Chapter 22
Little girls cry. Big girls say Fuck.
-T-shirt
Winter
“Did you bring me my box?” I asked Tai as he came into the room.
He nodded and came straight to me as I sat up in bed. “Yeah, it’s on Jack’s bed; I found another box in there too, so I brought that one as well.”
Wincing from the pain, I made it to my feet with minimal help. Well, to be completely honest, it was probably more than I was thinking, but I was letting myself tell a little lie.
I felt like complete shit from the tips of my split end hair to the end of my ‘need a pedicure now before I turn into a weirdo’ toes.
I’d woken in the hospital the day before. Ember was there when I woke, and told me about all that I’d missed in the last two weeks.
Which was a shit load, to tell the truth.
At the time, I hadn’t cared about anything until I heard that Jack was all right. They’d told me he’d suffered multiple contusions to his head, a broken left leg, like me, and a lot of bruises and cuts from the explosion. Not to mention the sucking bullet wound in his chest.
The wound had collapsed his lung, broken ribs on entry and exit, and accounted for an insane amount of blood loss.
The first time I’d seen him, I’d almost fainted. His leg was up in the air held in place by some port of pulley system, unlike my casted one. Bruises faded from a purple and black to a sickly yellow, and a clear tube peaked out from underneath a bandage that wrapped his head.
The doctor had explained that, due to the increased swelling in his brain, they’d made the decision to insert a tube that would drain off the excess fluid in hopes that it would help with the swelling. He’d looked at me like I would jump down his throat, until Tai explained about the DNR hours later. I’d worried that Jack had something more wrong with him, and the doctor just didn’t want to tell me, fearful of the repercussions.
Luckily, Tai had gotten the DNR overturned, or I wouldn’t have been going to visit Jack right now. The procedure saved his life, according to the nurses, and I would be forever thankful. Even if Jack was pissy about not having any hair later on.
I walked into Tai’s arms and gave him a fierce hug. “What was that for?” He asked.
“Thank you for saving him, Tai. I love you.” I told him.
His arms tightened around me for a few moments before he stepped out of my embrace and gave me a stern look. “Go wake my brother up.”
Although the worry of brain damage still lurked inside our minds, we were still hopeful that he would pull through. He had to, because I couldn’t do this by myself. Not anymore. Not after Jack helped me realize everything that was missing in my life.
Tai helped me into the wheel chair and wheeled me next door. This time, he’d managed not to hit the wall and the door on his way in, unlike yesterday.
Jack looked just the same as yesterday, minus the tube they told me would be coming out just before lunch today. His head was no longer wrapped, and only had a large piece of tape covering the hole in his head where the tube had once been. Everything else was still the same. Which made me wonder who gave him a bath.
“Can you ask the nurse to bring in some water and soap in about an hour when you leave? I want to wash him.”
He nodded his agreement. “I’ll be sure to send in cold water. He’ll need it if you’re doing that little chore for him.”
The plastic pitcher hit him in the head as he was leaving and his laugh followed him out the door.
Sighing in exasperation at Tai’s antics, I scooted closer to the bed, picked Jack’s hand up, and placed a kiss on it. “I’m going to open this box. I have to. I might need you to hold me afterwards; it would probably be a good time to wake up.”
Shoring up my walls, I placed his hand back down on the mattress and turned towards the box. Well boxes. The first box was the one I’d seen in the bottom of Jack’s closet a few months ago. I set that one aside for later, although I fully intended to check it out after I’d opened mine.
The other one was my box. Four by four by seven, innocuous as it was, I was still scared to death at what lay inside. Although it’d been seven years, I still thought about the baby that would have been. If I’d had the baby, would I have remembered who I was sooner? Would I even be here today?
The first thing I saw was a piece of paper. Just plain computer paper, but in the middle of the paper said ‘Baby Girl Doe’ in the middle. Then the date of “September 9, 2006.”
As I was reading the papers myself, I read them aloud, too. I wanted Jack to be able to experience this; I had a feeling he could understand a lot more than we thought he could in his coma like state.
The second paper was a letter from one of the nurses that was there throughout my recovery. “This is a letter from the nurse, Jack.” I said, then cleared my throat and started to read.
This is a letter that I hate having to write you. You were such a delight to have around, even if you were brooding at first, which was understandable. At first, due to your injuries, we were not aware that you were having a miscarriage. We assumed that it was either part of the trauma you had sustained during an altercation with a person, or a vehicle, or that you were raped, and were showing signs of the trauma associated with that.
Once we realized what was going on, an ultrasound was done that clearly showed that your baby was no longer alive. You measured thirteen weeks and five days. Starting at thirteen weeks, in this hospital, all mothers who are past that time of gestation have to go through labor and delivery instead of a D&C. The decision of letting it happen naturally was due to the trauma that your body had gone through. At the time we didn’t feel that it would be beneficial to you to have any surgical procedures done that weren’t medically necessary.
You gave birth to your baby at midnight on September 9, two thousand and six. She was a perfectly formed baby girl. She was not breathing after the cord was cut, I’m sorry to tell you.
I just wanted to write this letter for you, explaining what was done and why, since you were unable to hear about it then. I am truly sorry for everything you suffered, but if you ever want to hear more, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Ivy Bonner.
“God, Jack,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “Fuck.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I moved the piece of tissue paper that was covering a flat rectangular box, and lost the hold I had on my tears.
Underneath the tissue paper was another memory box, very similar to Jack’s in appearance. Except this one had a picture of our beautiful baby girl’s feet and hands. They were close ups, so you could see how perfectly formed every little digit was. Never again would I think of an unborn baby as anything less than a human being, because, in these pictures, it was like a shot to the gut.
That was my baby. My baby that, if it had lived, would have grown up to be a beautiful little girl.
If only she’d been given a chance.
“Jack,” I said and buried my face into his hand.
The nurse arrived with the steaming water, snapping me out of my crying jag. “Do you need anything else?” She asked.
Embarrassed that she’d caught me crying, I shook my head instead of answering. “Is there anything I need to avoid washing? Can I wash around the pads on his broken leg?”
“Yes, you can wash anything that’s not wrapped. I’d stay away from his hair for today though. That area is most assuredly sore for him right now, but everything else is within limits.” She smiled.
Once she left, I went to work on wiping his body down. The nurse had given me water with what smelled like baby body wash; by the time I was done, he smelled very good.
It made me wish that the smell that was wafting off his body was from a baby, and not just the wash. But also, that he was awake, and well.
I just might have that wish, according to my doctor. If I took it careful, during the next six weeks and let my body heal.
“You know we’re going to have a baby, don’t you Jack? Has Tai told you about the baby?” I asked him while smoothing the towel over his chest to dry him.
“We should name the baby Catori if it’s a girl and Adam if it’s a boy.” I declared.
“You can have the middle names since I chose the first names.” I chattered.
I don’t know what I’d been hoping for, but after an hour of crying into his hand, and then another hour telling him about my hopes and dreams for this baby, he still wasn’t awake. A little tendril of hope was extinguished as I was wheeled out of the room later that evening.
I’d given him a bath, and talked to him constantly, but still had no reaction out of him in the slightest. His face remained impassive and slack. His eyes didn’t move. Fingers didn’t twitch.
My eyes fell on Jack’s box. I’d brought it with me as I’d seen it on my way out. Curiously, I opened it and was flabbergasted.
Mountains and mountains of newspaper clippings, computer reports, police reports, and finally the police file of the day I was kidnapped filled the box. The reports were of supposed sightings of red headed women all over the United States. The police reports were of possible sightings as well. The file on my abduction was the hardest to read, but I did it.
I don’t know why I continued to file through the papers after long hours, but I did. What most surprised me was how Jack said he didn’t look for me, but the papers lying in front of me spoke differently. All of the paperwork here spanned over the last seven years. He’d never given up, and I knew he never would have.
Never.
That night, I went to bed with a different outlook on Jack’s condition. I knew he’d come back to me, he only needed the time to let it happen.
Before I fell asleep, I prayed as I stared at the dream catcher that Tai had hung in the corner. “Come back soon, Jack.”
***
Jack
“Time to go home, boy.” My dad said holding out his hands.
I glared at him and turned my back to him. I wasn’t ready yet.
“Oh, don’t be a stubborn ass. You need to give them back to me. It’s not your time yet.”
“You get to hold them all you want. It’s my turn.” I said by way of explanation.
He crossed his arms and then started playing dirty. “Your wife is crying right now because you won’t wake up. It’s been two weeks now. How long are you going to make her suffer?”
My heart wrenched.
Looking down at my daughters, these two tiny perfect little beings, I was torn. How could I choose one over the other? What kind of person did that make me to leave a tiny, little defenseless being by herself?
“I’ll never leave them.” My dad whispered.
“What are you talking about? You’ll never give her up. You’ve been hogging her ever since I got here. I haven’t even gotten to hold her yet.” Adam grumbled from beside me.
I looked over at him and felt the hole he’d left in my heart heal at the sight of him looking down at my daughters. They were both different as could be. One had Winter’s porcelain skin with dark black hair, and the other had my tanned skin tone with bright red hair. They were the perfect mixture of Winter and I. Perfect.
“It really is time, baby brother. We’ve got this.” Catori said gently, as she reached down and took one girl, while Adam took the other.
“Promise me,” I said gruffly.
“Promise.”
“Promise, son.”
“Forever.”
***
My eyes were heavy. My mouth felt like I was in the Sahara, and my head was pounding so brutally with each pump of my heart that I felt nauseous.
Then the throbbing in my leg started.
Now, I’d experienced pain before. So much that I’d puked, got back to work, and then puked some more. However, this was new, and it was awful.
Somehow, I pushed it back. Just enough that I was able to think. Peeling my eyes open was the first task, which worked out better than I’d expected. Minus the shooting shards of pain that shot through my eyes and penetrated my brain with remarkable swiftness, that is.
Groaning, I took stock of the room. Starting with the door, then the windows, and finally myself. Leg was definitely broken if the huge fucking pins were any indication. Chest hurt like a bitch. Gunshot. Finally, using the hand that wasn’t attached to a tube, I probed my head and winced when I found a patch that was bandaged.
I tried ignoring the feeling of half my head shaved, but failed and cursed instead. “Fuck.”
A body moving somewhere below me had me tensing, but I relaxed as my brother’s head popped up from the floor.
He looked god-awful with his hair a shaggy mess, a four-day beard that resembled a teenager’s with patches that didn’t grow all that well, and a shirt that looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. Which was quite possible for him.
“You look like shit.” I croaked.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s your dumbass fault. Tried to die on me. Signed a fucking DNR. Then I had to overrule your stupid ass. Your wife tried to die. So then I had to overrule her ass too. It’s been a real carnival ride.”
By the time he was finished he was tearing up and I gave him hell, which was a brother’s rite of passage. “Would you like some cheese with that whine?”
“You know, it’s not my thing to beat cripples, but I think I can make an exception in this case.” He laughed and then stood.
“What time is it?” I asked.
He looked at the watch on his wrist before he said, “Little after six in the morning.”
“Go get me my woman.” I demanded.
A smile lit his face. “I’d be honored. Just got to take a leak first.”
The asshole had the nerve to go to the bathroom before he left the room. Why he couldn’t have done that later, I don’t know.
Not knowing how long he’d be, I started to sit up when a loud “Jackopa!” filled the air.
I smiled as I heard her yell at Tai to “Move your ass.” And say, “Any damn day now.”
She must be just next door with how well I could hear their conversation.
“Would you just carry me? I don’t need a damn wheelchair.” Winter growled.
“Uh, honey? You’re not exactly light.” He quipped back.
I’d have palmed my forehead at that one, but, alas, I didn’t want to make the headache any worse. “You do realize you live with me, right? I’m going to make your life a living hell. I’m going to bug the absolute shit out of you. You know when you’re reading and you need quiet? Yeah, I’m gonna play Spice Girls and N’Sync, and then dance and sing along right next to you. Then when you decide to move back home, I’m just going to pop up whenever, and you’re too nice to turn me away. Then I’ll start playing John Denver. Are you sure you don’t want to just carry me in there?”
I winced. John Denver was kind of harsh, but she’d do it. In a heartbeat. She was a vindictive little shit, and I had plenty of stories that have amassed, even in the short time we’d been allowed to be together.
“God, just make sure you lay off the donuts during this pregnancy. My back won’t be able to take much more carrying, and I’m not so sure Jack could handle all your ass for a while.” He joked.
“Ack!” He squealed. “That’s disgusting. Why would you do that? Saliva and ears don’t mesh!”
“Bring my girl in here now, pissant!” I yelled.
Well, I tried to. It came out more like a croak.
Winter came in a few seconds later, Tai carrying her. Not straining in the slightest. The nurse followed them in with a frown on her face that disappeared as soon as she saw I was awake.
“Mr. Stoker!” She smiled. “I’m glad to see that you’re awake. How are you feeling? Any pain, numbness?”
She wasn’t looking at me but at the monitors as she checked my vitals. Then she moved to the bags that were hanging on the bed, which, in turn, moved the tube that I just realized was shoved in my dick.
Everything was forgotten though when Winter sat on my bed and gave me a shaky hug. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“To the moon and back, baby. I like your cast color.” I teased.
“I like it, too. I figure if I have to wear one, then I at least want it to be pretty. Green was the prettiest.” She laughed and turned her foot slightly away.
“My brother drew a dick and balls on your cast didn’t he?” I asked.
She shook her head and then laughed. “It’s a very good replica, too. Ember helped him.”
“Will you ever grow up?” I asked in exasperation, moving only my eyes in my brother’s direction.
“Never.” He said, then saluted before walking out of the room.
She waited for the door to finish shutting before looking into my eyes. Her brown eyes were shimmering with tears, and her mouth was pinched in a tight line.
“I lost another baby.” She whispered to me.
“Yeah,” I said, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “But you have another one still hanging in there. Let’s focus on that for now. Okay?”
“They would have been fraternal.” She whispered heartbrokenly.
He remembered her telling him. She’d spoken to him for hours and hours.
“Yeah, baby. I know. I know it’s not okay, but we’ll figure out a way to get through this.”
Finally, she lost the hold on the tears and they started spilling over. Big fat tears. My dad would’ve called them crocodile tears. “Don’t cry.” I whispered against her lips right before I kissed her.
“I’m not crying, I’m leaking.”
“Well you’re leaking all over my chest.”
“Did you know you have more hair on your chest now than you do on your head?” She teased.
“Yeah, I only thought I was done with the buzz cuts.”
“You still look hot. Don’t worry.” She said and kissed the side of my head with the utmost care.
“Love you, Winnie.”
“Love you too, Jack.”