Chapter 23: Night Moves

When he awakened sometime later, he could hear the sounds of the monitors again that had been previously turned off. His head was pounding and even with his eyes closed, the light in his room was too bright for comfort.

“Please turn the light off” he called out weakly. Eyes closed he felt for the bed control and raised his torso to a reclining position instead of his previous supine position. His head felt funny and raising his hands, he discovered he had some kind of inflatable helmet on his head.

“You should leave that alone, Coach” he heard a deep bass voice say.

About that moment, the bright light impinging on his headache was dimmed greatly. Opening his eyes, he saw Emil Giovanini standing by the foot of his bed, with Mia, Sofia and Anna standing slightly behind him, and next to him a woman David had never met, but who was obviously Mrs. Giovanini given that Sarah was almost her doppelganger, albeit 20 years younger.

David smiled weakly, looking at the woman. “You must be Emil’s boss. Hi, I’m David MacFarlane. Please forgive me if I don’t get up, but I seem to be dressed appropriately, which would mean that I’m dressed inappropriately.”

Anna kind of snorted as she tried to contain her laughter and failed and then giggled. Sarah smiled and covered her mouth with her hand while Mia rolled her eyes. The girl’s mother looked sideways at Anna with a quick smile and stepped forward to David’s bedside.

“Hi, Coach MacFarlane. I’m Claudia Giovanini. We’ve met, although you probably won’t remember. I’m Bebe Rebozo’s stepdaughter. I think you were about 3 years old the last time we met. You father had just fished you out of Daddy’s pool after you decided to go swimming. I was about 7 or 8 at the time.” She held out her hand and David took it gently.

“Claudia, I’m pleased to meet you again under memorable circumstances.”

Emil chuckled in his very deep voice. “Claudia, was young David dressed when he jumped into Beebe’s pool?”

“As a matter of fact, no, he wasn’t.” She grinned at that, lighting up her whole face.

Mia laughed and said, “So that means every one of the women in this family have now seen Coach nude, and he’s not even an exhibitionist!”

At that, Emil, Mia and Anna all burst out laughing, and Sarah and Claudia smiled broadly.

David looked up at Emil and grinned and said, “Forget it Bud! You’re just shit-outta-luck on this one” which now had all four Giovanini women laughing.

David looked over at Mia, who was standing closest to his prescription dispenser. “Mia, would you please press the button on the device hanging on the side of that IV pump?”

“This one, Coach?” she asked as she picked the PCA control.

“Yes, please. Just push the button once and put the control back. I’m allowed to push it twice, but then I get loopy and say things I probably shouldn’t. It seems I think I’m a comedian when I’ve had more than enough Demerol.”

Mia push the button once and re-hung the device on the machine but stayed right next to his bed even with his chest. David looked over at Emil and said, “What are you all doing in Atlanta? Surely you didn’t all travel all this way just to see me.”

Emil laughed again “Toto, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“What? What does that mean?”

Claudia spoke up. “You’re not in Atlanta anymore. You’re at Shands Hospital in Gainesville. You were flown down here in the middle of the night two days ago.”

“Huh? How did that happen? Who ordered that? I know I didn’t.”

“I understand from the girls that Mrs. Dixon ordered it so you could be closer to home and so that she and the girls could come see you. I promise you; you’ve had a virtual parade of visitors in here every day during visiting hours.”

David relaxed back a bit. “Well. Okay. Thank you for coming. I’m afraid I’m suddenly a bit nonplussed.”

“That’s okay, really. The girls insisted on coming to see you, and we didn’t really expect you to be awake. The doctors reportedly said you might not wake up for quite some time.”

Mia spoke up. “Coach, they said you might not wake up at all, that you might, you know, might not make it.” Her eyes began to fill with tears.

Emil rumbled, “It’s good to see you, both awake and at least semi-coherent. We’ll get out of here so that someone else can come in and see you. I understand Mrs. Nbanga came by after school, but you weren’t awake yet, and I thought I saw Terwilliger girls with their mother down in the gift shop as we came in. Come on, girls, let’s go. We’ll come back another time.”