Chapter 28

Greg woke briefly, and in searing pain, as the doctors and nurses worked frantically on his broken body. Once they noticed that he was awake, they started asking a bunch of questions that he did his best to answer, but the pain was making him confused. He saw the lights on the ceiling pass over him as they took him to surgery, and once through the doors, he felt the falling sensation as the anesthetic poured into his body. Then once again it was into oblivion.

The nurse on duty came into Mandy's room where Traci and Maria were both visiting her and Nick. Mandy had just finished breast-feeding her son, and she thought that the nurse had come to take him to the nursery.

Instead, the nurse quickly explained that Greg was in surgery after an accident. Mandy and Traci both started to panic, but the nurse told them that he was going to be all right, just very banged up for a while. They put Mandy in a wheelchair, and the three women moved down to the surgery waiting area. As soon as they got there, Traci put in a call to Heather at her office and told her what little she knew. Heather said that she would be there in a half hour, hoping by then they might know something.

While they were waiting, a police officer approached them. He needed to get some information about Greg, and asked which one of them was his wife. Traci and Mandy both spoke up, confusing the officer, so they had to explain their arrangement to him. "I'm on the official certificate, but Traci here has all the rights I do, and I insist that she be in on anything to do with our husband," Mandy said in a tone that brooked no argument.

The officer just shook his head and then started with the questioning. Mandy told the officer that there wouldn't be any drugs found in Greg's system, that he was on track to compete in the upcoming Olympics. He had left the hospital after visiting with her and was on his way to their home to change and then was going to pick up their daughter from Mandy's mother's house. With all the officer's questions taken care of, Traci then demanded to know what had happened.

"He was on his bike when run off the road and into a bridge abutment by another vehicle. I was behind him having just come on duty. I saw the accident and radioed for backup who stopped the SUV a short distance away. The guy had been on his cell and was looking for something in the other seat when he veered into Greg. Then he took off. We got him on reckless, leaving the scene of an accident, and about half a dozen other charges. I have to tell you that there was nothing that Greg could have done to prevent it happening. He is lucky to be alive. He was wearing his helmet and leathers, which saved him from bad road rash and possibly death.

"The paramedics said they thought he had a couple of breaks in his right leg, maybe a fractured pelvis and possibly some internal bleeding from a few broken ribs. But the folks at this hospital are who I would want taking care of me. They did when I was shot a year or so back, so I know they will do their best to get him patched up."

The women were less worried than before, but not by much. Heather showed up then, and they told her what they had found out from the officer. Maria excused herself, telling them that she was going to the hospital Chapel and light a candle for Greg's recovery. The rest of them settled in to wait for the surgeon to let them know how bad he might still be.

Mandy was just getting ready to go back to her room to feed Nick again when the doctor came out looking for them. He introduced himself, and the first thing he said was that he expected Greg to make a full recovery.

"The worst were the breaks in his right tibia, fibula, and femur. And of those, the break in the femur is the most worrisome. The bone was fractured, shattered really, just above the knee joint, and we had to use plates and screws to hold it all in place. He won't be able to walk for at least eight weeks, and then he will require therapy.

"Fortunately there were few internal injuries, and we were able to repair those. He also broke his pelvis, but that was just a crack, not a complete break. Like I said, he will heal completely, but it is going to take a long time and a lot of hard work."

Mandy was the first to speak. "Thanks, Doctor. We'll make sure he recovers. Now, how soon before we can see him?"

"Just as soon as he comes out of recovery. He will be in ICU for a day or so just to make sure that there are no complications, so only family will be allowed and then just one at a time."

"We are all family, Doctor," said Traci. "Heather is his mother, and Mandy and me are his wives."

The doctor looked confused. "Both of you are his wives? Y'all are Mormon or something like that?"

"No, nothing like that," stated Traci. "We were all married to each other at the UU Church. Mandy is the wife on record, but we share in everything."

The doctor rubbed his chin for a moment. "Well, it is highly unusual, but I will leave orders for you all to be allowed in." Just then his pager went off. "Excuse me ladies, but I need to get to the ER. Don't worry, Greg will be fine." He moved off down the hall in a brisk walk toward the elevators.

All three women hugged each other and cried a little bit in relief. Mandy's breasts were starting to leak milk, so she went back to her room to feed Nick. Heather and Traci sat back down to wait for the word that Greg was set up in ICU. Maria came back and was overjoyed to hear the news. She had come to think of Greg as a big brother, with just a little lust thrown in the mix. Since she couldn't see him until after he got out of ICU, she volunteered to call Charlie and Kathi and see if they would take her to go and get Jenni. She would take Jenni home and try to keep her on schedule. That was something she could do to help.

It seemed like forever before a CNA came to get them. Heather decided to go in first and then let Traci have a turn. She stepped to the door to see her son hooked up to monitors, and IV tubes. From the doorway she could see that the bruises all over his body were starting to turn purple, and on his right leg was a heavy cast that went from his toes to where it disappeared under the hospital gown. The incisions where they had gone into his abdomen to check for and repair more damage were hidden for the moment, but Heather knew they were there. All in all, he looked like a real mess.

Heather was beginning to think the doctor had lied to them about his condition until a nurse came up beside her and quietly told her that it looked a lot worse than it really was. She steeled herself and walked into the room.

"Greg, honey? It's Mom," she said in a low voice. In response, Greg opened his eyes and gave her a slight smile. She came over and took hold of his left hand, the only one not covered with tubes and monitoring devices. She felt his reassuring squeeze and began to feel like he really would make it. He tried to say something, but his mouth and throat were so dry that he couldn't talk. He was still very groggy from the meds that they were giving him and he was slipping in and out of consciousness.

"You just relax, honey. Traci is here outside and waiting to come in. Mandy is upstairs taking care of little Nicky. We've been really worried about you, but the doctor says you'll be fine." Again she felt the pressure of his hand squeezing hers. She could see him trying to stay awake, but the drugs he was getting were making that a losing battle. She told him to rest, and she just sat for a little while until his nurse came in to add something to his IV. Heather told him she was going to let Traci in for a while, but that someone would be here with him all the time. He gave a sleepy nod of his head, and she slipped out to allow Traci her turn.

Heather told Traci about how he looked and what the nurse said, but that didn't prepare Traci for the sight when she came into his room. She walked over to his bed with tears in her eyes and leaned down to place a light kiss on his lips. When he tried to return the kiss, she broke down and cried, holding tightly to his hand. He gave her a squeeze and then pulled his hand from hers so he could pat her arm, telling her that it would be all right.

All she could say for a while was, "I love you." She tenderly pressed her hands over all of the bruises and cuts she could see, as if she could somehow make them go away, then sat in silence with him while he rested. She only left when Heather peeked in to tell her that Mandy was back and waiting to come in.

Mandy's reactions were the same as Traci's. Throughout the next two days, they took turns sitting next to Greg, talking sometimes, but mostly sitting in silence and touching him to let him know that they were there for him.

Seventy-two hours passed before the hospital moved him to a private room. They had reduced the drugs enough that he was now more awake. The room was equipped with an overstuffed, extra-wide chair that folded out into a bed. The hospital had discharged Mandy and Nicky by then, so the women decided that they would all take turns staying with Greg throughout the night. They went in shifts. Mandy would be in during the day as she was not taking courses since she had the baby. Heather would be there in the evenings, and then Traci who had late classes this semester would be there overnight. Many evenings, Maria would show up with Jenni who was anxious to see where her daddy was. The little girl didn't understand what or why all those things were that were hooked to her daddy, but she instinctively knew not to touch the tubes and not to roughhouse too much.

Greg made a game of the cast with Jenni. She would knock on the cast, and he would wiggle his toes and call out, "Who's there?" When she became bored with that, there was always her new little brother who she'd claimed as her own property. She would sit deathly still in the big chair next to her mommy with Nicky in her tiny arms and just stare at him for the longest time. Any facial movement of Nicky's and Jenni would swear up and down that he was smiling at her, to her great delight.

Greg was very glad when three weeks later they removed his hip-to-toe cast and replaced it with one that they assured him that he could learn to walk with eventually. For now though, he was confined to a wheelchair. With help from the CNAs, he could finally make it to the bathroom so he was rid of the catheter and the bedpan. The new freedom meant that he could get out of the room and down into halls and the main floor of the hospital. One warm day, Mandy managed to sneak him down into the open-air plaza that was located in the center of the hospital. He sat in the sun for over an hour, and that was the highlight of his week.

But with the new freedom to move even a little bit came the realization of just how far he had to go. And then depression followed. They would wheel him down to therapy and stimulate the muscles under the cast just enough to keep them moving and then allow a mild upper-body workout. He couldn't believe how much tone he had lost in just a few weeks of inactivity. Everything he tried to do, things that before were done without thinking, were now a major chore, if not totally impossible. He began to feel useless.

The biggest blow to his mental health was when his Sensei and trainer came to tell him that he wouldn't be able to make it to the Olympics. The trials were just a month away, and there was no way he would be able to make them. When he talked to the orthopedist the next morning, Greg was told that the severity of the fractures and plates required to hold his knee together would make it very doubtful that he would ever compete at upper-level martial arts again.

Greg seemed then to lose interest in ever even just getting back up and walking. He complained about the therapy and quit pushing to get better. While he wasn't openly hostile to anyone, he became more surly, refusing to eat and using the excuse of being too tired to talk to his family when they tried to discuss recovery and rehab and training options after he got out of the hospital.

One evening, when Traci was there with him, she told him that she was looking forward to when they could have sex again. Greg lashed out that he was so crippled now that she and Mandy probably would never want to have sex with him again. This really hurt her, and she quickly left the room. In the waiting room, she called Mandy and explained what he had said. They talked for quite a while about what was going on and trying to decide just what to do. Finally, Mandy said that she was going to get Maria to watch Jenni and Nick and she was coming up to the hospital to see just what they could do.

Mandy arrived after just a few minutes. She didn't even go into Greg's room, but met Traci at the elevators, and the two went to the sitting area across from the nurse's station. After talking between themselves for a while, they asked their favorite nurse, Natalie, for her opinion.

Natalie had become close to the women as well as Greg. She had noticed his lack of cooperation and his moods lately as well. She made time to sit down with Mandy and Traci for a talk. She felt the situation was becoming serious.

"I can tell you both that this change in Greg is disturbing. I'm not a doctor, and you should talk to a therapist, but in my opinion, he is suffering from severe depression. That would explain his lack of appetite, the refusal to get well, even the lack of desire. And if he continues to become more depressed, he could end up suicidal."

At those words, Mandy burst into tears. Olivia's death flashed into her mind, and she knew she would never be able to survive something like that. Natalie looked over to Traci who was comforting her wife, her confusion clear in her eyes.

"We had a friend who was very close to Greg and Mandy who took her own life. It tore Greg up something awful, and you can see Mandy's reaction to the memory."

Now Natalie looked stricken. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to bring up something so painful. But that is a possibility if you don't find a way to snap him out of it. The antidepressants that he is on aren't doing the job." Natalie slipped away then to leave the two women to themselves.

Mandy looked into Greg's room to check on him only to find him sound asleep. She and Traci had decided that they were going to confront the doctor in the morning, so Mandy headed home to feed Nicky and to set the alarm to be sure to be there in the morning.

She was back, with Nicky in tow, before breakfast. Greg asked why she was there so early and she decided that they might as well confront the issue. Greg tried to deny anything was wrong, but both of his wives came down on him about the way he had been acting and how his moods had been so dark. They were still talking, now more calmly, when the doctor finally came in.

He pronounced that Greg was healing well as far as the breaks were concerned and deemed that the cast could be changed to a walking cast if the x-rays showed that much improvement. He did recommend having a mental health therapist come in and talk to Greg and even having the women come in. With that, he went on with his rounds to let them talk.

Greg did see the therapist, and while he improved a little over the next two weeks, he still felt that he would never be the way he was before. He didn't even believe he would be able to walk and run eventually, and he was sure he couldn't perform sexually well enough to satisfy Mandy and Traci. He was doing the physical therapy but not to the level that the physical therapist and the girls knew he could and should do.

Things came to a head when he said something along the line of not being able to satisfy her when he and Traci were talking. Traci stood up and went to the door saying she would be right back.

She went to the nurse's station and talked to Natalie. "I've had enough of Greg thinking that he won't be able to satisfy me or Mandy. I'm going to give him some 'special therapy' so don't mind any noises coming from down there, and ignore the monitors if his pulse goes up."

Natalie gave her a sly look. "I can't condone such a thing going on - hospital rules ya know. But if I'm not down that way, then I won't know anything is going on. And just between you and me, a wild fuck is probably just what he needs to improve his attitude."