Chapter 15

Sunday showed yet another dismal day. The kids all tried to cheer me up some. The problem was, they also needed cheering up. We were still seeing friends come over trying to help out however they could.

I went into the office and started working on my homework. I still had 3 days worth, since I had missed Wednesday thru Friday of classes. I spent most of the day working on it.

Robbie, Becky and Mike all lounged around the TV trying to find something to watch. They kept changing the channels hoping to find something worth watching.

Things changed some when my brother Steve and his wife Sue came over. They took the kids out in an attempt at cheering them up. They were gone for over 4 hours. I don't know where they went or what they did, but it seemed to have helped them some.

Monday morning, I was back in class. My professors were all a bit shocked to see me. Once I reminded them that finals were next week, they all understood. That afternoon is when I got the full details of the accident.

Two detectives stopped by to pay me a visit. They explained what they found.

"Mr. Becker, it appears that the truck crossed the center line and hit your sister-in-law's vehicle head on. He claimed at the time that his brakes failed. We checked the brakes and the rest of the truck and everything was in working order. The one part that seemed wrong was the driver. He had a blood alcohol level of .23. Almost 3 times the legal limit."

"He was drunk?"

"Very drunk. I don't know how he could have seen the road."

The other officer then started to talk; "He's being charge with 2 counts of vehicular homicide and DWI. Since he was driving a tractor-trailer combo, he may also be subject to some federal charges as well."

"Sounds like I would be wise to retain an attorney."

"I know I would."

"Thanks gentlemen."

After they left, I was in the yellow pages of the local phonebook. I knew with what they told me, a big lawsuit could be had. I found one of those "Accident Attorneys" and gave them a call. I explained what happened and wondered if they would be interested. Not only were they interested; a representative was going to be here to visit me tomorrow.

The rest of the day was spent with me working on homework. I needed to keep my grades up. Part of me just wanted to sit and cry, but I knew that I needed to fight through that. There would be plenty of time for that later.

I was thinking about taking the kids out to dinner that night. Before they arrived home, a few ladies from our church showed up with food.

"Hi Rob. I hope you don't mind. We've arranged for us to have food delivered to your family for this week. That way, you don't have to worry about that."

"Thanks ladies. That means quite a bit from all of us. I know I'm struggling to just keep my focus on my schoolwork."

"You worry about your schoolwork, we'll make sure that you're fed."

That was going to be a relief. I now only needed to focus on school for a week. I figured that if I sunk myself into schoolwork, I could at least forget about things for a while.

The rest of the week went pretty smooth. I was caught up in school by Wednesday. Finals were going to be next week. I spent most of my free time working in my books studying when I wasn't doing my homework. Life was sure getting singled focused fast.

Saturday rolled around and my kids grabbed me and informed me that I only had an hour in the office.

"What are you talking about?"

Becky spoke first, "We are getting you out of this house for a while. You're going to take us to the camp for the weekend."

Robbie then added in, "Yeah, I've been told that if you resist, we are to drag you out of the house. Between the 3 of us, I think we could do that."

I relented.

We drove to the family camp that was 25 miles away. The kids actually packed the food that we needed. When we got there, our camper needed to be cleaned out a little. They start to stink when they sit empty for the winter.

Robbie plugged in the power and I turned the propane on and bled the air from the lines. I also got the pilot light on the heater working. Once that was done, we walked up to the main portion of the camp to see my parents.

They spend most weekends here from late spring thru early fall. I will give the kids credit, it was a relaxing weekend with my children and my parents. I still cried myself to sleep every night.

We returned home Sunday afternoon feeling better. Getting away for the most of the weekend seems to have helped a lot. We had only been home for an hour when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi Rob. It's Julie. Is Becky there?"

"Yeah, one moment."

I called Becky and handed her the phone. I then went into my office to do some studying. Since I didn't have to work all week, I was able to keep the homework up to date. With this being the last week of school for the semester, that meant final exams were coming up. I wanted to score well on the finals.

I was in the office studying for about 2 hours when there was a knock at the door. I thought that was odd, since my kids knew they could come in there at any time.

"Come in."

I was surprised when Julie came in the room.

"Oh, hi Julie. I didn't know you were coming over."

"Well, I have some stuff to discuss with you."

"What about?"

"Well, I went to the doctors this week. He told me that the baby is doing fine. He also told me the sex of the baby."

"Whoa, don't tell me, I don't want to know."

"Why not? It would allow you to plan."

"It's like Christmas. It's nice to know what you're getting, but it wrecks the surprise of it. I'll find out when I am holding him or her in July."

"Ok, suit yourself."

"Thanks."

"Secondly, I have to find a place to stay after this week."

"You do?"

"Yeah, end of semester they kick everyone out of the dorms."

"Oh, I forgot about that. I never thought about it since I never lived in the dorm. I thought you were going to go home?"

"My parents are still not talking with me. They are still mad about me spending a whole 2 months away from home and I was already pregnant. I also don't want to go home and get my friend used to me being pregnant, only to have me give up the baby. What they don't know about won't hurt me."

"Ahhh. I can understand that. As far as a place to stay, I could clean my stuff out of this room and you could use it until you're ready to leave. I know you don't have much money or any job, so getting a place of your own is not really possible."

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to impose."

"You're going to give birth to my baby son or daughter. You can stay in the guest room until that happens. Are you going to need help moving?"

"Probably. I'm not allowed to lift as much as I used to."

"I guess we have a project for next weekend then."

She walked over to me and wrapped her arms around me.

"Thanks Rob."

"Listen, if you don't mind, I still have to finish studying. Finals this week don't really care about babies or homes or any of that other stuff."