Chapter 12

Carole called and confirmed that she was coming to drive me into the City to see Doctor Phaisal, and I convinced her to come early so we could stop for lunch. She arrived wearing her hospital scrubs, and I wondered why.

"I still work for the hospital, and this is what nurses wear," was all she said. I noticed Joseph, Tabitha, and a housekeeper peeking out various windows to see what was happening as Carole drove my Lexus away.

Lunch was at an actual Mom and Pop, on the way out of Chevy Chase. It was marvelous, and I promised myself I'd come back often. The drive downtown was just that, a drive and we managed to be ten minutes early for my appointment.

"Why are there fresh stitches in this wound, Kevin?" Doctor Phaisal wasn't given to much small talk. He went straight to work when he came into the examining room.

My head injury wasn't healing quickly because I kept hitting it on things, so that's what I told him. "I had two times when I hit my head and it bled. The last time was when I tripped and fell, and hit it on a wooden sidewalk." No need to tell him everything.

He considered my answer and then said, "Don't do that anymore. Even though your wound is closed, it is still too soft for you to be hitting your head. It will continue to reopen and bleed, and we might have to re-stitch the whole thing if you keep it up."

He finished his examination, proclaimed me on the road to recovery, set up an appointment for two weeks out, and I left.

Carole couldn't wait to get me home and naked, and we spent much of the afternoon practicing the better parts of lovemaking. No matter what we did, what she tried, or how we did it, she made sure that all of my spend wound up inside her.

Later, after Carole had been gone awhile, and I had a short nap, Constance called. "What's this I hear about you nearly dying, saving the Kirby granddaughter?!?!?"

She was not happy.

In fact, her happiness was severely depleted.

"I was out walking in the big back yard, admiring the lake, when the little one wandered away from her family and I just managed to catch her before she went under the water," was all I said. No sense making more out of it that there was.

"Are you mental? Let me tell you how I found out about your little walk in the big back yard. Carlisle Kirby calls the President, because they just happen to be BEST FRIENDS, and tells him all about you charging across their yard, catching the falling baby, as she tumbles off the dock, into freezing, black, water, and how you held her body out of the water until someone could grab her. Then he tells him all about your broken, sick, body passing out and disappearing under the water from hypothermia, and the '"horrendous' head injury you suffered when diving to catch their baby granddaughter.

"Now, if that is a little walk in the big back yard to you, then you are mental!

"And...

"If I don't have a butt the next time you see me, it's because my boss just chewed it completely off because I wasn't out in Chevy Chase when this happened to make sure you survived, and didn't embarrass the President.

"So! Let me tell you what I know...

"You WERE walking in the big back yard when the Kirby baby ran off the dock, and would have dropped six feet into cold, black, water, except that you, TWO DAYS out of the hospital from a gunshot to the head, trying to save the President of the United States, ignoring any pretense of self-preservation, dove into said, frigid, black, lake, just catching the Kirby baby before she forever disappeared beneath the cold water.

"Ignoring your split skull, from hitting it diving to catch the Kirby baby, you held her little squirming body, above the frigid water, while the stunned family got around to taking her from you, but not before you passed out and sank under said frigid water, and only managed to avoid drowning because one of the Kirby daughters shoved a metal pole out for you to grab, while the men pulled you in.

"Does any of that sound familiar?" She was very worked up.

"We talked to your Doctor, and the Kirby's Doctor who treated you in their home, after the accident, and everyone agrees that you weren't physically capable of doing what you did, so it must have been an act of God, that you were able to save that baby."

She was running down, and I let her work the anger, and frustration of being blamed for something she could never have anticipated, or avoided, out her system.

Eventually it worked.

When she had fully vented her pent up anger, she said, "They told me to drive out to Chevy Chase and take care of you until you are fully healed. I am to – and I quote – feed you, dress you, bathe you if necessary, and see to it that you lead a charmed life, or I can submit my immediate resignation.

"What do they think you are ... helpless? Ten years old? Mentally challenged? I just don't understand these people. Working for the President must make you stupid, or something."

She went silent after her tirade and I could hear road noise, so she must be driving somewhere.

"Are you headed home for the day?" I asked reasonably.

"Nope. I've been home. I'm heading for a certain estate in Chevy Chase, where I am to babysit a sixteen-year-old national hero."

I could hear the first hint of humor in her voice and went with it. "Are you really? Is this national hero anyone we both know? Is he cute? Do you think he'll ask you to the dance, or go steady? Do you suppose he'll want to hold hands? Is he from a good family? Do you really know ANYTHING about this national hero?

"Maybe this is a bad idea, and your virtue will be in danger if you are alone with him. Did you even think about that, young lady?" We were starting to have fun, at least.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't keep herself from laughing, which was my intent, and we chattered the rest of her drive. When I saw the US Government motor pool, minivan coming toward the carriage house, I met her at the front door with a plate of freshly baked chocolate cookies in my hand, courtesy of the Kirby's cook.

It took Constance and me about four hours to properly say hello, and our greeting was made in three different rooms, in three different stages of undress, and included things like Constance praying for deliverance from the sensations I was causing, "Oh, God ... Oh, God ... Oh, God...", to an uncharacteristic string of expletives out of her mouth, later.

I am quite certain that several of the things she shouted during climax are physically impossible...

Just saying...

When we finished greeting each other, in the bath tub - because it worked so well the evening before – we were well and truly greeted right into exhaustion. By the time we cleaned ourselves up enough to go to bed, Constance went straight from pulling up the covers to waking up in the morning, with no stops in between.

Constance snores!

Loud.

I poked her, nudged her, spoke to her, turned her part way onto her back, and finally shook her until she almost woke up, before it quieted down enough to sleep. When she did quiet down, I shared her state of unconsciousness for the rest of the night.

I was in the shower the next morning, when the bathroom door opened and a bedraggled looking Constance stumbled in, looking like proof positive of life after death. Her somnambulant state tickled me, and I started to laugh without thinking, which earned me the wrath of an angry woman who turned on the faucets in the bathroom, and flushed the toilet, at the same time.

You can imagine how comfortable that sensation was first thing in the morning, right there at the crack of eleven.

By the time Carole rolled up, we were awake, showered, breakfasted, and sitting in front of the gas fireplace, where I was pretty sure I'd like to stay until summer. Carole let herself in, and ran to the back room for a hug, skidding to a stop when she saw Constance. They eyed each other suspiciously until I introduced them.

"Constance Ames meet Carole the Wonder nurse. Carole the Wonder Nurse, meet Constance Ames who works in the White House, but was sent here to make sure I don't fall into any more lakes."

That worked just like I hoped. Carole demanded to know the whole story, and Constance had only heard it third hand. Before I finished, the front door opened two more times, and first Tabitha Kirby, and then Janice Kirby French trooped in and offered their versions of the story, whenever they thought mine was too thin.

"The President's Chief-of-Staff is my boss, and he tore me from stem to stern, because Kevin got hurt saving your granddaughter, Mrs. Kirby. The White House is utterly convinced that anything bad that happens to Kevin will hurt the President, politically, and they sent me out here to somehow make sure he doesn't fall into any more lakes, hit his head on any other docks, and avoids bleeding in any other people's living rooms.

"I'm not sure how they think I can keep this mental case from showing up and nearly getting killed saving people, but that's my assignment." Constance was laying it on a bit thick, as you can tell.

"Young lady," This from Tabitha, who lorded her status as the oldest in the room over everybody, "The first instant I set eyes on Kevin was when he flew into view, running to catch little Kimberly. She is absolutely our favorite grandchild, and the only one we have...

"Somehow, that child snuck away from her mother and nanny. When we realized she wasn't inside, we all started to fan out to find her. Janice, my youngest daughter, screamed when she saw Kimberly running towards the end of the dock.

"I looked out and realized that there was no way any of us would get to her before she went off into that awful, dirty, freezing, water. The contractors were here first thing this morning constructing a set of gates so it will never happen again, and that nanny was fired so fast, she never knew what hit her." Tabitha Kirby was working herself up, telling the story from her vantage point.

"I heard myself screaming hysterically, and at that same instant, I saw a man running after the baby. He was ever so much closer, and it looked like he might get to her, before she disappeared beneath that awful lake."

Her eyes we wet with tears as she told the next part. "Then everything happened at the same time. Carlisle and Daniel were running toward the dock, Janice was much closer and screaming for Kimberly to turn around and come to her. Joseph, our house manager, was running from the garage, where he went to search for little Kimberly, and I saw my baby granddaughter run off the end of that awful dock, into thin air and frigid water..."

She hesitated. Tears filled her eyes, and flowed down her face. The look of fear and sorrow that was on her face, made me move to her side and cuddle into my arms, to give her comfort.