Chapter 231

“The only people who can have normal are the ones unaffected by all the fucked-up shit that happens around them.”
—Ilona Andrews, Magic Slays

I WOULD LIKE to have gone home and gone to bed. Kissed my wives and let sleep erase the events of the past three days. Of course, that wasn’t to be. Em was at the airport to pick up Donna, Nanette, Cindy, and our instruments and luggage. I got a kiss. Rachel and I loaded into another medi-cab and went straight to Johns Hopkins where I was admitted.

And honestly? By the time I actually got to a bed, I was exhausted and in pain. I was thankful to be in a hospital when they started a morphine drip in my arm. I know a doctor came in as I was being settled and introduced himself, but I don’t remember who he was. He talked to Rachel while I waited for the drip to cut into the pain and let me sleep.

As I faded in and out of sleep over the next twenty-four hours, I discovered a second pain point. Not only did my shoulder hurt, but my biceps burned like fire. Oh, yes. I’d been told I was hit a second time by O’Neil’s bullet. That one passed straight through the flesh of my biceps. It was cleaned and stitched. It would heal much faster than my shoulder. But it still hurt like hell.

Each of my wives took a turn sitting with me in the hospital. There were expressions of love, concern, and horror on their faces as they kissed me and said they were glad I was home. But the truth was, we had all just come face to face with the knowledge we were not invulnerable. We could all die and we’d chosen a kind of public path that made us—or I had chosen a public path that made me—a central target in a high-stakes political gambit.

1 March 2023

Writing left-handed sucks. I won’t get much out of these chicken scratches. Today, they’ll be doing scans and x-rays to create the pattern for my replacement parts. Most of what has gone on this week has been making sure the wound is stabilized and there is no unnoticed damage. My fingers still move, though moving them right now sends shockwaves of pain up my arm. Still, that’s a hopeful sign.

I’m worried. When we all stood before the judge in Boston and agreed to become one plural domestic partnership, no one said anything about ‘until death do us part.’ But it was on all our minds. That’s what a marriage is, right? We didn’t recite the words but we’d said them often enough to each other. ‘To love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, until death do us part.’ But seven of twelve of us were teenagers. And even my oldest wife was only forty-five. For all of us, death seems like a remote possibility we’ll have to deal with in fifty or sixty years. Until then, live long and prosper.

Now it’s a present reality and we’re all having to deal with the idea that we could lose each other at any time. The change from looking at your lover as strong and vibrant and able to care for you to looking at your lover as fragile and easily broken or lost, is unsettling. I think some of my wives are considering whether it would be better not to be in a relationship that could end so dramatically and finally.

I know they’re considering it because I’m considering it. It’s so selfish of me to expose them to this level of hurt and sorrow.

They brought my new shoulder blade in to show me the day after they took all the scans and x-rays. Dr. Mapplethorpe, my surgeon for the shoulder replacement, was as excited as a three-year-old to show me the replacement part. It looked pretty much like a bone he’d taken off one of those skeletons that hang in some doctors’ offices.

“It’s a HAP-polymer composite that performs well within the parameters of natural bone,” he said. I’d somehow assumed they were just going to do a titanium joint replacement but he was showing me a replacement for the entire scapula. “Bone is primarily composed of the mineral hydroxyapatite and collagen. That’s the HAP part of the composite. The polymers are rod-based and are lined up in crisscrossing layers. Think of them like the lattice of bars that go into reinforced concrete.”

“How did you manage to carve one of these so fast?” I asked. “It looks so natural and smooth. It must have taken hours!”

“It did take hours, but not of carving. After we got the pattern for your scapula from the images yesterday, we fed it into a 3D printer and this took about two hours to print. Then we put it through another few hours of testing and fine-tuning with sandpaper.”

Shit! I remembered back when some in the engineering field poo-pooed the idea of printed circuit boards instead of soldered. I wondered how many doctors laughed at the idea of printing bones.

There were still some pieces to be completed. The layer of cartilage between the humeral head and the scapula called the glenoid would be fabricated from a type of plastic. Surgery was scheduled for Monday the sixth. I don’t know what I was thinking, but the incision and surgery would be on my back.

After surgery and basic healing, I’d be in physical therapy for the next six months. Damn! Since I woke up in this body, it seems I’ve spent a third of my life in physical therapy.

“Can you stand one more visitor?” Will Forsythe asked from my door Saturday morning.

“My first who isn’t a wife or hospital staffer,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I assumed others would have visited you by now,” Will said.

“I think they assumed it would be crowded. I have notes and flowers from Jo and Simon and from Dr. D. My parents are coming in tomorrow afternoon so they’ll be here before surgery and for a few days after. It’s been quite a shock for them,” I said.

“It’s been a shock for all of us,” Will said. “Even after the convention center bombing, we didn’t take the risk of an attempt on your life seriously enough. We kept thinking things were better now. And by we, I guess I mean me. I’m sorry, Jacob.”

“Everyone has his own life to live.”

“Yes. Well, I thought I’d bring you some news that might brighten your day a bit. Carson O’Neil is not likely to ever see the light of day as a free man again. Like most people in that situation, he’d already assumed he was going to die after killing you and your wives.”

“I can’t believe he felt we were so dangerous to RSI that he’d kill us over it.”

“It was more personal than that. He blamed you for his fall from grace, as it were. When you released the video of him threatening you in Louisville, RSI did fire him and China deported him. Not far, mind you. He was only sent to Korea. And he had enough resources, legitimate and criminal, that he personally funded the bombing of the convention center. He was a rising star on the international business scene coordinating the activities of a dozen RSI subsidiaries until that video was released.”

“How does an American rise that high in a Chinese organization?” I asked.

“Well, a number of the subsidiaries are based in the US and Europe. Those are not places that readily welcome Chinese executives giving them direction. O’Neil was the white face RSI put forth while, in reality, he was a puppet. Still, the special prosecutor’s office is now pumping him for information regarding the activities of ‘his’ subsidiaries in government bribes and contracts,” Will said.

“I detect a downside.”

“Having O’Neil taking the brunt of the blame, distances RSI and the Chinese government from the investigation. Their behavior in regards to your wounding and their grave loss of face has painted an aura of innocence around the conglomerate. If they defend themselves strictly on the basis of standard business practices, it will be very difficult to prosecute them.”

I sighed. I had just enough morphine coursing through my veins that I couldn’t bring myself to care more than that. I think Will could see I wasn’t all there.

“Jacob, we try not to advertise how close a relationship the Office of Civilian Service has with the President. But I spoke to her after this incident and she asked me to please convey her sympathy and support. Of course, we are all hoping you have a full recovery, but we’re all practical as well. It will be at least six months before you can return to deputation work and that is the most optimistic projection for your healing and ability to play the guitar. The President has suggested that you might consider an invitation to join the White House National Service Internship program. You needn’t reply now or in the near future. Let’s see how your recovery goes. But that is a very generous offer, directly from the President of the United States.”

He stood and made a little effort to wish me well in surgery. When he left, I lay there staring at the ceiling, letting the fact soak in that I might not ever play the guitar again. Or at least not perform. Could I make the adjustment to join the White House staff? What about supporting Cindy? In fact, all my pod was focused on the National Service deputation work and several had re-upped for extended terms based on us staying together in the service.

Staring at the ceiling, I felt a tear trickle out of my eye and down my face toward my ear.

Fuck!

The mythical wake-up blowjob can be a startling event if taken literally. I jumped, twisted my right arm, and screamed in pain. Going to sleep under the influence of drugs and waking up under the influence of a wet mouth and tongue is disorienting at best and Dana scrambled out from under my sheet apologizing non-stop.

Our apologies overlapped each other until we both ended up laughing and she hushed my mouth with a deep kiss.

“I saw the video last Sunday and wanted to rush to you,” she said. “But the damn floods in Georgia have had us literally up to our necks in alligators.”