Matrimonium Interuptus

Meanwhile Miranda was in the hospital talking to Noa and the principal of the school. Steve was still under sedation but out of immediate danger. Noa was already angry but became furious when Patricia arrived and related what happened this morning.

She also said that she scanned the footage and that she was quite sure that Ms. Garlant went straight, without stopping, to her car. She certainly did not inform anyone about her departure that night.

The principal interfered saying, "Noa, you're too involved now. It has become personal to you. I know that you and Mr. Poulsson are good friends. I'll deal with this. Ms. Garlant has some serious explaining to do."

He turned to Kathryn and Patricia, "I need someone to look after his interests now Mr. Poulsson himself is incapable of doing that. Because he was doing volunteer work for the school when the accident occurred, we will contact our insurance company for this."

Patricia and Kathryn looked at each other. Patricia asked Miranda if the two women could have some privacy. When the girl was out of earshot she said to Kathryn. "Are you up to it? There are two reasons you should do it."

Kathryn looked nonplussed at the other woman. "What do you mean by that? You are his girlfriend."

"I'm not!" Answered Patricia emphatically. "I'm a very good friend with, sometimes, benefits. But it is your daughter and his, ahh, stepdaughter. He loves you both dearly. It's one hell of a chance to get on his good side again and by the looks of you, you want that and badly too."

"I, I, I don't know what to say. Is it so obvious?"

"Yah. Now get to work and tell the principal that you'll handle everything. I'll help if necessary."

Kathryn looked at the principal and emphatically said, "I'll be the one taking care of Steve's business."

She took out a card from her purse and scribbled her private phone number on the back.

The principal, together with Noa left and Kathryn started to look for a nurse or a doctor. When she found Dr. Samuelson, he gave her good news. Steve was out of danger and transferred from the intensive care to the special care unit. Now he only had to heal and he needed revalidation. He also told them that they could go and see Steve but that it still wasn't pretty.

Kathryn, Miranda and Patricia walked the labyrinthian corridors from the hospital until they arrived at the special care unit where Steve now was taken care of.

Steve was lying on his back, half covered by a blanket. His torso was covered with bandages from some of which a tube was coming out.

Slowly breathing he looked pale and very tired. All three women burst into tears and Patricia said with gritted teeth, "That lazy witch is going to pay for this."

Tuesday morning.

Rachel walked into her classroom. She looked at the children. They had all very tight faces, especially the children she went to camp with.

She hadn't put her briefcase on her desk before the first question was fired at her. "Ms. Garlant, where were you Sunday morning?"

"What do you mean? Why do you ask? I told Mr. Poulsson that I had business to attend and would be back on Monday. "

"If you did, can you explain why Mr. Poulsson was trying to save you out of the flooded tent?"

Before Rachel was able to come up with an acceptable answer someone said just too loud to be sotto voce, "Afraid of a bit of water? Deserter!"

Rachel almost exploded and shouted angrily, "Who said that?"

Half the children in the class got up, looking back just as angrily.

The door opened, Noa looked around and took in the scene. She said, "It seems I'm just in time. By the way, Ms. Garlant, the principal, wants a word. I'm here to take over the class."

"Why does the principal want to talk with me?"

Noa replied with barely held back animosity, "As if you don't know already, but I'm certain that you will be told."

Rachel left the classroom without a word. Noa looked at the children and when they were silent again, told them that Miranda's stepfather was not in imminent danger anymore but still very ill.

A sigh of relief went through the classroom. All children met Steve one way or another and they liked him immensely.

Rachel walked over to the administration's office. When she entered, she was met with the principal, the human resource officer and the legal advisor of the school. The principal gestured to a chair and told her to be seated.

"Can you explain why you left camp on Sunday and only just showed up at school?" The HR-officer asked her when Rachel was seated.

Rachel sat straight, crossed her legs and decided to go in attack mode replying, "Just before I left, I told Mr. Poulsson that I had to go home to attend some urgent and private business that came up. He agreed with me. What's the problem?"

"Just before you left the camp? You didn't walk straight to the car with your belongings and drove off?" The lawyer asked.

"No. Mr. Poulsson told me to go."

"Harrumpff!" The principal loudly cleared his throat. "So, when Mr. Poulsson tried to save you from a tent that threatened to be swept away by the raging river, it was because he had forgotten that you were gone. How convenient."

He let the implied accusation hang in the air. There was a dead silence for a while. The principal started again but this time his voice was soft but every word was pronounced with a cold and calculating precision. "Mrs. Garlant, you have one chance and one only to tell us exactly what happened. If you maintain your lies, we will hold you responsible for what happened to Mr. Poulsson and act accordingly."

Rachel replied angrily, "What! You dare to call me a liar? Do you know who my father is?"

The lawyer replied coldly, "It doesn't matter what or who your father is. We are giving you a chance to clarify your side of this unsavory affair. The fact is that, as a representative of this school, you abandoned the children entrusted to you and, through your negligence, endangered a volunteer's life."

Finally, it dawned on Rachel that this conversation wasn't going her way. She decided to bluff her way out. "I've had enough, I can see where this discussion is going and I won't stand for it. I'll leave now. You will be hearing from my father's lawyers."

When Rachel was out of the door the HR-officer asked the lawyer, "Did we just 'forget' to mention that her father already knows everything and has the recording of his daughter abandoning the camp?"

The lawyer only smirked and said, "I anticipated that reaction. Her father asked me to let him 'handle' his daughter if we keep her in our employ. I've had dealings with Mr. Garlant before, I trust him, so I agreed to that."

====

Meanwhile Kathryn woke up in a hospital chair, slowly painfully and disoriented. Her body was stiff and sore. She looked around and saw a doctor and a nurse examining Steve. "How is he?" She croaked.

The nurse nudged the doctor who was concentrating on the examinations. The doctor grumbled, "I can tell you, but if you can be patient for another ten minutes, I can be more specific about it."

Kathryn walked out of the chamber to find herself a cup of coffee and something to eat. When she returned the doctor was just putting away his stethoscope and went to wash his hand.

He turned around, looked at his patient and said, "He is out of danger. Mind you, he is not out of the woods, yet. He has a lot of healing to do and those operations, though necessary, didn't do him any good either. For the healing part, I mean. Extra zippers and so on. I adjusted his medicines so he will wake-up within the next two hours. I reckon that you will be there?"

"Yes, doctor. You can bet on it."

====

Later that morning Rachel entered the office of her father.

Robert Garlant waved her over to a chair while studying one of his computer screens. When done he picked up his phone and told his secretary, "I don't want to be disturbed until I tell you otherwise."

He looked at his daughter, "It's been a very long time since you graced me with a visit, daughter of mine. One would almost think that you had forgotten the old man in his office."

"Daddy, That's not true." Rachel said in a petulant voice.

"Can you remember when the last time was you visited me?"

"Daddy, I've been busy. I have a lot of things to do!" She exclaimed, annoyed.

"Mind your tone, young lady. I'm still your father."

This was different from what Rachel, the few times she visited father, used to and she was suddenly out of words.

"I can only conclude that you visit me only when there is trouble on the horizon. "Robert held up his hand to stop her interrupting, "But now they're not on the horizon. You are up to your neck in trouble."

"I'm not!" Rachel almost shouted."

"Oh yes you are. And from now on you are going to solve your own problems. I'm appalled by your behavior last weekend."

"I didn't do anything wrong. I told them that I was going home."

"That's a blatant lie, and we both know it. You walked straight to your car and left."

"So what? It's my word against that work drone. Who are they going to believe?" The now very angry woman shouted to her father.

Rachel took a breath before continuing her rant and looked at her father's face. She stopped and realization dawned on her that something very quickly became very problematic for her.

For a few minutes, but for the tick tock of the large clock, there was absolute silence in the office

"I see." Robert almost whispered, "May I remind you that before I became lucky and became a successful trader, I was one of those work drones? Just a 'lowly' mechanic in your eyes?

"I now realize that I made a bad mistake, a terrible bad mistake to have you being raised by your aunt. She put some very, very wrong ideas in your head and sent you to the wrong schools as well. My fault, not paying enough attention and now there is a price to pay."

Rachel dreaded the words. She could feel that this didn't bode well. She didn't dare to interrupt her father. She only saw him once acting like this and that time, half a village lost their jobs because they had torched the house of an immigrant family who had started a construction company and was outperforming the local competition.

Robert Garlant had heard what had happened. He closed his mill saying that he didn't want to employ racists and now she was the focus of his anger.

"It's time that you take responsibility for your actions, or lack thereof. I talked to the principal of the school and he is, now, willing to keep you on as a teacher. On probation, mind you. He will tell you all about it. I for my part will divert your allowance into a school fund to support parents who don't have the means to pay for all the school costs. That means that you, from now on, only have your salary for an income.

"I'll also reimburse the school and Mr. Poulsson for all costs that occur from your desertion this weekend. The last thing I will do is to send your aunt back to Europe with a small allowance so she isn't able to be such bad influence to you again.

"She abused my trust and overstayed her welcome. And you, my dear, will face a much, much harder life. The life of those people you look so down on. I wish you wisdom and strength and for now. Get out of my sight."

Some days later.

Steve was slowly waking up. His first indication that something was wrong was a pounding headache together with a dull aching pain in his ribcage and the sensation that he was tied down.

With difficulty, he opened his eyes. It felt as if his eyelids were glued together. When he had his eyes finally open and he could focus, he just took in his surroundings. I'm in a hospital. How did I get here?

Then he noticed Kathryn dozing in a chair. He tried to say her name but his mouth was parched. It sounded somewhat like a frog with a sore throat.

Kathryn shot out of her chair, "Steve, you're awake!" She cried, "Wait, I'll call the nurse." and pushed a button.

The nurse came in, said, "One moment please." and she went out again. A minute or two later she was back again with a glass of water and Dr. Samuelson was following her shortly behind.

He looked at Steve and said, "I'm not going to ask how you feel. I can guess. Now you're awake I'm going to loosen the restraints. They were there to avoid you, rupturing our handiwork. After that the nurse will wet your parched throat so that you can speak a bit better."

Ten minutes later Steve was able to croak, "What happened? Why is Kathryn here? Is there something wrong with Miranda as well?"

Dr. Samuelson interrupted. The last thing he wanted was that his patient was getting more upset than he already was.

"You arrived here within an inch of going into shock. You lost too much blood and plasma can only do so much. We had to operate in order to find the bleeding that caused it and when we found that we also discovered that your diaphragm was ruptured too, so we had to operate on that as well. You have a lot of bruising and two broken ribs. Luck has it that they didn't puncture your lung. After that we kept you in a coma for a few days to recuperate. As to what happened, I think the ladies can tell you better than I do. Are you with me so far?"

Steve nodded his assent. Meanwhile Kathryn was calling her daughter and Patricia.

When Dr. Samuelson was gone, Steve asked, "Kathryn, why are you here? Don't you have work to do?"

Kathryn answered lightly, but with her heart throbbing in her throat because she was afraid of Steve's possible unwillingness to let her take care of him.

"Noa mediated by Mr. Donne a more important task than number crunching. Namely taking care of you. So, I'm here to take care of you."

Steve grunted and thought, why do I have the feeling that I'm being set-up? At the same time, it's not that bad. Rather my ex-wife than a battleship of a nurse trying to bully me into submission.

Unwilling to show his happiness about it, he asked, "We're divorced. You found another man. Why for Pete's sake would you want to take care of me?"

Kathryn anticipated this question. Seven years of marriage taught her enough to know how he ticked and she had her answer ready. She decided to be brutally honest with him, the only way to deal with this situation. Steve would spot any subterfuge a mile off.

She replied, "There are two reasons, equally important. I overheard Miranda calling you dad when on the phone with Patricia. And Miranda needs her father badly. I've seen up close what happens when you are out of her picture."

She took a deep breath, looked at the ground and almost whispered, "You took care of Miranda, even after that judge kicked you out of her life. That wasn't my doing. I never asked for that. Stupid judge."

Kathryn stopped for a moment, to gather all her courage, and in an even softer voice. "I've been the stupidest bitch on any dayside of this planet to treat you as I did and I regret it every day still.

"I'm not whole and never was since you, rightly divorced me. I still love you dearly, with all my heart and I'll take any chance to have another shot with you. I will not force myself upon you, but I'll do my damnedest."

Steve was thunderstruck by Kathryn's admission. He thought she went on with her life and tolerated him because of his positive influence on Miranda. But she didn't go on with her life and did more than tolerate him.

Now what? Do I allow her in my life? Even when it's for the timespan I need caring? Can I trust her? If this, one way or the other, doesn't work out and we hate each other's guts after all, what about Miranda?

He carefully replied, "Don't be disappointed that I am not going to jump enthusiastically out of bed. I'm just awake and already I can see some serious issues along the road."

Kathryn, inwardly, sighed from relief. Steve didn't dismiss the idea right out of hand. She looked up and into his eyes, "Let me take care of you. It's the least I can do. You already did so much for me."

Steve raised one eyebrow.

Quickly she continued, "Taking care of Miranda, saving her from that pusher-pimp and putting her straight. Again, I blame myself for it by being so stupid to step aside from our wedding vows. I'm so deeply sorry for the hurt I caused you, and for what? Just for the excitement? It was hardly pleasant and so not worthwhile. Please let me take care of you for the time being?"

Steve caved. Kathryn was sincere. Of that he was certain. "All right." he grumbled "Just for the time being."

Surprised that Steve so quickly conceded, she asked, "I reckon that, when you are released from the hospital, you want to stay in your own house. Do you have room for me to stay for the duration?"

Steve thought for a moment and said, "Sure. Maybe it's for the best. Miranda can be involved too. I think she needs that. Ask Miranda to show you around."

Kathryn looked at the clock and told Steve, "OK, Miranda will be here soon, with Patricia. I'll go home, clean up and pack. I'll be back soon and take Miranda with me to your house, if that's ok with you. Where does she sleep? If I may ask?"

"In the workshop is a small living-unit that she appropriated. She's very happy there. I sleep on the second floor in the room with the balcony. Miranda will show you."

Kathryn walked to the door. Suddenly she turned back, walked over to the bed and gave Steve a soft kiss on his lips saying, "I love you, really I do and this was to thank you for taking care of Miranda. Our daughter as she sees it."

Quickly she left the room, leaving Steve confused behind. He didn't have much time to ponder over it because Miranda almost bounced onto his bed, just before Patricia entered saying quickly, "Easy girl. Steve's awake but very fragile. Be careful!"

====

The healing was slow work. After 20 days in hospital, he was finally released and sent home, together with a book full of advice and instructions. A nurse would come by once a day to check his wounds and he could expect the physiotherapist the day after tomorrow.

During his time in the hospital he had one unexpected visitor.

The elderly man walked into his room using a beautifully crafted Malacca cane. He took Steve's hand, saying, "May I introduce myself? I'm Robert Garlant, shamefully the father of your stepdaughter's mentor."

Steve immediately had his guards up. R. Garlant noticed. He didn't forge a multi-national trade company without being a very good observer of people's body language.

Quickly he said, "I'm here to apologize and to see if there is anything, I can do to assist you with. But firstly. Please accept my apologies for the behavior of my daughter. I made a grave error in asking my sister-in-law to take care of my children after their mother passed away. Now I must make amends and some very harsh corrections to mold them into responsible and social human beings. That doesn't help you. I know. But I will reimburse any loss you suffer during your convalescence. What is it that you do anyway?"

Steve noticed that the man was brutally honest with himself and started to like him. "Mr. Garlant."

"Robert, please."

"Robert. First, thank you for your concern and I don't know if I lost something."

Steve explained what he did for work and saw Robert's eyes lighten up. He asked, "Do you have any references? Maybe we can come to a business arrangement that is mutual beneficial for us both"

Steve mentioned four companies he had worked for. They chatted for a while and Rachel's father departed from Steve on a good note.

====

Steve was home, Finally, he thought. Not that he was able to do much. He was as weak as a kitten. He had lost a lot of blood and the bruising and his ribs were very painful and he had hardly exercised in the hospital.

Kathryn had set him up in his bedroom. She arranged a stool in the bathroom but now a nurse, a proper battleship indeed, was giving him a bed bath because the woman deemed Steve not fit enough to take a shower. Luckily it was only for the first few days.