Chapter 25: Revelations

August – Year 1

Lynn and I waited in the waiting room for post-op patients and held hands. A nurse came up to us and smiled softly.

“I hear that you had a problem with the front desk nazi.”

“Yeah, I guess everybody heard it.” Lynn smiled back, but not embarrassed.

“As the face of the hospital, you would think that she would be a bit more accommodating to people. I mean, folks do not come here recreationally. When they walk in the door they want help or they want to see someone who needed help.”

“Rule number one on my list of rules to be a cool human being. Don’t be a dick!” I laughed.

“A great rule if you have to deal in any way with people. Anyway, the reason I came over is that the surgeon is closing your wife and she should be out in a little while.”

“How is she?” Lynn was still worried.

“She is fine and as far as we can tell there has been no negative affect on the baby.”

“Has anyone told her?”

“No, we heard that you two wanted to surprise her.” The nurse smiled.

“I am sorry if this is not a good question, but, you do not seem to be bothered by our wife or with her spouses.”

“I’m gay. I have a partner that I love and I wish we could get married. I know that if one of us is in trouble that the other has no legal standing and it worries me.” Her smile was a sad one.

“We really had to think long and hard about our situation. Lynn and Erin had been lovers before Lynn and I got together. Then Erin joined in the party. Once we figured out that we loved each other we had the battle. Society says that you can only marry one person and that they have to be the opposite sex. But what if three people love each other equally?”

“That was an amazing evening. We drank some wine and talked almost all night. The big thing was which one of us should Paul marry and which, therefore, should be seen as the mistress. I mean the thought of being a mistress is not thought of very highly in the US. In Europe, men have mistresses and as long as they can care for them, no one cares.” Lynn spoke calmly, looking the nurse in the eye.

“We finally had a lawyer friend look into options and she came up with the idea of a multi-level civil union. In some ways we are married, in some ways we are a corporation and in some ways we are guardians of each other. We each carry a synopsis of the contract with us in case of an accident or an issue with the government.”

“That is brilliant! Can you give me your lawyer’s name? I need to talk to her.”

Lynn reached into her purse and pulled out her phone and sent it to the nurse via text. Just then a couple of other nurses came in and walked towards us.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. O’Dell?”

“Yes.” I answered.

“The doctor will be out with you in a bit. He is looking at some post-op x-rays and watching a video of the procedure.”

“Admiring his work?” Lynn was still a little on edge.

“No, checking to see that everything was done right. We do a post-op evaluation. He is doing a quick gloss over and the surgical team will go over it later in more depth.” She smiled and walked away.

“Wait! When can we see her?” I asked before Lynn could shout it out.

“The elevator comes from the surgery floor right down into the post-op ward. As soon as the doctor is feeling that everything is good and she is out of any danger, he will have her moved to post-op and then to her room and then you can talk to her. She should be less groggy then.”

We sat back down and held hands again, and waited again, and got nervous again! It only took about 15 minutes for the doctor to come down. He walked over to us. He was a dark skinned man, slight with very strong looking, yet slender hands.

“Good morning! I am Doctor Chauhan and you must be Mr. and Mrs. O’Dell. I was thinking that you would be much older. Is Erin not your daughter?” He spoke with a sing song Indian accent.

“Daughter!? No, she is our wife. It is a long story. I am Paul O’Dell and this is my and Erin O’Dell’s wife Lynn O’Dell. How is she?”

“She is doing very well. Her vitals are all strong. The jaw was fractured into several pieces. I had to go in and insert plates in four spots to hold the mandible together. Once the bones mend, she will need to come back to have the plates removed; let me show you the x-rays.”

Dr. Chauhan led us to his office and turned on the x-ray viewer and slid three pictures into the screens clips to secure them. They could see the outline of the jaw and could see several dark blocks along the jawline.

“As you can see from the three views of her right side, I placed two plates along the right side and one on the left side and one in the front. Was she is a car accident?”

“No doctor; a bar fight. She was pulled off of the bar and punched in the face, then she fell and hit her face on the floor.”

“Wow. Well this is going to be a pretty long time to heal. If she is healthy, we are looking at four to six weeks before I can go back in and remove the plates. If the bone does not heal fully, I may need to keep in a few plates in permanently. The breaks were such that it was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. She will need another two to four weeks with the jaw wired after I remove the plates.”

“Now I need also to mention that the damage was such that we had to use a general anesthetic instead of a local. I made the anesthesiologist aware of her pregnancy and he was very careful, so there should be no issue there. She will be groggy for about an hour and then we will check her vitals and move her to her room. I need to get some sleep and I am going to go home. So if you have no further questions, I will see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you Dr. Chauhan. We understand your stress. Someone told us about the two children you tried to help last night. We are sorry that it did not work out.”

“It happens. You save the ones you can and don’t hang on to the ones you can’t. I’ll see you in the morning.”

We walked back to our seats for about thirty seconds and then decided that we were hungry since it was past noon.

“Hospital food?” I asked.

“Not!” Lynn was shaking her head.

“Applebee’s?” I tried again.

“Works for me.” Lynn kissed me and took my hand as we left for the parking lot.

We sat next to each other instead of across the table. We drank our ice tea and ordered a salad, then ate quietly. The server came back for the fifth time and asked us if everything was ok. Then she asked if WE were ok.

“Is it that obvious? The food was fine and your service has been great. Our wife is in the hospital. She had surgery and is pregnant, so we are very concerned. When we get done we will go back to the hospital and see how she is.”

“Your wife?”

“Everybody always says that.” Lynn smiled at the girl. “Yes we are in a bit of an unconventional marriage.”