Chapter 22: Fallout

August 25, 1981, Columbus, Ohio

Jocelyn dozed off for about fifteen minutes, then woke up again.

"Are you seeing Emmy tonight?" she asked.

"Yes. Are you OK with that?"

"Nothing changed in that regard, Mike. Until I get out of here and get better, we won't have much chance to work on our relationship and figure out where things are going."

"You're sure, Jos?"

"Yes. Remember our plan. We need to stick to it. Nothing important has changed. I'll just be a Freshman when you're a Sophomore. And I'll STILL get done before you."

"You won't be dating," I said. "That's changed."

"Maybe I'll meet a handsome doctor who will sweep me off my feet?"

"You're ALREADY off your feet!"

"Then he'll have it much easier!"

"You seem like you're in a pretty good mood."

"Because you came to see me. They wouldn't let you into the ICU, but now you're here. I'm tired all the time. They said that's normal. I fell asleep in the middle of our talk before."

"Do they let you eat?"

"No solid food yet. That'll change in a couple of days once I start my therapy."

"What kind of therapy?"

"It'll be range of motion to start with, then learning to walk. It'll be painful, but I'll do it for us."

"I'll do anything you need me to do to help. Anything."

"I know. You're leaving for McKinley tomorrow, right?"

"Yes. As soon as I'm settled, I'll ensure you have the dorm's phone number. If you need me, call me!"

"Who's your roommate?"

"Charlie Fox, from Tucson, Arizona. I was hoping it was short for Charlotte, and the computer messed up!"

"In your dreams, Mik!" she laughed hard. "But don't make me laugh like that."

"I'll get the last laugh with a female roommate!"

"They don't allow that except in the married dorms, and you actually have to be married. And prove it!"

"You checked?!" I asked in surprise.

"Of course! We both know what we're working towards. We just need to get from here to there. You might have to carry me part of the way."

"Over the threshold?"

"It's a rugged path from here to there. You know that. I know that. That's why we agreed to try."

"I know."

"It's a good situation, Mik. The worst possible case is great sex until we meet our spouses."

"You thought it was great?" I asked.

"By Tuesday morning, when we more or less had it all figured out? Yes! Didn't you?"

I smirked, "From the second your lips touched my erection!"

"Men!" Jocelyn huffed, but she was smiling. "Their entire existence comes down to getting a girl to do that for them!"

"And you know me better than that," I said.

"I do; I was just teasing."

"So if great sex is the worst case, what's the best?"

"A LIFETIME of great sex, four wonderful children, a federal judgeship, and Chief of Emergency Medicine at the new Rutherford Regional Trauma Center!"

"Four C-sections? Yikes!"

"Compared to going through labor four times? I'll be the judge of that one, Mr. Loucks!"

"I'm happy to have as many kids as you want. Especially if I'm Chief of Emergency Medicine at a newly constructed Rutherford Hospital trauma center!"

"I need to sleep, Mik. Can I get another kiss first?"

"Of course!"

I leaned down and kissed her gently.

"Valentine's Day," she smiled.

"Valentine's Day."

I kissed her forehead, and she was asleep before I got to the door. I stepped out into the hall.

"She's asleep," I said to Mrs. Mills. "She fell asleep once in the middle of our visit."

"She does that. It's the combination of painkillers and recovering from the injuries and surgery."

"I'm going back to West Monroe. I'll come to see her on Saturday. I'll be moved into the dorm and ready for classes on Monday."

"Mike, she loves you."

"I know," I said. "I love her, too. Everything is fine, Mrs. Mills."

"Thanks, Mike."

I left the hospital and headed back to West Monroe.

August 25, 1981, West Monroe, Ohio

"How's Jocelyn?" Emmy asked.

"In much better spirits than I think I'd be. She's in pain and has a long road of painful physical therapy ahead of her, but she's in a great mood."

Emmy smiled, "With you as a friend? I'm sure! Everything is OK? No permanent damage?"

"She'll set off metal detectors in airports for the rest of her life and probably be able to tell before the weather changes, but everything else should be fine."

The other two issues were private and between Jocelyn and me and didn't need to be shared unless she wanted to share them.

"I'm glad," Emmy said. "So what are we doing tonight?"

"Dinner, and then just spending some time together."

"Mike, what's going on with Liz?"

"I honestly don't know," I sighed. "She's been acting very strangely for a couple of months. I thought it was just you and me, and then I thought it was Paul, but now I'm not so sure."

"I haven't seen her as much because she's working, but she was talking a lot about the girl who just moved in, Abby. Mike, did you and Abby..."

"No! Absolutely not! Abby hit on me. Well, no, that's not quite right. She came on to me, as in, she wanted to, and she was super-aggressive. And I mean that. They came to the door to introduce themselves, and Abby almost immediately made it clear she wanted to have sex."

"No way! With someone she just met?"

"I know. And I hope you know me well enough to know I would never do anything like that. Did Liz tell you I did?"

"No, but the way Liz has been talking, I have no idea what's true or not. About anything."

"I know," I sighed. "Me either. I talked to my mom before I went to see Jocelyn, and she was going to talk to Liz today. I don't know what happened because I came straight from Columbus. That's why I was a bit early to pick you up."

"Which gives us more time to spend together!"

We went to Marie's Diner for our 'last meal' before I left, and when we'd finished eating, we headed to Jackson Lake at Emmy's request. We walked to our usual spot, a small grassy area in a copse of trees, and sat down. I took Emmy's hand, and we interlaced our fingers. We sat quietly, watching the birds and bunnies, and I thought about school, Jocelyn, Emmy, and Liz.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"I suppose it's really about how much my life changes tomorrow," I said. "It's strange. I've lived in the same house for my entire life, even sleeping in that same room almost from the time I was born. And tomorrow night, I'll be sleeping in a dorm room with a roommate."

"Do you know anything about him?"

"Just his name is Charlie, and he's from Tucson, Arizona. Oh, and he's studying to be a mechanical engineer."

"Not pre-med, like you?"

"No; they want kids from different backgrounds and with different majors to share rooms. It's part of learning to live in the real world. I like the idea. I joked with Jocelyn that I hoped Charlie was short for Charlotte and that the computer had messed up!"

Emmy laughed almost as hard as Jocelyn had.

"Nice fantasy!" she laughed. "Maybe I'll sign up as 'Emmet' and ask for you as a roommate in two years!"

"I think they MIGHT figure it out when you show up for your interviews! That's why I joked about the computer messing up."

"I had an idea for October. You know, about how we could be alone."

"OK."

"My cousin Leslie has an apartment in Rutherford. I could ask her if we could use it for a few hours. I think she'll say 'yes'."

"She wouldn't tell your mom?"

"No way!" Emmy said fiercely. "She's the one who I ask all my questions about guys and sex and stuff! I can't talk to my mom the way you do. She'd completely flip out! And I'd be grounded for life and have to wear one of those chastity belt thingies I read about in a book on the Crusades."

"Mr. Black at school said that's a myth and that the knights didn't really do that when they left on Crusades."

"My dad would! I think he'd like to figure out how to have grandkids without me having sex!"

"That seems to be a common idea with dads."

"Will you treat your daughters that way?"

"I hope I'm like my mom."

"Hope?"

"We never know how we're going to turn out. Did the ten-year-old Emmy think the same way the almost sixteen-year-old Emmy does? And are you who you thought you would be?"

"I never thought about it, but you're probably right. That's kind of scary, actually. I like you how you are."

I chuckled, "Mr. Black told us about something Albert Einstein said — 'Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed'."

"But that's wrong! I don't want you to change!"

"Oh? I thought you had in mind, at least in the long term, of the chance of marrying a doctor. Don't you think that process HAS to change me?"

"I hadn't thought about it in that way. Is that the kind of stuff you worry about when you turn eighteen?"

"I think once you graduate from High School, suddenly the world looks totally different. I know it does to me. And tomorrow, everything gets turned upside down. If you think about it, in about eighteen months, you'll be finishing your Junior year and have to think about college and career and make some pretty important decisions that will affect the rest of your life."

"You mean like what I study?" Emmy asked.

"Yes. Think about it — if you study, say, accounting, you limit yourself from being a scientist. I mean, sure, you could always go back to college at some point, but I can't imagine that's easy. Or you decide not to go to college, which limits you from any job that requires a degree. Or you decide to marry and have kids right away and be a housewife. That limits you, too. Each of those decisions has a huge impact on your future, and each one will change you."

"So, how do you decide?"

"I wish I knew," I replied. "Part of it was easy for me. Once I decided I wanted to be a doctor, a lot of other things just kind of fell into place. But most people don't decide in fourth grade what they want to do and stick to it."

"You never thought about doing something else?"

"Only briefly when I found out just how much debt I'm going to be in when I finally become a doctor. But even then, I didn't seriously consider doing anything else."

"I have no clue what I want to do."

"Starting next year, I mean when you're a Junior, not this year when you're a Sophomore, the guidance counselors do a bunch of stuff to try to help you figure it out. One of the things they said was that if you got to be a Senior and you still weren't sure, a good option was to go to Ohio State as 'undeclared'. You take the basic core courses, plus some electives to kind of scope things out, and sometime after your Freshman year, you pick a major. That lets you delay things a bit and doesn't really hurt anything. Taking a chemistry class doesn't hurt you if you decide to become an English teacher or a lawyer or an accountant."

"Do you want your wife to work?"

I shrugged, "I guess it's really up to her. My mom has worked since Liz started first grade. It would have been tough with two little kids at home."

"She has a college degree, right? Why work as a secretary for a lawyer?"

"I asked her that question a few years ago, and she said she enjoys it, that it allows her to be flexible with her time, and because my dad has a job at the county that pays well and offers good benefits, the money wasn't as important. I suppose, in the end, it let her balance family and work the way she wants to. Sometimes, my parents struggled a bit financially, but I think they made the right decision. She's happy, and that's the most important thing. Your mom doesn't work at all, does she?"

"Nope. She worked at DQ in High School, married my dad, and became a homemaker right away, which is what my dad wanted. He doesn't think wives should work because it's their job to take care of the house and kids and stuff."

"We all help out at home. Liz and I do the dishes, I mow the lawn, she vacuums, and we do our own laundry. We even cook occasionally."

Emmy laughed, "I don't think my dad has a CLUE how to do laundry or cook. He runs the grill, but otherwise? That's women's work according to him."

"There's no such thing," I said. "Short of giving birth and nursing a baby, everything else can be shared."

"You really believe that?"

"It is in my house. I mean, OK, my mom doesn't do repairs or use power tools, but I bet she could if she had to. And my dad doesn't sew, but then again, my mom doesn't do much of that, either."

"And you'll change diapers?"

"Not by choice, but of course! I figure if I help bring a kid into the world, I do have SOME responsibility for that kind of thing."

"I think my dad would DIE before he did that!"

"My mom says she thinks my dad changed about five diapers, total, in his life. But he did do it."

"How many kids do you want?"

"I honestly don't have a number in mind. I always thought that question had to be answered by the person who had to carry the little tyke around for nine months and go through labor. Somehow, it doesn't seem right to decide that!"

"But you want more than one?" Emmy asked.

"Sure. But that's something that has to be discussed, don't you think?"

"You mean, like we are?" she smirked.

"Yes! But we'll both be different people five to seven years from now. How about we save that conversation for later?"

"We can stop talking if you kiss me!"

I didn't need a second invitation. As we had the night before, we carefully explored each other's bodies but stopped at 'second base'. We both wanted more, but it would have to wait another six weeks by mutual consent. When I dropped Emmy at her house, we hugged, exchanged a soft kiss, and said 'goodbye'. She promised to ride her bike over at 7:00am to help me pack up the car and say goodbye. I kissed her again, then headed home, wondering exactly what I was going to find.

"Hi, Mike," my mom said when I walked into the house.

"Come sit with us," my dad said.

I walked over and sat on the couch with my mom while my dad was in his usual easy chair.

"First, tell us how Jocelyn is," Mom prompted.

"A lot happier than I think I'd be! She's tired and in some pain, but she'll start physical therapy in a few days, and then she'll be out of the hospital in a couple of weeks. Some of the metal screws or rods or whatever have to stay in permanently, but some come out, so she'll need some surgery for that at some point. Otherwise, they fixed all her internal injuries. I suppose the only real concern is her spleen, which they had to remove."

"Well, that's a relief! Did you talk about college?"

"She's obviously going to miss a year, but she plans to go to WHTU next Fall. That was kind of already our plan, but now she'll be a year behind. She did point out that she would still finish before me. I'm almost afraid to ask, but how are things here?"

"It was an interesting afternoon, to say the least."

"What about Liz?"

"I took her to see the doctor and have some blood drawn, a urine sample collected, and some hair samples taken."

"Drug tests," I said.

"I'm convinced you were right about her being high or drunk or both. I had your father get rid of all the liquor in the house, not that we actually had a huge supply."