Accident Prone

"Are you okay?"

Her bloodshot eyes peered up at him. "I'm so sorry, Michael. I really am."

He looked at her confused.

"For sleeping with your father last night. It was a mistake. I knew it and I did it anyway. I don't deserve to have you save me a second time like this. I'm so sorry."

Michael choked out laughter, relieved. "I forgive you. I'm just so fucking glad you're okay." He looked up and saw a dozen skiers heading in to render assistance. He had only seconds to get this said. "Are you finished with him now?"

"I want to be," she said. "I only wish it was that simple."

He was unable to ask what that meant because a pair of skiers slid up and planted their poles near their feet. The woman gasped and covered her mouth, eyes wide in shock. It was then Michael spotted the blood soaking through his mother's right pants leg and the 8" long tear in the material.

"Get the ski patrol," he said calmly. "Tell them we have a compound fracture and possible arterial bleeding." His mom was unconscious. He yanked off his belt and made a tourniquet around her upper thigh.

* * *

Michael was not talking to Jack. The son of a bitch had skied unconcernedly to the very bottom before looking back to check on his wife. Michael would have punched him out if not for the presence of Effie. Of course, she sided with Jack. At one point in the hospital waiting room they went toe to toe.

"You should have told her no, God damn it!"

"It's not my place to tell your mother no. She's a grown woman."

"Who was hung-over and hasn't been on a slope in two years, and who couldn't ski worth shit in the first place. You get her smashed and bang her fucking eyes out but you don't take responsibility to insure she's capable of making a rational decision, which she isn't where it comes to you because she wants you back and would do anything to make sure that fucking happens."

"Don't you talk to me like that, damn it! I'm still your father and deserve a little respect." He jabbed Michael with a finger which Michael ignored. Effie was on her feet by then telling Michael to back off, and people in the waiting room had looked up from their magazines or spun away from the wide-screen TV or roused out of their doze to watch. Behind the Information desk, the volunteer attendee was calling security.

"Earn my respect and I'll give it to you!" Michael spat, purposely pushing against his father's finger. He tried to reign in his anger, before it got away from him and things got really ugly. Effie was making things no better with her belligerent complaining about Michael's behavior. Michael turned on her.

"You know what? It is my fault. She had no business on that trail and I knew it and I still let her go. Instead of being a man and living up to my responsibilities, I took the easy way out and gave in to her stubbornness. I could have taken away her poles and not given them back until she promised to ski the intermediate slopes with me. She'd have been pissed, and rightly so, but she wouldn't be in surgery with a hole in her leg the size of a softball."

"There was nothing wrong with her skiing!" Effie insisted shrilly. "You caused the stupid accident, not her, trying to play the big bad know it all son. If you had just left her alone we'd be skiing right now, instead of in this stupid hospital waiting to hear if Mom'll lose her leg or not. Why can't you just leave well enough alone?"

Jack had just stepped in and told her to hush when a man tapped him on the shoulder and directed his attention to the widescreen TV in the corner.

"This is something you should probably look at," the man said apologetically.

Angry, Jack did so and Michael and Effie turned to look with him. On screen was a pretty blond reporter in a blue and white parka and a jaunty blue and white ski cap. Behind her was a slope at Wisp and the attention grabbing headline below her read: "Seriously Injured Skier May Lose Leg following Incident On Slopes." The sound was turned down so Michael concentrated on the closed captions scrolling along the bottom, white letters on black.

"-victim, whose name has not been released was taken to Garrett County Memorial Hospital in Oakland, Maryland where doctors are trying to save her right leg after a serious compound fracture and significant blood loss. Witnesses say the victim and her husband and teenage son were all skiing the expert trail at Wisp and the son came to his mother's rescue when it became evident she was suffering some loss of control and possibly heading for the tree line at excess speed."

The reporter was replaced by a shaky video taken down-slope. A pair of teenage girls slalomed gracefully back and forth across the trail amongst of a scattered group of skiers. In the top left hand corner, Michael spotted himself tucked and speeding after a figure he knew to be his mother. She was off balance on one ski, trying to compensate with her poles and out flung arms, in obvious danger of careening into the tree line at lethal speed. She looked back just as Michael caught her and jettisoned his poles. He was eerily reminded of a plow barreling along the shoulder of a highway as snow flumed up and over their heads from his dug in skis. He grimaced and looked away momentarily as they caromed past the first pair of trees, split a second and third pair and plowed sideways into the snow covered bushes. It was a marker post buried inside the snow bank that had broken his mother's leg. He'd not even felt the impact.

"I think you owe your son an apology," the man at Jack's side commented. "My guess is he saved his mother's life this morning." Not awaiting an answer, the man returned to his wife and sat down in the ugly orange seat and watched a repetition of the footage. Michael did as well, this time noting the short conversation between he and his mother, and how damned close he had come to kissing her. From Effie's strangled-looking expression, it was as perfectly obvious to others as it was to him. Jack cleared his throat.

"It appears the man is right. I do owe you an apology, Michael." He wisely avoided an arm over Michael's shoulder, shaking his hand instead. Effie stared at him with almost comical intensity, no way forgiving him, evidence of the video be damned. What puzzled him most was how they'd put the report together when he'd not seen or talked to a single reporter, neither at the resort, nor here at the hospital. Were they about to be stampeded, he wondered? To his horror, that's exactly what happened.

* * *

They saved her leg, but Rachel would walk with a pronounced limp the rest of her life. Michael considered this fair trade for having a leg to limp with. The impact had broken the femur and ripped the ball from her hip socket, requiring extensive surgery on the hip as well as her femur, thigh muscles and blood vessels. She would have bled out without Michael's tourniquet. But the tourniquet had nearly cost her the leg by cutting off blood to her muscles. Michael felt punched out by God himself. He would not leave, no matter what his father did.

"Michael, they don't allow family overnight in intensive care."

"I don't care," Michael said tiredly. "I can sleep in the Family Conference Room. I already asked."

"That's stupid," Effie complained, bleary eyed and falling asleep on her feet. Michael's answering glare was mostly wasted because she chose that moment to yawn deeply and rub her eyes. She'd been obstinate and unforgiving all afternoon and night. Michael was ready to pitch her out the sixth floor window. Even his dad couldn't break through her obstinacy. Michael was at fault no matter what anyone said or showed her to the contrary. The galling part was that he couldn't blame her for it. He was torn in half himself.

"Take Effie back to the lodge," he said. "She can't be here, and I'm not leaving."

"Who said I can't be here!" she retorted hotly.

"Effie, please be quiet. Michael, I understand your concern but if anyone stays with your mom, it should be me. After all," he said with a dejected sigh. "It's my fault she's here in the first place. If I hadn't--"

Effie jumped in indignantly: "That's crap, Daddy! Michael-"

Michael walked away, fed up. One more word from the belligerent little turd and he'd snap.

"Sure...run away! You almost kill Mom and-"

"Effie! Shut up!"

Michael heard the shock in her voice. "But, Daddy he-"

"Saved her life, is what he did! Now come on. We're going back to the lodge."

"No!" she complained. "Why does he get to stay?"

"We'll be back in the morning, Michael. Call me if there's any change in her condition."

Michael entered the ICU and went straight to the nurses station. "I'm staying with my mom tonight. If you want me out of there you'll have to get a guard up here to drag me out." In the end, they agreed he could remain with her for two hours, until shift change, at which time he'd move to the Family Conference Room. Whatever he worked out with the overnight charge nurse was his affair.

Inside her glass-walled room, Michael pulled up chair, sat down beside his mom and gently took her left hand in his. Her right leg was encased from hip to knee in a complex metal and canvas brace, elevated via a system of cords and pulleys. She would remain in this brace for the next 6-8 weeks until her femur healed. The hip joint had been repaired using some method he couldn't remember the name of, and didn't require a cast of its own. A fact everyone would come to appreciate when the brace alone made everything Rachel did a back-braking effort. She was in a coma, induced by the doctors, her injuries too much to endure tonight, even on morphine. Michael was fine with that; he wanted her as far aware from reality as medicine could place her.

Her nearly translucent, Scandinavian skin rendered her untannable; between the surgery, the narcotics and her injuries, what little wintertime color she had before the accident vanished along with the blood left on the hillside. Monitors pulsed and blipped and otherwise recorded her reduced life force, if not her will to live. She was all Michael lived for right now.

It really hurt, knowing she had slept with his dad. No amount of apologies could wipe that away. But forgiveness was not dependent upon remembrance, and Michael would forgive his mother anything, even for loving him. He pressed his forehead against the cold skin of her hand, praying silently. Behind his eyes he kept seeing her shocked face and bloodshot eyes looking up. He could smell the vinegary aftermath of the alcohol on her breath wash over his face. She wasn't aware that half her leg was ripped open and ruptured arteries and veins were pumping away her life blood as she lay there apologizing for her imagined transgressions. He'd almost left, almost thumbed a ride down the mountain after she'd finally shown herself at breakfast, a ragamuffin with bloodshot eyes and a difficult walk that left no doubt what she and his dad had gotten up to in the neighboring room. And her reproachful, defiant, Don't you dare judge me glances over the breakfast table when all he wanted was to self-combust and do away with himself forever. That was the worst. Her need to defend herself against something that was not in any way wrong: reuniting with her husband. She was wrong about it being wrong. So wrong.

The hand beneath his forehead twitched. Michael looked up to discover his mom watching him through half-lidded eyes. He rose to call the nurse but Rachel groggily told him no.

"You're not supposed to be awake," Michael said.

"I'm not supposed to be alive, but I am." Her voice was the softest of whispers. She looked around beneath her half-closed eyelids, not moving her head. "Your father?"

"He took Effie back to the lodge. Mom, listen--"

"What time is it?"

Michael hesitated a moment confused, and then checked his watch. "11:44 PM. Why-?"

"Is it the same day?"

Perplexed, Michael told her it was.

"How long will I be in here?" she asked, almost unintelligibly.

"About a week. Maybe more, maybe a little less. They weren't sure."

"I love you, Michael," she said.

"I love you too, Mom," he said perfunctorily. "But-"

"No. I mean, I love you, Michael."

Michael looked into her sleepy, drug-muddled eyes. She was smiling, not dreamily, but hopefully, he realized. Leaning very close, he whispered: "I don't care that you're my mother. I don't care that you're 16 years older than me. I don't care that Dad wants you back in his life and Effie wants me out of it-" He nodded, confirming the troublesome news about her daughter. "The only thing that matters is that you get well so I can lay claim to you. You understand me?"

She grinned, giggling drunkenly. "I won't remember this in the morning. You know that...?"

"I'm counting on it," he said.

That eliminated her smile. "Don't you pull away from me Michael. Don't you do that to me."

Michael said fiercely. "I will do what's best for you, and damn the consequences. You're in this hospital because I didn't do what was best for you this morning, which was refuse to let you follow Dad onto that trail. When all this over and you've fully recuperated, we can talk about it then. Right now, you are the entire conversation. No ifs, ands or buts." He breathed in, forcing calmness over his thoughts. Embarrassed at the tirade, wanting to infuse a little lightness, he grinned and said: "I will promise you one thing, though."

"What's that?" she asked tremulously, trying not to cry.

"I intend to paddle your bare behind for your brainless stubbornness this morning."

She blinked in confusion, and then grinned, her face pinking in the dim light. "Is that a promise?"

"You have my word on it, mother dear."

She laughed, continuing to pink. "You might enjoy that more than you think. Your father certainly..." Her face darkened, from embarrassment of another kind. "Sorry. We won't go into that." She sought out his fingers and wrapped them weakly in hers. "I'm glad you're here. Mad at me or not."

Michael placed his lips at her ear and whispered: "I count on you not remembering this in the morning." His hand slipped out of hers and entered her hospital gown through the oversize sleeve and settled atop her small left breast. Rachel gasped and the reaction of her heart and blood pressure immediately registered on the surrounding monitors. Before releasing her, Michael whispered: "Forget this too: I plan to put this finger-" He tapped her hardened nipple with the tip of his middle finger. "-up you when you get home and make you wiggle like a wabbit, woman."

She squealed exactly like a teenager hearing his words, blushed bright red and slapped his hand through the flimsy gown, protesting "Stop that!" making the charge nurse come in and rudely kick him out. Expectedly, she remembered none of it in the morning.

* * *

Her hospital stay was 18 days. Four were spent in the ICU at Garrett County Memorial, the balance in and out of the ICU at Adventist Hospital after transfer by air ambulance to get her closer to home. Twice she developed infections in the wound, requiring IV antibiotics and resetting her discharge schedule. On her 7th day inside, the Saturday following the accident, Rachel developed a fever that baffled the doctors and sent everyone into a panic when it spiked at 105 degrees just before midnight and sent Rachel into convulsions. The nurses wrapped her upper body in a "cold suit', a compartmented vest which circulated chilled water to reduce her core temperature. The following day was bad for everyone when she slipped into a coma and didn't awaken for 33 hours. She had no memory of the previous two and a half days. On the nights Michael alternated with his dad, spending the night in her room, he reacquainted Rachel with his hand. She always became flushed and flustered.

"The nurse would call the police if she caught you doing that," she chastised. She eased his hand away and out the side of her gown. Michael replaced it, making Rachel sigh in exasperation. She filled his hand so softly. He'd taken to sneaking peeks whenever the opportunity presented itself and he found her beginner-breasts just so adorably fetching. Say what she wanted: they both knew she liked it when he touched her intimately.

To date, Michael had kept his hands above her waist. He loved her belly and delighted in teasing her belly button, which just left her so exasperated. On their nights together, they talked quietly about the future and what issues it held. The biggest issue, of course, was Jack. Rachel wanted nothing more to do with him, but so far, refused to discuss their Friday night and Saturday morning together. Michael didn't press her about it. He knew she was traumatized.

The other big issue was Effie. She remained steadfastly hostile and Michael worried she'd blurt out something in anger, or go to her father in cold calculating malice. She was particularly spiteful about Michael spending the night in her mother's room and he knew things would blow up once Mom was home and pieces started falling into place. It would get ugly. This preyed on Rachel and interfered with her recovery.

On the nights Michael remained at home, things with Effie were unbearable. Rachel forbad him to do anything interdictive. She'd deal with the problem herself, when she got home. Michael wondered how she would do that.

Far and away though, Michael's biggest worry was Jack, alone with his mom every other night. It preyed on him 10 times worse than this issue with Effie, a question mark that hung in the air on their nights together, until finally, three nights before her scheduled discharge, Rachel dropped the bomb.

"Your dad wants to move back in, Michael."

Every muscle in Michael's body locked. It was just after 10 o'clock and they were playing Virtual Strip Poker on his and her Kindle Fires. Michael fumbled and almost dropped his tablet. He looked at her with his heart in his mouth. "What did you say?"

"I told him no."

Michael's heart took off like a Roman candle. He immediately quashed his exhilaration knowing this wasn't the end of it. "What's the but?" he asked cautiously.

"He says I'm unable to care for myself. That I'll need a day-nurse or a home-care companion while you and Effie are at school. He says my hospital bill will be more than $200,000 and we have to start thinking about the expense of me being out of work for another three months while my leg heals and I undergo physical therapy. The doctors won't release me for anything but part-time or light duty work until they're satisfied of my recovery." She paused, closing the cover on the Kindle and setting it on her lap. Michael came and sat on the edge of the mattress and took her hand.

"Michael, if your father hadn't kept us on his insurance plan we'd be bankrupt now. Our portion of the bill will be over $40,000. Your dad's insurance sucks, but I don't have any at all. If we don't get back together..." Tears pooled and spilled down her cheeks; she wiped at them angrily. "I don't know how we'll survive, Michael. This will probably bankrupt us, even together. Do you know how much money I have in the bank?"

Michael shook his head, ashamed that he didn't know and hadn't thought about any of this before now.

"Not even $500, Michael. Your father's support payments cover the mortgage, puts food on the table, puts gasoline in our cars..." She laughed bitterly. "Michael, I don't even make $40,000 a year. Your father has always supported us. My salary paid for clothes, toys, things like these Kindles; anything non-essential. We are your dad's biggest expense and he's been living off his half of the savings to make ends meet. We can't maintain two separate residences anymore." She looked away, tears freely flowing down her cheeks. "I have to tell him yes or we'll lose the house and have to move in with him, Michael. Is that what we want?"