Chapter 24: Single Lane - No passing

Two minutes of sitting on a hard bench outside the hospital with Carissa and Wil was about all I could take. I suppose it wasn’t really that bad, but sitting there along with them just seemed to be too darn much like being inside the hospital. There was that same feeling of hopeful worry tinged with fear emanating from anyone I saw, the same feeling I always felt stifling me like a miasma when I was in any hospital.

It was my stomach growling that gave me an excuse to stand and move. It made me realize that I was hungry, exceptionally hungry, and I decided I needed to eat before much longer.

“Guys, I’m starving,” I announced relatively loudly. “I haven’t eaten anything, but a tiny bowl of soup and a little sandwich since lunch yesterday and my belly thinks my throat’s been slit.”

“Jeez, Chris. Can you possibly be any more gross and unfeeling?” Wil grouched at me. “Corinna is up there in the fucking operating room and you’re talking about slit throats. You can be a total asshole at times!”

At that point, he got to his feet and stomped back into the hospital. All I could do was stare after him. I knew I’d screwed up a bit, but at the same time I felt he was overreacting. I wished I could have taken back the words, but since I couldn’t, I didn’t know what to do.

“Chris, don’t get all upset by what Wil said,” Carissa said flatly. “That wasn’t the most brilliant statement you’ve ever made, but there was no real reason for him to get so pissy about it either. Neither of you like hospitals, but he’s gone a bit overboard about Corinna. I’m not as worried now as I was yesterday.”

“Huh, but today Corinna’s being operated on. Yesterday she was being held in a coma until she became more stable.”

“Exactly,” Carissa got to her feet. “I’ve been around hospitals enough to know the way things work. Yesterday morning they were still worried about her recovering from her suicide attempt. They obviously aren’t worried now or they wouldn’t be putting her through an intensive operation. They wouldn’t even start anything of that sort if they didn’t believe that there is a darn good chance that she’ll make it. That’s not the way surgeons work.”

“But, what if something happens?”

“Oh Cris. Dr. Wolchuck, the surgeon in charge of her operation is probably the best brain surgeon in Canada at this time. The staff here has a great reputation and the hospital itself is probably the best equipped in western Canada. I trust the hospital, the surgeon, the nurses, the staff and everything. I think she’s going to be fine,” she stood facing me. “Now, I see people coming out of that building across the way and they’re carrying coffee and doughnuts. I’ll bet there’s a cafeteria of some sort in there. I’m a bit hungry myself, so shall we go find out if we can find somewhere to have breakfast?”

I didn’t argue. In fact I was just a bit stunned at her show of faith in the hospital and it’s staff, so I was still digesting her statements. In fact, as we were entering a door into a cafeteria Carissa had to poke me to make me realize that someone was asking me a question.

“Chris, the gentleman was asking about your casts,” she said as I looked at her in surprise.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I turned to look at a tall dark skinned guy who was smiling at me.

“It is I who should apologise, kind sir,” he bowed his turban encased head in a quick nod. “I was asking for to know the where of you obtained those delightful casts that you wear about your hand and also about your leg.”

“Uh, in the hospital, back home, in Mountview. Why?”

“Oh. It is of a certainty that I have seen the usage of a mouldable plastic cast on the hand before in the certain cases. Also, I have seen the printed matter on the usage of the resin impregnate glass fibre cast as well. But, never have I seen them in usage upon the same person and never have I applied either one or the other to a brokened limb either,” he shook his head and smiled. “If it seems strange that I have this large interest, it is to be explained in that I am one person who applies casts to those with brokened limbs here at this hospital. Is there a chance perhaps that you could tell me of why you are wearing them and how you are finding them to be when in use?”

“Well, we’re only here at the cafeteria to eat breakfast, then we have to go back to the hospital since Carissa’s sister is being operated on this morning. I’d be willing to talk to you, but I’m afraid that right now isn’t a good time,” I was able to understand him, but was having trouble with his accent and his strange syntax.

“I am of the understanding of this completely,” he nodded enthusiastically. “If there be a chance to happen when you would be free, I am of working in room 206 of the main hospital. My name is Rashid and I am to be there each day of this week and to be at the work from seven in the A.M. until three in the P.M. I would greatly appreciate to have you tell me of the experience with these sorts of cast types if you do find the time to come by my work and to tell me. That would give me the reference of what they are good for the usage of them and so forth. Perhaps too, I can use the materials of which I have some available to me so as to make the two of the casts you wear to look slightly less used than it is apparent that they do at this now time.”

He almost bowed again. “I will be going the now, but I will be hoping that you will be finding the time to come see me at my working place.”

Then, before I could say anything more, he was walking away. I looked at Carissa and I couldn’t help smiling and shaking my head. She looked almost as confused as I felt.

“All that because of your casts?” she stared after Rashid.

“Yeah, I think he takes his business to heart,” I was grinning at that point because of his sheer enthusiasm.

“He’s right about one thing, you know. Those casts are getting to look pretty darn ratty looking,” she looked quite serious. “On top of that, once they have started the operation, it would give you and me something to do in order to take a break.”

“I thought you’d want to be there, just in case,” I edged us over into the lineup toward the serving area.

“Unh uh, not really. Not for the hours that brain surgery takes,” she sighed. “Being patient and sitting around, doing absolutely nothing but worry is not my cup of tea, and it’s certainly not yours.”

“No, you’re right there,” I agreed.

Just then the woman behind the counter turned to me and asked what I wanted to eat. The service was so quick then that I had to break off talking with Carissa until we were out of the lineup and I’d paid for our breakfasts. We wandered to the far side of the room and found a small table near a window where we unloaded our trays. I was surprised to see that both of us were as hungry as we were. Once all of our food and drinks were on the little table it was relatively full, but that didn’t last long. In fact for the next while we were paying so much attention to our food that we hardly spoke. It wasn’t until we were finished eating and were drinking our coffee that we began to talk again.

We did decide that if all of us were sitting around waiting, and if the two of us started to feel that we were having problems with being overly bored, we’d go see Rashid. But in all honesty, we felt it might be better if we waited to do that another time or even another day.

I also told Carissa about Grampa Bender’s will and the changes he’d made in the lease, asking her opinion on what I should do about my education. I even told her about Dad and Beth’s opinion and about Dad’s idea that I should talk to her parents.

I thought at first she’d gone off on a tangent when she asked. “Does Wil know about both the lease and the will?”

“I guess so, why?”

“Well, I guess I was thinking about his mood and thinking that as the oldest son he might feel slighted in some way. I mean your Grampa is giving you and Beth the upper ranch and all he’s getting is the same shares you both are getting in the lease.”

“But he’ll end up having the home place after Mom and Dad retire. He’s going to be farming more arable land than we will. Besides Beth and I have to share the upper area between us and it’s the smaller and less productive portion. The upper ranch is really only good for grazing land for almost all of the acreage. Actually the most valuable part of it is the water rights and then only for the lower section of the lease. You know what it’s like, you’ve seen it.”

“Oh, I understand what you mean, but I wonder if he sees it the same way? What do Tom and Jasmine think of all this?”

“I haven’t had a chance to ask them. Actually I brought up the subject when we were driving up here yesterday, but Wil wouldn’t talk to me about it at all. In fact since Corinna got hurt, he’s hardly talked to anyone.”

“I wonder if he’s upset that we didn’t take him along when we rushed to Charlie Engels’ so I could fly up here with Corinna and Mom?”

“I don’t think so. He seemed to understand that when I talked to him about it afterward. I think he’s more upset about the way he hung up on Corinna the night before she hurt herself. I think he’s blaming himself for the way she acted.”

“I didn’t hear anything about that. What happened?”

“Oh, I thought you knew about that, but then come to think of it, I didn’t at first. I heard the story from Dad, but according to him, Corinna called Wil and started to rant and rave about things. When it got too hot and heavy, Wil lost his cool and hung up the phone. Then the next day he heard about her jumping from the steeple and trying to kill herself. I think he blames himself for the whole thing.”

“Oh my! The poor guy is simply overloaded with all this stuff going on. The guy comes home from school and finds his brother is hurt, then he and his brother get involved with twins, next his grandfather almost dies and if that wasn’t enough he and his new girlfriend have a fight, then she tries to kill herself. Poor Wil must feel like he’s in the center of an emotional tornado,” she paused for a second, then looked at me and frowned. “In fact since you’re involved in even more crud than he is, I’m wondering how the heck you’re managing to stay so calm and cool with all this crap going on in your life.”

“Well, I could ask the same of you,” I managed a weak smile. “We’ve sort of tied our lives together as a couple in the last little while, so what affects me also bothers you and vice versa.”

“It’s not the same,” she shook her head. “I mean I’m deeply involved in my family’s stuff, but not as deeply in your family’s stuff as you are, if you know what I mean? You and Wil have so much other crap going on and then my family is leaning on you for support, even Wil is depending on you for that matter. Don’t forget, I was there at the school when those pictures came out and when we found Grampa Bender. I know what you did and how you reacted, so I know how you handle things.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed. “It’s just that I’ve been leaning on you to help me hang onto my sanity. You’ve been my rock that I can hold onto and I’ve sort of let the tide of happenings flow around me.”

“Well, I’m proud and happy that I could help,” her eyes seemed to fill with tears. “But, I really didn’t think I was doing that much.”

“Believe me, you were,” I reached out and took both of her hands in mine and held them gently. “Thank you.”

“Well, I’ve been leaning on you too,” she was trying to laugh and cry at the same time. “So I guess we’re about equal. Although from my side it’s looked to me like you were the rock and I was the one who was holding on.”

“Well, whatever. Anyway, this place is getting busy,” I said as I glanced around. “Maybe we should head back to the hospital?”

“I guess, but let’s take our time,” she sighed as she stood up. “I can’t see the operation being over until late this afternoon or even early this evening.”

So we stood up and cleared our table, returning the serving trays and dirty dishes, then working our way outside.

“I’ve be considering things and I think you should continue with that electronics course, Chris,” Carissa said as she grasped my hand and smiled up at me when we were outside again. “On top of that, I rather like Beth’s idea that we should stay together. However, I think we might have a tough job convincing my folks of the idea that we should live in the same apartment. I really believe that might be a very tough sale.”

“But, what difference is there in that from what we’re doing at the ranch?”

“At the ranch, we’re rather isolated,” she chuckled. “In the city everyone could see that we were living in sin.”

“Oh, for cripes sake.”

“Hey, this is Bible Belt, Alberta, home of Mr. and Mrs. Conservative who go to the local Evangelical Christian Church and consider their interpretation of the Bible to be the one and only truth in the whole world.”

“Aww, come on. Your Mom and Dad aren’t conservative.”

“No, they certainly aren’t, but they run a business in a conservative town,” she sighed. “Now come on, let’s get back and see how things are doing in the hospital.”

I really wasn’t looking forward to spending the whole day in the hospital, so I’ll freely admit I was very slow walking back inside. When we got back to the waiting room, we found Mr. and Mrs. Coulter and Will, all sitting there quietly, but impatiently. Corinna hadn’t even gone into the operating theatre yet, so they were starting to feel that they should have gone to the cafeteria and eaten with us.

On the way back we’d noticed that there was a cafeteria of sorts in the hospital itself, so John asked a nurse how long it would be before the operation would start. When he found that it was still at least a half hour away, he and Wil went downstairs to see if they could get coffee and something for snacks. Mrs. Coulter refused to go, so Carissa and I sat with her and waited. Actually the guys were back and had brought coffee for everyone long before Corinna was wheeled into the operating room.

Just a few minutes before she was taken in, Dr. Wolchuck, the surgeon in charge of the operation, came out to meet all of us. He was a tall man, very clean cut and quite friendly, but he gave me the impression of someone who could be quite curt and businesslike if he wanted to cut people off. He spent a few minutes reassuring us, speaking mostly to Mr. and Mrs. Coulter, then he excused himself.

In a way I felt let down for some reason, but I couldn’t explain why. I suppose I had expected the doctor to explain things a bit more than he had. However, I don’t think there was much that he was willing to say at that point. After all, I had to admit to myself that even he didn’t really know much about what he was going to be facing right then, not until he actually had begun surgery.

Once the operation started, I grew bored with all the waiting and so did Carissa and Wil. I think John and Wilma were bored as well, but they were so worried about the operation, that they refused to do anything, but wait as patiently as possible.

To try to break up the monotony, I told everyone about Grampa Bender’s will and about his creation of a limited company to handle the lease. Then I asked everyone about their opinions on my education. To my surprise, every one of them felt I should carry on with my electronics training.

I’d been a bit worried about Wil, but it turned out that he hadn’t been upset with Grampa Bender or with Beth and me. In fact he thought it was a good deal all around. On top of that, after Corinna had gone into the operation, it seemed as if he had resigned himself to putting his faith in the surgeons and to some extent he had come out of the depression he’d been suffering. At least he began to talk and react a little more normally as he spoke with the rest of us.

Wil’s opinion about the animal husbandry course that Olds Ag. School offered was that it was good, but that I could attend it at any time. He was strongly in favour of my going to Calgary and enrolling in SAIT to take their electronics course.

John and Wilma agreed with Wil, but they did argue with Carissa about the idea that the two of us should live together in Calgary. It seemed that they could handle Carissa staying with me on the ranch, but the idea of the two of us living together in the city bothered them. Their argument was that they felt it would cause us to lose focus on our studies. Carissa argued right back that because we were staying with each other at the cabin, we were already over the worst of that sort of thing. I had to laugh at Mrs. Coulter’s reaction to that statement.

“Well, I should hope you aren’t!” she said loudly. “My goodness, Carissa, is your sex drive that weak?”

Just the fact that she’d say something like that embarrassed both Carissa and me, but at the same time we had to laugh, even as we were denying the idea.

That was about the only real laugh we had all day.

The operation started just after eight in the morning and lasted until late in the afternoon. We all tried to keep each other from being bored and we all went for short breaks, but none of us was ever gone from the waiting room for more that a half hour or so. Finally, at shortly after five, a doctor came to tell us that Corinna was out of the operating room and was being moved to ICU for the night.

At that point he told us that in a few moments Dr. Wolchuck would like to talk about the operation with the immediate family members, but he needed to clean up and change first. At that point he also said that none of us were to worry, they thought Corinna had pulled through the operation well and that she would definitely recover.

All of us had questions, but the doctor who had come to see us refused to answer them, telling us that Dr. Wolchuck should do that. In order to see him, we had to wait almost an hour more, so it was after six when the five of us filed into Dr. Wolchuck’s office and found seats. He looked wiped out.

“Good evening,” he sighed heavily. “First off, I should say that Corinna came through this operation with flying colours and barring any unforseen developments, she should recover completely. However, there may be some minor personality changes.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Coulter gasped softly and I saw John grasp her hand in support.

“Wait,” Dr. Wolchuck held up a hand as if to stop any more protests. “Considering the amount of pressure that the growth was placing on her brain, she must have suffered from terrible headaches. That would have made her extremely irritable at times and I can see that by removing that growth, that pressure will be relieved. The headaches should diminish and so should the irritability.”

He paused and looked down at his desk as if he was consulting his notes.

“Now, I think you all know that we suspected a cancerous tumour, but that supposition was incorrect. In fact, what we just dealt with was not a tumour as such. The growth we dealt with inside that young lady’s skull was something far more rare than that,” he looked up at Mr. and Mrs. Coulter. “I understand your daughter was one of a pair of twins?”

“Yes, Corinna and Carissa are twin sisters,” John answered, gesturing at Carissa. “Does that have something to do with the operation?”

“Yes, it does,” The doctor said firmly. “At one point in their prenatal development, your wife was carrying triplets, not twins.”

“What?” Mrs. Coulter sat up very straight and stared at the surgeon in surprise. “After all this time, how could you know that?”

“Wait, please. You are going to have to be very patient with me. This was an extremely rare situation and I am still absorbing all of the implications myself,” he sighed.

“Take your time doctor,” John said softly. “We’ll do our best to be patient.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Wolchuck smiled tiredly. “I’m going to have to do some research into occurrences, but this is truly a case of a multiple birth gone wrong. What will sometimes happen in a multiple birth is that one of the fetuses will cease developing. When that happens, one of two things normally will occur. Either both fetuses die and are aborted, or the second fetus continues to develop and is born normally. In that case a ‘fetus papyraceus’ or ‘fetus compressus’ develops within the womb along with the second fetus. Just one second and I’ll read the description from one of my medical texts.”