We're a Wonderful Wife Ch. 11

Don stopped and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. "They're all at Mercy General Hospital, everyone but me. They just got Karole out from under the car about thirty minutes ago. Then I got interviewed on live TV and blamed everything on a company called Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting."

"Ok, Huy is driving down to the airport to hop the redeye with Dad right now, you're definitely going to need a lawyer. Tam will be coming with Sandy and Ralph a bit later... you sound like shit."

"I love you too," said Don as he put the SUV back in gear and headed toward Mercy General. It was snowing now.

"Really, you sound like crap, when's the last time you ate?"

"I don't know ummm..." he looked at his watch. "Twenty-five hours ago."

"Ok, I need you to pull into a Mickey D's, you need a QPC and a large Sprite. STAT."

"No fries?"

"Do not think I'm kidding you, I'm an accountant, I know things. You need carbs and sugar, so you need fries too. Get some fries for Krissy, she needs to get something nice for her first Christmas. Kids love fries."

Don choked back the emotions that were flooding his senses and he realized again that not only was Krissy's first Christmas ruined, he was missing his son's first Christmas. His hand sought out the pill bottle in his pocket and he said, "Thank you darling, I love you sis."

"I love you too little brother," after they said their goodbyes, Kim-ly hung up the phone and fought back the tears. Echoes of what happened to Don three years ago were hitting her as hard as they were hitting Don. She looked at her dad in the front seat and he looked like he was the one that was run over. He aged twenty years in one evening, he and Mai met even younger than Don and Lanh were when they met and except for one stint in the military he and Mai have never been separated. Huy looked back at Kim-ly and said, "Are you ok?"

"Keep your eyes on the road and no, I'm just as fucked up as everyone else." Huy's car raced west to Grand Forks where they were able to get a flight to Denver. It cost four times what a flight out of Minneapolis would cost, but it was closer and Huy had points to pay for the tickets.

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Don and Lanh spent Christmas Eve, their most precious day in their calendar, in the hospital. Lanh had a crushed leg, broken ribs, and a broken wrist, and maybe more. CT scans were scheduled for tomorrow and surgery scheduled for the day after Christmas. Mai hit her head when she fell and was being held for observation. Don was sitting in the recliner next to Lanh's bed, she had surgery scheduled on her femur on the day after Christmas. Mai was laying on the couch in Lanh's room, she had a room nearby, but she refused to remain in bed while her daughter was injured so the fold down couch in Lanh's room was made up for her. Right now, they're waiting for word on Karole's condition, she's been in emergency surgery for four hours. Little Krissy finally cried herself to sleep on Don's lap. Lanh groaned in pain as Don sat by her side, holding her hand, shocked at the turn their Christmas Eve took.

Don quietly whispered, "Happy anniversary... Lanh à, em yêu chi."

She was a little confused, then remembered that those were the first words he had ever spoke in Vietnamese seventeen years ago. Lanh's brother Bao had convinced him that it was what a boy tells a girl when he gives her a nice present. It really means "Lanh, I love you." Poor sixteen-year-old Lanh was caught completely off guard, here was her very first boyfriend, they only met three weeks previously, and now he was professing his love for her.

Through the pain she remembered her response to him that Christmas day so very long ago... "Cảm ơn bạn," Vietnamese for thank you. Well... what else could she say? He was bowing politely and deeply and was offering her a gift as politely as possible. If she had said anything else, he would have been insulted. He clearly didn't understand what he had said, her brother Bao, Kim-ly's twin brother had taught Don that Vietnamese term and played a prank on him. He had meant to embarrass the young teens and he did a good job of it.

Lanh tried not to cry as she squeezed his hand and murmured "Cảm ơn bạn, Donovon à, chi yêu em." (Thank you, I love you)

"This must be what it was like for you when I was injured in Saudi Arabia," whispered Don. "The waiting and not knowing is horrible."

"No," said Lanh, "I was on an airplane and people brought me coffee." Her attempt at humor fell flat. She leaned toward him, and he leaned toward her, and they sat with their heads touching until she whimpered, "ow."

"Is there anything I can get you? Do you want coffee?" Don asked. Lanh once said that coffee was the cure for all evils.

"No, I want some of those pills in your pocket."

"You know about that?" Don was surprised she knew about his stash that he kept hidden in a small safe in a closet. He thought it was set on a shelf too high for the tiny woman to reach.

"Uh huh... ow." She tried to nod but her neck ached so much from being compressed she was in a neck brace, and it hurt to try to move it.

Don looked and felt guilty as hell, but he was honest with her. "Ok, I admit it, I have an exit strategy. If you go, I won't be far behind."

"You can't go now," said Lanh. "Krissy needs you... Danh needs you."

Don just sighed, she was right, someone has to care for Krissy now, there's no one there for her... he's a daddy now... "I'm still going to follow you, so you can't go anywhere."

Lanh tried to laugh, "Put it all on me? Is that how we roll now? ow ow ow"

"That's how we roll," said Don, happy that Lanh is showing a bit of humor now, but he felt awful that it hurt her.

"I think reminding Karole of all the good times we had helped her when... when she was under... under the..." Lanh started weeping trying desperately to do it quietly, trying urgently not to wake Krissy. She finally said, "I think it helped."

"I've never told this to anyone," said Don very softly. "When I was in that truck being crushed, I heard a voice reminding me of you and reminding me of our love and telling me that you were waiting for me... I think that was your angel and she helped me stay alive. I heard her today talking to Krissy."

Lanh suddenly stiffened, "I heard her too... she was telling Karole to remember about us and Krissy, but also someone named Norma, and someone named Reggie."

There was a tap at the door and a nurse poked her nose in. "Knock knock," the nurse said quietly. "Is Mrs. Nguyen here?"

"I'm right here," said Mai from the couch beneath the window.

"Oh good, the night shift said you were a hard one to keep track of, I have your meds for you," and she wheeled a small table in the room with her. She poured Mai a cup of water and handed her a small cup full of pills. Mai sat up and took her pills, then she remained sitting up and watched Lanh and Don.

The nurse turned around to Lanh and said, "we have your meds here for you too." She had a cup of water with a straw and fed Lan her pills one at a time. When she was done the nurse explained how to order breakfast with their system then left.

She returned an hour later to check in on Lanh and Mai and found them both asleep. Krissy was fully asleep too but Don was sitting, awake, staring at the wall wondering where it all went so horribly wrong. "Mister Campbell?"

"Yes?" Don replied without turning.

"Miss Krigbaum is out of recovery if you want to see her."

"Ok," Don said quietly. His arm and leg where Krissy sat was completely asleep, she cried herself unconscious hours ago. Slowly he got up and tried moving around, his back hurt from all the insanity of the evening. He slowly stood up and realized that he should have had that shattered hip replaced two years ago. A hip replacement at twenty-nine? That's just not right. He stifled the groans and stood then whispered, "Where is she?"

"She's in the ICU. You can't take the little one, she has to stay up here."

Don felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest, he also felt guilty for feeling relief that he couldn't go talk to Karole right now. He started to slowly ease his way into that recliner when Mai whispered, "I'll watch her."

Don almost said that polite "That's ok, I'll wait," but wait for what? Don muscled his way back to standing and carried the limp little moppet to Mai and laid her down next to her new grandmother.

"Don't lose her," teased Don with a playful smile. "I just signed the papers on her."

"Papers?" asked a confused Mai.

"Last month Karole asked me to sign a power of attorney," Don whispered. "It's like she saw this coming." He watched as Krissy sighed in contentment and snuggled up to Mai.

"Just like her Aunt Tam," Mai said. "She used to snuggle so good."

"I would think that Lanh was the good snuggler," Don smiled, "she is now."

"When Lanh snuggled, she was hiding out of fear," said Mai, "she was so little... she was tiny and afraid of everything."

Don looked at Lanh, bandaged and splinted, her right leg and left hand elevated, he remembered how terrified she was of everything after Joshua Grimes attacked her. She never felt comfortable about being in that school ever again, she was terrified about everything, but she eventually regained her courage before they returned from Germany. Don remembered how strong she was, even after they learned they couldn't have children, she got over the shock and stood tall, she practically owned Korea, and she ran the spouses' clubs like she was the base commander. She was so strong when he got so horribly injured himself, she was there for him to lean on, now he had to be there for her. Then he remembered the spouses' clubs. He unplugged Lanh's phone from the charger and looked up in her contacts and found Annie #1 and dialed the number.

The phone was answered on second ring. "You had better be one of Santa's fucking elves to be calling at this time of the morning on December twenty fifth!"

"Yeah, that's me Royce. Ho ho ho. Is Annie available?"

"That depends Campbell, what do you plan to do to her?"

"Something you've never been able to get her to do, cook dinner."

"That's cold Campbell, cold sick and kinky. And I'm going to watch. God damn it's good to hear your voice son, when are you coming down here? That ocean is getting over stocked, we need to do some fishing."

Don almost wept with relief when he heard the familiar grouchy voice of Chief Master Sergeant Royce Brown. "As soon as we can Chief, first I need to talk to Annie." Don knew the moment he said Chief that he fucked up. Chief Brown hates being called Chief now that he's been promoted from Chief Brown to Mister Brown.

"Oh, we're using titles, are we? Let me see if the lady of the house is in. Missus Brown? Doctor Campbell would like to speak with you." After a moment of muffled speaking Annie Brown came on the phone. "Don? What's wrong?"

Don almost asked what made her think something was wrong, but it was five o'clock in the morning in Florida, no one except drunks and people in trouble call across the country at this time on Christmas morning. "I'm sorry Annie, I hate having to call whenever there's a problem, but Lanh got runover by a car."

Annie is a potential relative of Lanh; they are both from the Vietnamese Nguyen family and grew close in Germany and are still close as sisters. She thought Don was kidding, or at least exaggerating when he said she got run over. Don gave a quick rundown of what happened and included his TV interview just to show that Doctor Campbell is just as capable as Airman Campbell at sticking his foot in his mouth and getting into trouble. "Oh my God Donovan! What do you want me to do? I can be there in twenty-four hours..."

"No Annie, I just want to know when you can talk to Lanh, we don't want to interrupt any family things you have going, I don't know how she's going to be feeling either."

"We're just having a quiet day at home; the girls won't be here until tomorrow evening."

Don sighed, Annie and Royce had two daughters, both USAF officers, one is a B-1 pilot, the other is a captain in logistics. They met with Lanh and Don and taught them how to snorkel and catch scallops. "Say hi to Jia and Xuan for me, I'm sorry we haven't been able to get down there... you know the usual excuses."

"We do... life is like shit, it happens," said Annie. Annie is a beautiful, elegant daughter of a Vietnamese scholar, and over 30 years of living with Royce has maximized the number of four-letter words in her vocabulary.

After saying goodbye to Annie, Don leaned over and kissed Mai on the forehead. "Keep an eye on our little girls," and he headed off to the ICU.

There in the ICU he met with her surgeon who was exhausted and was looking to head home. "Are you her husband?"

"No, you'll probably be seeing my wife on boxing day," said Don as he unfolded copies of the power of attorney that he brought from home. He suspected that he may need them to get answers regarding Karole's hospitalization. "Lanh was in the same accident."

"Over at Don Pollo's?" asked Doctor Lansford.

"Yeah, that was..." he wanted to say "my girls" but it suddenly hurt too much to talk.

"Was that you on the news last night?" Doctor Lansford sounded excited, but Don felt nauseous.

"Yes, I was a bit upset. The man that run them over had attacked my wife earlier in the evening."

"Dear God," whispered a nurse who was nearby.

"Doc, Karole has a baby, she's eleven months old... is she going to..." Don couldn't form the words, they just wouldn't come, and Doctor Lansford just shrugged his shoulders.

"It's all up to her now," said the doctor hoarsely. Don's misery was getting to him. "We'll know in the next twenty-four hours."

The nurse led Don into an ICU section where eight beds were arranged in a semi-circle around a central nurse's station separated by curtains. Don wasn't prepared for what he saw, she was covered in bandages, splints, and casts. She was intubated and connected to a respirator, wires and tubes emerged from her bandages and connected to machines and bags of fluids. Every inch of her body except for one closed eye, a cheek, and some toes was covered with bandages "I'm so sorry," gasped Don, "I tried to get to you, but they wouldn't let me in the area. They made me wait by the ambulance..." He was trying his hardest not to cry but she looked so horrible, so broken...

He leaned close and whispered, "I don't know what happened but when you talked to me on the phone it was like, there was a change, I could feel it, even Krissy could feel it."

He sat down on a chair next to Karole and continued to talk, "I don't know what happened, but it sounded like you were arguing with somebody, and I felt a change come over everything, it's like our life got bumped into a new alignment... Did you do something?"

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, holding his aching head. "How did we get here my friend? I still remember the day I first saw you, you were getting out of the car and walking up to your house... so beautiful! I thought to myself that you were the most beautiful businesswoman I've ever seen, I really thought you were the realtor, then I realized that you were wearing scrubs. God, I miss seeing you in scrubs, your ass is so beautiful in scrubs. It really is... and such a beautiful hourglass figure.

"Lanh believes in angels and when she first saw you, she thought you were an angel, she fainted right there on the front lawn. I almost fainted when we went over to meet you, you were wearing that tank top, my God! You were so beautiful, and hot! I could barely breathe... You had no idea how hard I had to work to maintain eye contact. Lanh noticed though. She chewed me out for staring at your nipples later that night, then she said, "Do you think she noticed we were both drooling over her nipples at the same time?"

"I couldn't believe we became good friends, when Jayce attacked you that warm day, I got to play the hero and protect you, I used to do that all the time for Lanh when we were kids in school but after I got hurt, she made me stop, but for you she let me do it. Don't worry, if Jayce got past Kim-ly and me, Lanh always carries a switchblade she picked up in Italy, Jayce wouldn't have got past that.

"I couldn't believe it when I got to watch you carry Krissy, you moaned and complained that you were fat and ugly the whole time, but to me you were a walking miracle, and I am pretty sure that is when I fell in love with you. I told Lanh the night Krissy was born that I did, and she said, "What took you so long to admit it?"

"Her dad's customers love you too, Mr. Mach, my old coach, he tells me that if you were a student right now, he'd go back to coaching girls' volleyball... and he hated coaching girls' volleyball. You are that beautiful! Mrs. Farstad and Mrs. Grady think you're the most wonderful person they have ever met; they want you to come by every chance you get when we move home. And dad's new farm-hand RJ thinks you're just as cute as a newborn heifer, which is pretty high praise from RJ.

"Thank you so much for letting me help deliver Krissy, I know you could have told me to go away and have a nurse who knew what she was doing take over, but I got to see the birth of the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen in my life. And when we laid her on your chest and she saw your face for the first time, I couldn't believe her smile when she recognized you, Lanh and I cried, it was such a beautiful moment, it was so beautiful and so painful because we will never experience it, and since high school that's all we wanted to do was to have children of our own."

Don talked until his throat was dry, he became frustrated because the words were coming out all wrong then he suddenly felt like screaming. The urge was overwhelming, it took a huge effort of his will to keep from screaming at her. It didn't come out as a scream, but it came out angrily. "Why? Why did you do this? Lanh and I are expendable, we don't have babies to raise, we can't even have babies! You and Kim-ly, you are both parents, you have beautiful, beautiful babies that love you, that need you... we should be protecting you!"

Don was shaking now. "You know you saved the both of us," he said softly, "Lanh and me." He pulled his bottle full of oxycodone out of his pocket and shook it. The bottle was so full it barely made a sound. "This is my exit, if something happens to Lanh, I will eat this entire bottle. Lanh has a switch blade, when I die, she's going to open her wrists.

"If that car had hit Lanh and killed her, I would have killed myself before you came home to get Krissy..." He was exhausted and of course Karole hadn't heard a word, but inside of her, deep down, her sleeping consciousness generated two spirits, one from the past and one from the future, but this time was different.

Twelve times in the past the spirits went forth from Karole's broken heart to right a wrong, this time the spirits came forth on that dark and horrible Christmas morning and realized that their work was done, the twelfth pair of spirits did not secure Don as a lover for Karole after Lanh died which is what happened over and over in Don's nightmares. The eleven previous hauntings ended in failure for Karole and Krissy, but thanks to Karole demanding the truth the twelfth pair of spirits there will be no Drunken Karole drinking her life away as she slid into a morass of loneliness.

The twelfth pair of spirits revealed their plan to Karole who turned and saved the friend she loved so much. In reality the plan never would have worked, Karole never knew that if Lanh had died, Don would have killed himself and Karole would have ended up drinking herself to death in loneliness, neglecting Krissy and sentencing her to a horrific death also.