Love Always Wins Pt. 05 Ch. 26-32

Over the weeks that followed, Stef's heart labored on without cease while his muscles atrophied from lack of use. I took to moving all his limbs through their full range of motion so that they wouldn't lock up and so that his brain wouldn't "forget" that they were there. At least that is what I told myself I was doing—the activity may have been doing me more good keeping me sane than it was directly benefitting Stefan.

It was after one of these "exercise" sessions that I was sitting by the bed nursing Terri while I held Stef's hand. Suddenly, three things happened at once! Terri bit me on my nipple, Stef's hand suddenly gripped mine, and Stef's heart monitor suddenly bleeped flatline!

Terri let go of my nipple and screamed like a little banshee! I seconded her scream with one of my own! "Omigod, NOOOOOO!"

Stef's voice was at least a full octave lower than usual as his unused vocal cords began to vibrate. It took me a moment to realize that it was Stef that was speaking! "What? What the fuck? What the fuck are you trying to do?"

Stef's hand tightened on mine. It hurt, but I was afraid to try and pull it away! "I will NOT leave, you fucking sonofabitch!"

"GET OUT OF MY WAY, OR I'LL..." I felt bones snap in my hand and I screamed in pain! Stef's whole body seemed to jolt as if hit with electrocuting energy! His eyes literally slammed open and he practically levitated into a sitting position! His eyes focused on me and he wrapped his arms around me protectively! "Gwynn! What's wrong? Are you all right?" Suddenly, his voice softened. "Omigod, Terri! You're here too! Oh, thank the stars!"

Terri, who had been screaming nonstop and continuously kicking me in the belly (and hard) immediately stopped and brought forth a beatific smile that, had it been photographed, could have been sold for millions.

Stef looked around, and seeing no immediate threats, sort of wilted out of mother bear mode. Confusion was writ large in his eyes. "Uh, Gwynn, Where are we? What the hell is going on? Who are they?"

I looked over toward the door and saw Miriam, one of the older nurses sitting on a chair near the door. She was white as a sheet and staring at our little tableau. Leaning against the door jamb and looking worse for wear was Laura Nguyen. Behind Laura a crowd was beginning to gather.

Suddenly, a man in scrubs burst through the door practically running over Laura! "Where's the code blue? Why is everybody frozen in place? What the hell is going on here?"

Stef's eyes narrowed a bit and he tightened his hug on me imperceptibly. "No Stef! It's all right! Relax!"

I turned to address the newcomer. "Doctor, I think the code blue was a false alarm. However, I think that you need to check Miriam and Laura."

"What? Check who?" He looked at our little group and then turned around. "Good heavens! Nurse Smith, are you all right? You look like a ghost!"

Miriam took a shuddery breath and replied, "No, maybe I've seen one." Her eyes flickered nervously over Stef. "Maybe I am seeing one!"

"What do you mean?"

Miriam explained shakily, "I have never before seen someone connected to a flatlined heart monitor speak and then sit up! And the screaming! It sounded like something straight out of the halls of Hell! I'm probably going to be jumpy for a while, Doctor, but I think that I am going to be okay."

"Nurse Nguyen, you're crying! Did I hurt you when I barged through the door?"

Laura replied through her tears, "You did bump me, but my hurt is a lot deeper than that!"

"What do you mean?"

"My family became Quakers shortly after they arrived in the United States as refugees from Vietnam. When I heard little Terri scream..." She shook her head in wonder and pain. "God forgive me, but I would have killed anything or anyone who was trying to hurt her! And I would have done it with my bare hands if I had to!" She shook her head again. "I never imagined that such raw emotion and deadly purpose could exist in a human being—let alone me!" She stood there looking pale and drawn.

Mercedes, the head nurse for the current shift came through the door. "Okay, I've heard enough. Doctor, unless you need them for something important, I want both Miriam and Laura to take a half-hour break so they can try to get their heads screwed on straight again."

The doctor grinned. "Okay, Muramoto, I'm the new boy on the block and I see no reason to argue with you. Could you bring me up to speed on what we have here besides a faulty heart monitor?"

At this point, I decided to pipe up. "I don't think the monitor was faulty, but more importantly than that, I think that I have several broken bones in my hand that I would like to have taken care of."

Stef's eyes widened! "Broken? What happened?"

I gave Stef a sad little kiss. "You crushed my hand before you woke up."

Stef looked like I had just stabbed him through the heart! "I crushed...? Oh my fucking God! How? Why?" He looked like a little puppy that had just been whipped within an inch of its life for no reason whatsoever.

I gave my little puppy a warmer kiss. "Don't worry. If it was the price I had to pay to get you back, then I consider the price cheap!

Nurse Muramoto cut in at that point. "Doctor, she's a nurse. I'll bet money she's right and I suggest we get her down to Radiology right now."

"M'am, are you able to walk or do we need to get you a wheelchair?'

I felt Stef tense up and watched the panic build in his eyes. For that matter, I felt Terri kick me too. "Um, Doctor, I believe that I'm ambulatory, but I'm afraid we have a special situation here. Can my husband have a robe and a wheelchair so that he can accompany me with our daughter here?"

The Doctor spluttered a bit, looked around the room and then looked archly at Mercedes. "Nothing in here seems normal or standard. It seems I'm way behind the power curve in here. Muramoto, what's your take on this situation?"

"Doctor, it appears that Mr. Menzel has just come back from a... four or five-month coma." The Doctor's mouth fell open enough that he could have caught a lot more than the proverbial fly!

"By the way, Stefan, welcome back! Gwynn has told me so much about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you!"

Mercedes smoothly shifted gears back to the Doctor. "I suggest, Doctor, that two wheelchairs are in order and that we keep them close together so that Miss Terrence doesn't decide to call down bolts of lightening on us!" This was said with a light smile, but you could tell that Mercedes was at least half serious about it.

"I'll see if I can scrounge up two nurses with wheelchairs and we'll see about getting all the Menzels down toward Radiology."

The Doctor shook his head a bit and muttered, "Five-month coma! Lightening bolts!" He straightened his back and looked Mercedes right in the eye. "Muramoto, you are already down two nurses from your regular staff. Why don't you roust up two wheelchairs while I help Mr. Menzel into the robe that I see by the bed. Then we will push the Menzels to Radiology while you bring me up to speed on the history of the situation here."

Mercedes cracked a smile and replied, "That sounds like a deal I can't refuse. I'll be back in about five minutes, Doctor."

As Mercedes left the room, the Doctor turned to us and said, "And now, before we get everybody harnessed up for travel, I'd better demonstrate that I'm not a total barbarian!

"I'm Doctor Michael Daine." He extended his hand to me and I met him with my left. "Oho, so it's your right hand that has been broken. I hope that you're not right handed!"

I gave him a crooked smile and replied, "I guess the Universe wants me to work on becoming ambidextrous. Oh, and I'm Gwendolyn."

Daine gave me a rueful smile and sighed. "Well, pardon me for not thinking ahead—again! Anyway, I'm a contract physician and this is my first day here on the job."

Next, Daine turned to Stef and exchanged greetings and handshakes. "My goodness, Mr. Menzel; months in a coma and it shows! I'm glad we have a wheelchair coming for you!"

"Well, I may be stronger than my right hand shows. For some reason that hand feels like I have sprained or strained every single muscle from the elbow down!"

Daine looked over at me. "Was it just one hand that broke yours?"

I nodded.

"My goodness, Mr. Menzel, you hardly have any muscle tone at all! You mustered an ungodly level of focus to force your atrophied muscles to do what the average healthy person would not be able to do! What exactly happened here?"

Stef looked puzzled. "I don't know. I heard Gwynn scream, a big voice from somewhere said, 'Love always wins!' and the next thing I know was that I was holding Gwynn."

I had to butt in! "What do you remember before that?"

"I, uh..." Stef's eyes rolled up and he paused. "G, gosh. I had just put my hand on Terri's back and welcomed her to the world. She... and she..." Tears began running down Stef's face. "I heard her shout in my head, 'Daddy I love you! Never, never, never give up!' All of a sudden it felt like something hit me! Then all my limbs started feeling tingly like they were going to sleep and my eyes seemed to be getting darker and darker—then nothing! And you're telling me that this was months ago?" Stef looked at Terri as if to verify that she was indeed older than when he had welcomed her into the world.

Doctor Daine took a deep breath. "That is." He paused while searching for an appropriate word. "Impressive!"

Daine shifted his attention to Terri who was wide-eyed and looking directly at him. "And this is the lady of the lightening bolts, ay? Oops, I mean that this is the BEAUTIFUL lady with the lightening bolts!" He extended a finger toward Terri and she gripped it with a smile.

"My goodness, Doctor, I thought you'd have the patient in a robe by now!" We all turned to see Mercedes standing in the doorway with two wheelchairs and a grin that went from ear to ear!

Daine spluttered in embarrassment until Mercedes continued, "It's all right Doctor. Every one of the staff talks about there being magic in this room ever since Miss Terrence got here. It's gotten to the point that this is the first place I look if I've lost track of a nurse."

Stef was helped into a robe and a front-carry baby pack for Terri, we got into the wheelchairs and we began our journey to Radiology. Our progress was rather slow since all of the staff that we passed, ambulatory patients whose rooms we passed, and visitors seemingly from all over the hospital stopped us every few feet to give us hugs and to introduce themselves to Stef.

Radiology only found one broken bone in my hand, but I'll wager that there were a few hairline fractures that never showed up in the X-rays. I think that the fact that my hand turned almost completely black from bruising backs up my hairline diagnosis. The bruising was bad enough that for a while I wondered if I had gangrene instead of just a mere bruise.

Chapter XXXII

STEFAN

Both Gwynn and I were awkward lefties for a while. She had her hand in something that looked like a cross between a splint and a cast and I was virtually paralyzed from the elbow down while the micro tears in my muscles and the strains in my tendons healed. The upside to this situation was that we learned to coordinate our efforts to perform two-handed tasks with two left hands! The left-handed oopsies that resulted occasioned laughter more often than frustration. Even Terri didn't seem to mind when her two left-handed klutzes worked to change her diapers.

Oh, yes, there was another discrepancy that added to the merriment. I had been comatose for so long that Gwynn was easily ten times stronger than me. We quickly learned to divide our left-handed labor by the amount of strength needed to perform each part of a coordinated task.

Except for my right hand, the fine folks in Physiology got me built up well enough in a few weeks that I was able to bring my body the rest of the way up to full strength on my own. For a while though, I was really worried about my right hand.

Even after the pain and stiffness went away, strength did not seem to want to return to the muscles of the hand and forearm! For what seemed like forever, the hand seemed to want to flop around at the wrist seemingly completely subject to the whims of gravity and almost totally unresponsive to the instructions that I tried to send through the nerves. The good news is that I was able to drive nails by the time Terri was one—well, I guess full disclosure is in order on that one—my right hand took so long about coming back that I am now ambidextrous with a hammer!

The coma seems to have left me with a few souvenirs. I was totally deaf in my right ear when I came out of the coma. The doctors and I both have been pleasantly surprised that the hearing loss has been slowly creeping away over the years.

When Gwynn gets me hot and bothered in inappropriate circumstances (something that she has made into one of her favorite hobbies) I have been unable to use differential equations to keep Little Stefan from getting too rowdy. In fact, I have almost concluded that it is never coming back and that if I decide that I need it in the future, I will have to learn the Calculus all over again almost from scratch!

Wonder of wonders! I have discovered that I can meditate now! The downside is that it is now too easy for a newbie like me! I've done a little exploration and if I'm not careful it's sort of like taking a person, who has never even seen metal, from a tribe in the Amazon and putting them into a formula one race car in the middle of a race!

Don't get me wrong, there are real benefits to meditating, but for me at least, it is now really easy for me to get into water that is way over my head in this new environment. I have decided that I need to find someone who is a lot more skilled in this new world than I am so that I don't wind up doing something really stupid! I think that's really important since I have discovered that there is a lot of scary stuff on the other side and it goes so crazy deep that it would be easy to get lost out there forever!

I have found a group of agile minds that like to gather at one of the local coffee shops and chat about the fact, fancy, and philosophy of life. They have suggested (tongue in cheek, I hope) that if I were to commit suicide, then I would become a full spirit (whatever that means) without whatever limitations that still tie me down to this dimension, or subroutine, or whatever it is that we live in. I think that the argument holds water, but so far, I'm having too much fun in this life to try that particular experiment!

By the time Terri had her first birthday, Gwynn and I had decided that since the town had adopted us, we should return the favor. The first sign of our "adoption" was the nicknames that the townfolk started calling us by; Gwynn was "Wonder Woman," and Terri was "Supergirl." In my case, I'm usually called "Stef" and "Stefan" except when the conversation gets around to Terri's birth and my convalescence; then I often find myself being addressed as "Mr. Winston" as an allusion to Churchill's never, never, never speech. It's all kind of cute and loving, but I do worry a bit about Terri if she winds up carrying that particular moniker through her teenage years. Gwynn and I are hoping that by the time Terri gets to those confusing years she has shed "Supergirl" and only carries "Terri" as her friendly alias.

Frankly, adopting the town was an easy decision for more reasons than just wanting to reciprocate with love. It's not that this town is any sort of utopia. Utopia implies perfection, and perfection is one of those fabulous and nonexistent unicorns that are useful only to demagogues, sociopaths, politicians, and other social parasites that the human race is infested with.

What we found in this cozy little town were real people that had not been poisoned by the belief that win/lose deals imposed by a perfectly (there's that word again) benevolent government was the glowing highway to heaven instead of the radioactive highway to hell that it really is. Instead win/win deals were the decentralized currency of the local culture!

On top of that, if you needed help for a real problem, all you had to do was ask and help would be coming out of the woodwork! If you didn't bother anyone, nobody would bother you. If you hurt someone on purpose, then you'd best get out of town!

Related to that advice, there were stories floating around town about some boneheaded federal law enforcement officer who disappeared without a trace after putting a family out of business basically for not crossing "Ts" and dotting "Is." Whether the stories were true or not, they certainly gave a couple of disillusioned citizens like Gwynn and me a warm spot in our hearts!

Gwynn and I also guessed that the small size of the town discouraged the average narcissist, sociopath or political parasite since the pickings were easier and much bigger in the concrete jungles.

We bought a few acres on the outskirts of town and lived in the trailer while we built a regular house on the property. After the house was livable, we would take the trailer into the Northern Rockies during the heat of the summer and then return for the cooler months of the year.

When we're at home, Gwynn works at the hospital and I split my time between keeping the property up and playing Mr. Mom. When we are on the road, I am driver Dad and Gwynn is navigator Mom. Oh, and Terri is the queen of questions and side trips!

Terri is now five going on thirty! She was almost four when she pulled the stunt that Ivan had pulled on me when he was six. "Daddy, you read too slow! Let me have the book and let me read for myself."

She makes up for that put-down when we are in public. Any time that a poor, well-intentioned soul gets into a conversation with her and comes up with a line like, "Are you having a good time with your grandpa?" she gives me a hug and, in no uncertain terms, states, "This is my Daddy, NOT my grampa!"

If you haven't already guessed, my little darling has me wrapped around her little finger so tight that I can hardly see straight!

Last year, a while after the reading surprise, Terri caught me playing around with a few programs on the computer and now she is doing real programming on her own computer! Gwynn and I have decided that in about another month, we will get together with a local group of home schoolers and let Terri's learning process really take off!

Oh yes! And about two years ago, Gwynn blessed Terri and me with another little bundle of love. Thorstein (named after Gwynn's maternal grandfather) arrived without the angst that surrounded Terri's birth but, I swear, has been running for President since the first day he opened his eyes! Thor definitely has a mind of his own! He has Gwynn wrapped around his little finger as well as Terri has me wrapped around hers. He will listen to me when he has to, but what I have learned is that Terri has Thor figured out and that when it is really important for me to get through to my little Viking berserker, I have a pertinent chat with Terri and shortly thereafter, Thor shifts gears. It probably helps that at this stage of life, Thor thinks that the sun rises and sets at Terri's command. At any rate, anybody who messes with this pair had better watch their step—and that's even before Mom and Dad decide they need to get involved!

It's been a rough ride from time to time over the past five years, but I wouldn't change it for anything; little Terri and her Mother have conspired to make me the happiest man on the planet! I just hope that I'm doing an equally good job of making them happy!

GWENDOLYN and TERRANCE

Psst! Yes he is! As near as we can tell, Thor would agree too. Love always wins!