Heston drama nor with the boring monotone drone that was her introduction to the book of books during her upbringing in the Jewish religion. Gus read it like it was an adventure novel. Of course, Gus understood her dissatisfaction with religion. He was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, and once he was freed from their doctrine, he reacted differently than Lucy did once she was freed.

Lucy confused God with the anger of the old rabbis and moved as far away as possible from that church. And as for Gus, once he was freed from the Roman doctrine, he was free to dive headlong into God's word and learn what it was all about. Right now, he had gone off topic to give a lecture on the difficulties of translating ancient Hebrew into modern day languages.

"...is considered the most difficult problem with translating ancient Hebrew. Personally, I believe that when the Babylonians removed Hebrew from existence in about 300 BC, that was the biggest problem. There had been no one to translate it for twenty-three hundred years. Now when you compound the facts that there are no vowels, no spaces between words, and that repeated letters are omitted, the sentence 'Bob begs bad bread' would end up being written out drbdbsgb and..."

"Wait a minute!" interrupted Lucy. "How did you get the letter d at the beginning of the sentence?"

"Because the Hebrew language is written from right to left..." Lucy repeated 'from right to left' at the same time as Gus, and mentally kicking herself for forgetting the strange fact of writing from right to left. Why would anyone do that? Modern culture writes left to right because most people are right-handed and when writing from left to right, you don't drag your hand through wet ink.

Gus heard her say "from right to left" because, unlike CB radio, their radio system is set up in full duplex, it's exactly like a telephone conversation where you can both speak at the same time. Imagine someone reading you a story on simplex radio, like CB. If you tripped and fell, you couldn't ask for help until they stopped talking. Like now.

Lucy was jogging past the woman's beach, and Macy flagged her down. "Hold up honey, Macy wants to talk to me..." Lucy muted her radio while she spoke with Macy and there was a long pause, then Gus saw Lucy's blood oxygen level drop and her heart rate spike, it could only mean she was sprinting.

"Darling, what's up? What did Macy say?"

Between gasps of air, Lucy said, "Nicoletta said something to Andi, and then Andi just ran off."

"Do you know what Nicoletta said to Andi?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No, it's between Paul and Andi." For a while, all Gus could hear was Lucy chanting "Shit!... Shit!... Shit!..." as she ran. There had to be more.

"What can you tell me? Come on, talk to me," implored Gus.

"Macy said... Andi told her... told her to ask me to help Paul with the twins."

Gus pondered that for a moment, then his heart sank. Lucy is the twins Godmother, it would fall to her to be their mother if something happened to Andi. He didn't want to think that something bad was up, but the only thing passing through Gus' mind was 'What the hell was that skinny little bottle blond thinking?'

Gus saw John strolling nearby with a bucket containing a few iced down beers. "Yo, Sir John Sir!" John was one of those pastors that doesn't like formal addresses, so Gus goads him by using the word Sir as often as possible when addressing him.

John thought Gus was going to grab a cold cerveza out of the bucket he was carrying for his brother. Even though Paul wouldn't mind if his best friend grabbed one of his beers, John tried to protect the beer. "I've been accorded the duty to protect this amber liquid with my life! Nay I tell you!"

"I just want to know where your brother is right now."

"He and Andi took the Miss Nisi out recently. They took her out the channel then headed west." The Miss Nisi is Miss Nicoletta's second sailing yacht, identical in construction to the 36-foot Hunter Legend Bermuda rigged sloop Miss Arcadia.

Gus pondered, then asked, "Was there anything unusual when they went out?"

John shrugged, "I don't know, Andi seemed pretty anxious, Paul wanted to take out the Miss Arcadia again now that he's used to it, but she insisted she wanted to go out immediately and Miss Arcadia wasn't ready to sail, so they went out on the Miss Nisi. She had an iPad with her. If you think that's unusual, I guess."

Gus keyed up his microphone. "Paul and Andi were just through here. They headed westbound on Miss Nisi. Andi had a tablet, if that means anything."

Lucy raced through the jungle on the walking path running as hard as she's ever run, the glinting of the sun on the calm ocean could be seen through the foliage of the tropical paradise, then she could see the boat, anchored offshore, rocking gently in the waves. Then she could see the figures laying on the beach, side by side, neither moving, and as she grew closer, she saw the blood trail leading back to the ocean.

Fighting back the desire to shriek, she fought her way through the tangled vegetation and keyed the mic. "Gus honey, get Sunny over here STAT, the fastest way possible. We're on Sunset Side beach, bring bandages, lots of bandages, and med kits, and maybe an AED."

Gus was shocked at her tone of voice; it was cold and professional, meaning that she was in ER mode. "What else do you need?" he asked as he snagged the bucket of beer out of John's hand and told him, "Dude, something happened. Lucy is in full ER mode. Go get Sunny, bandages, med kits, and an Automatic Defibrillator. I'll get a boat. GO!"

Gus had one of Miss Nicoletta's zodiacs checked out and started up when Stan, Sunny, and John came running to the pier. Gus helped them load the medical equipment and asked Stan if he would pilot the boat to the Sunset Side beach.

"No problem," answered Stan as he readied to cast off.

Gus scrambled up on to the pier and held his hand out to John, "Lucy asked you and I to stay here." The realization that Paul may be injured or worse showed on John's face immediately and he didn't take Gus's hand. Things to say rattled through Gus's head, things like 'they will have enough help' or 'we'll just be in the way', instead he simply said, "John, I need my pastor."

John nodded sadly and stepped up on to the pier as Sunny cast off the lines and Stan sped the Zodiac off into the west. Even with the possibility of his brother being involved in a horrible accident, John couldn't ignore a call from help from one of his flock. So, there on the pier, Gus and John prayed to God that Lucy, Sunny, and Stan will help Paul and Andi.

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Paul tried to pry his eyes open, then he gave up on the effort. He knew he wasn't alone, but he couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. It's just not fair to expect one person to experience so much pain just for the sin of surviving seventy-five years, but it's the way God wanted it. He supposed that if just getting out of bed at 25 hurt as much as it did at 75, the human race wouldn't have survived as long as it had. "Poppa, wake up!" said an urgent voice somewhere in the room.

"You have visitors, Doctor Jarecki," the nurse said softly in his ear.

He smiled. It sounded like Vicki, a beautiful nurse of amazing intelligence. Vicki was thirty years old but looked like a seventeen-year-old and had a 200-megawatt smile. When he finally could focus, he found out he was right. The beautiful, beautiful smile that belonging to Vicki was there to greet him. "Tell them I already have enough magazine subscriptions," he groaned.

"You had best step back, nurse," said a familiar voice. "He's got a thing for Korean women."

"A big ol' thang!" said another familiar and very similar voice.

There was general laughter in the room that almost drown out Paul's response, "I apologize for my daughters lack of couth, but I was not there in their formative years which explains..." Paul's tirade on his daughters' upbringing was cut short by Vicki's fingers gently covering his mouth.

"You need to wake up, sir. It appears they have something to show you," Vicki said as the girls cheered, and the sounds of male chuckling could be heard as well. They were cheering for Nurse Vicki's silencing Paul, a task once only reserved for Dr. Andi.

Paul pried open his eyes and there were Sandy and Madeline, along with their husbands, Joshua and Aaron. Aaron had his arm around Madeline's waist, her belly huge with the child she was carrying, while Joshua was at the handles of Sandy's wheelchair with one hand on her shoulder. In her arms was the whole reason they were there, Sierra. "Can I?" asked Vicki, and when Sandy nodded, Vicki adjusted Paul's hospital bed and raised the head up. She then carefully took the swaddled infant and handed it to Paul. The 4 hour old infant made little squeals of being upset, but Paul calmed her quickly by patting her swaddled tummy while making soft little 'choo choo choo' sounds which calmed the fussy infant.

"See honey?" Sandy said to her husband, "I told you, he's a baby whisperer."

"That's amazing!" said Vicki, her beautiful almond-shaped eyes wide with surprise.

"It just takes practice," said Paul as he cuddled the tiny infant.

"Lots and lots of practice," said the twins in unison.

"Do I detect a shot being taken in my direction?" said a voice from the back corner of the room.

"Probably being taken in my direction," said another very similar and very masculine voice. Paul could see two teenage boys sitting on the couch. They looked so familiar...

"I think the two of you are just being paranoid," said Madeline.

"And who could have possibly taught them that?" said newly minted grandmother Andi as she stepped out of the hospital bathroom wearing her nightgown and bathrobe. She slipped off her bathrobe and crawled into the bed alongside of her husband, then she and Paul snuggled the tiny infant between them. "It's been a while since we did this," she said to Paul.

"I thought I was out of practice, yet it still feels right," said Paul as he and his wife of over two decades cuddled with each other as much as they cuddled with their granddaughter.

"I don't think you're getting your baby back," said Maddy to her twin sister.

"Good, I need a nap," said an exhausted Sandy.

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Paul tried to pry his eyes open, then he gave up on the effort. He knew he wasn't alone, but he couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. It's just not fair to expect one person to experience so much pain just for the sin of surviving. "Poppa, wake up!" cried a tiny familiar voice, and his dreams of ending it all disappeared at the sound of one of the twin's plaintive cries.

He finally opened his eyes and an unfamiliar ceiling swirled around over his head. The equipment he saw, the lighting, the hoists, the IV stands, the cardio-pulmonary monitors told him he was in a hospital, but the hardwood beams, the crystal lighting fixtures, the wooden panels and the bamboo louvers on the windows told him he was not in any ordinary hospital.

He tried to struggle to a sitting position, but a hand on his chest pushed him gently back down. "Relax, lay down. You've lost a lot of blood."

"Where's Andi? I want my wife..."

"She's not here right now. She wants to be left alone..."

"No! I need my wife, I just want to hold her, please..."

"That's not likely right now. Now please relax, Doctor Jarecki. We will do what we can as soon as we can. Ok?"

The sullen doctor just nodded sadly and lay back down and fought back the tears as Miss Nicoletta led Maddy out of his room.

Later, outside of his room, Miss Nicoletta was arguing with Lucy. "We can't keep doing this to him. He nearly died to save her and now she won't see him?"

"I can't help it, she doesn't want anyone at all to see her, including me." Lucy Kocis was terribly concerned over both of her trauma patients, how did her friend of these many years nearly drown, and how did her husband of just over one week, an experienced diver end up nearly drown and with a huge deep cut on his thigh?

"Auntie Lucy, can I see poppa?" Madeline was tugging on Lucy's blood-stained Hawaiian print shirt, which was now doubling as surgical scrubs.

"Of course, sweetie, just don't get him too worked up, ok?"

"K!" and the blond moppet dashed into her new daddy's room in Miss Nicoletta's palatial "cabana" on Nisi Arcadia, which in Greek means the Island of Paradise.

"This is all my fault," said the former NY State Supreme Court Justice. "That bastard husband of hers forced her to do some videos, and I had asked her if she had told Paul about them because Frank has leaked the videos onto the internet. This is sheer guesswork on my part, but it looks like she showed them to him on the boat, and I don't know what the hell happened out there."

Lucy shrugged and refused to guess. She found them both lying in the sand, in a pool of blood, Andi coughing up seawater, a huge cut in Paul's thigh, and the boat anchored offshore. Her concentration was broken by Madeline's shrieking at the top of her lungs, "POPPA! POPPA WAKE UP!"

"Oh, hell no!" cried Lucy as she dashed into the room and looked at the most horrific thing she had ever expected to see. Paul had taken his seven foot long nasal canula and tied it around his neck, tied it to the crane used to lift patients out of bed, and held the up button on the crane remote control as long as he could until losing consciousness...

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Andi tried to pry her eyes open, then she gave up on the effort. She knew she wasn't alone, but she couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. It's just not fair to expect one person to experience so much pain just for the sin of surviving. "Momma, wake up!" cried a tiny familiar voice, and her dreams of ending it all faded at the sound of one of the twin's plaintive cries.

"Momma! Daddy needs you!" cried Sandy who was next to the bed shaking Andi awake.

Andi wallowed in her own misery for a few moments, then suddenly she awoke with a gasp. Sandy didn't say Poppa. She said Daddy, that's what she called Paul, not the twins. They call him Poppa. Somehow it started swirling into place, her dream. It wasn't a dream; he was really trying to hang himself! She had no way of knowing why she thought that, but it was there in her mind.

Andi sat bolt upright and pulled off her oxygen mask and disconnected the saline solution from the IV in her arm, then ripped off the monitor leads from her chest and bolted from her room. She charged through the cluster of people in the antechamber. Lucy, Macy, Miss Nicoletta, all looked at her in shock as she dove into another room identical to hers. In there was Madeline standing next to Paul's bed with a look of terror on her face, and on the bed was Paul. He was coiling up his canula while he studied the overhead hoist.

Ignoring his monitor leads and IV lines, Andi climbed onto the bed and pushed a startled looking Paul down into the mattress. "I thought," he gasped, "I thought you didn't want to see me," he said through the kisses that rained down on his face.

"I didn't," she said, not pausing through the kisses she peppered her man with. "I didn't want to see anyone. Then I had this horrible dream that you were going to hang yourself, and I come in here and it looked like you were going to do it."

"I was going to do it. You didn't want me anymore, and a life without you is living hell, even though..." he paused for a moment and considered his next words carefully. "Even though I had a dream, too."