Chapter 21

They'd been there six hours, and Bob was seriously contemplating going back home for a while, when a man wearing a traditional white doctor's lab coat came into the ER waiting room and called out, "Bob Franklin?"

Bob wasn't about to blow it now. He simply stood up, picked up Curtis, who was bone tired now, and walked to meet the doctor.

"And you must be Curtis," said the doctor, reaching to touch Curtis' shoulder. "Your mother mentioned you several times."

"Is she okay?" asked Curtis, sleepily.

"She's going to be fine," said the doctor. "She was really sick, but she's better now."

He looked at Bob's face and continued.

"We were more worried about her temp than the other symptoms," he said. "When she got here she was a hundred and five. On top of the disease itself, she was about to go into convulsions. We had to cool her down quickly, using several techniques. And we got some antibiotics in her intravenously, which helped too. She's been through the mill and I want to keep her here until tomorrow."

"Can we see her?" asked Bob.

"She's sleeping," said the man. "What happened to her used up pretty much all her strength."

"And ... the baby?" Bob's voice was tight.

"As far as we can tell, the baby suffered no problems. The heartbeat was strong and steady throughout the procedures we performed and that's a really good sign."

"You can hear its heartbeat?" Bob's voice held a wondering note.

"We used a vaginal ultrasound to keep an eye on the baby," he said. "Based on the pictures, I'd say the fetus is about ten weeks old."

"Wow," said Bob. "I didn't know such a thing even existed."

"If you leave your number with the clerk at the desk, someone will call you when she can receive visitors, or is ready to be released."

"Couldn't we just see her for a second?" asked Bob. "It would make Curtis feel a lot better to know she's okay."

The man looked irritated, but then smiled.

"Just a look," he said. "She probably won't be responsive, because she's on a light sedative. She's been through a lot and she needs her rest."

"Deal," said Bob.

Once they got into the room, though, Curtis wanted to hug his sleeping mother.

"Hugs heal hurts," he informed the staff, seriously.

How could they say no to that?

Curtis had hugged his sleeping mother and softly said, "Night night, Mommy." Of course there wasn't a dry eye in the room, including the doctor who had taken them there, and the two nurses who were fiddling with things in the room. Then Bob had taken him back home, where Curtis went to bed without argument.

By then sunrise was less than half an hour away, so Bob went outside to sit on the porch and watch the sun come up. It wasn't a spectacular sunrise, but he didn't mind. Seeing Riley lying there, with the color back in her cheeks, her chest gently rising and falling as she breathed, had been enough to ease the torment in his mind, and he was relaxed again.

He went back inside, re-washed the dishes, cleaned the counters with bleach, and washed the bed linens on Riley's bed.

Their bed.

After remaking the bed, he finally lay down. He stared at the ceiling, unable to think about anything other than her frenzied plea not to make her go away.

And her offer to marry him.

She had been delirious, of course. Hallucinations had made her say several odd things ... crazy things. She probably wouldn't even remember it when she felt better.

He tried to imagine asking her to marry him. It seemed ridiculous. Yes, he had a job now ... probably ... and she clearly wanted him to stay in the house with them. But that didn't automatically translate to marriage.

He was still imagining scenarios where he popped the question, when he fell asleep.

He hadn't set the alarm, but the phone woke him around noon. It was the hospital.

"Riley is awake and feeling better," said a woman who introduced herself as Jennifer. "They're going to see if she can keep water down, and if that works, they might give her a cracker or two."

"Sounds wonderful," said Bob. "When can she have visitors?"

"You can come any time, but no children are allowed on the ward."

"I can't bring her son?"

"Not if he's under sixteen."

"I promised him he'd get to see she was okay," said Bob.

"I'm sorry. Hospital rules." Jennifer didn't sound very sorry.

"Thanks," said Bob, and hung up.

He thought he might be able to avoid a confrontation if he just woke Curtis up and told him it was time to go to Bessie's.

He was chagrined to find Curtis already up and dressed. The boy was watching something on TV.

It turned out that Curtis knew his schedule well.

"I have to eat breakfast first, before I go to Bessie's," he said.

"Right," said Bob.

"Where's Mommy?" asked the boy.

"She's still at the hospital," said Bob. "When I take you to Bessie's I'm going to go see how she's doing."

"I want to go with you," said Curtis.

"Well, it turns out there's a rule that says little boys can't go to the part of the hospital where she is," said Bob.

"I did last night," pointed out Curtis.

"I know, but I guess we broke a rule last night. Tell you what. When I go see her, I'll take the video camera, and I'll record her giving you a message, and then we can play it on the TV or computer or something when I get home. How's that sound?"

"I'd rather go see her," said Curtis, seriously.

It wasn't until Bob explained that little boys have extra lots of germs on them, and that all those germs might make people in the hospital sicker, that Curtis relented and agreed to go to Bessie's.

By the time he explained to Bessie what had happened, Curtis was already getting out a game and calling to Bessie to come play with him.

She looked much better that afternoon. Physically, she was on the road to recovery.

Emotionally ... not so much.

"It's about time," she said, when he walked in. She smiled as she said it, but there was an edge to her voice. She was lying on top of the bed covers, wearing one of those thin hospital gowns that ties in the back. Her hair was done up on top of her head and held in place by what looked like two dozen pins and clips. "Where is Curtis?"

"They wouldn't let him come on the ward," said Bob. "Too young."

"Then how come the nurses all know about him, and how cute he is?" she asked.

Bob explained what had happened, and how he had stolen the show.

"I wanted to see him. Are you sure he's okay? He didn't get sick too?"

"No," said Bob. "Both of us were spared. They think you got infected while you were handling the chicken before it was cooked."

"I don't remember very much after I started puking my guts out," she said.

"You got a little delirious," said Bob, carefully. "They said your temperature was so high you were having hallucinations. You said some interesting things."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well, you thought your arm was purple, and you asked me why that might be," he said.

"You're joking!" she said.

"You don't remember that?"

"No," she said. "All I remember was waking up in a big steel bathtub, covered in little flat ice cubes. It was awful, Bob!"

"I bet," he said.

"And they wouldn't let me get out." She frowned. "Actually, I was as weak as a kitten. I couldn't have gotten out by myself if my life had depended on it."

"At least you got your IV out," said Bob, pointing at her arm, where there was a band aid.

"And I got a whole cracker to eat," she said. "I'm starving."

"Go slow," he said. "It's better to be hungry than to go through what I saw happen to you last night."

"They wouldn't let me take a shower either," she complained. "Instead I got a sponge bath, and Bob, they cleaned me absolutely everywhere! I was so embarrassed!"

"You needed it. You were blowing chunks from both ends, and I didn't have time to clean you up before they took you away."

"Oh Bob," she sighed. "We'll never feel romantic again."

He laughed. "Sweetheart, you look pretty good to me just lying there in a hospital gown."

That got him only the second smile he'd seen on her face since he got there.

He did get the video message to Curtis, though her comments were pretty short, taking only two or three minutes. During that time she said three times that she'd be coming home soon. He set the camera on a roll-around cart that he found outside in the hallway, so that it wouldn't move around as she talked. And it was because he didn't have anything to do but watch her as she spoke to her son, that he was able to see just how much had been taken out of her by something so simple as having gotten the wrong germ into her mouth. Seeing how tired she really was, he decided not to stay long.

Based on the doctor's assessment, she'd be released the next morning. He promised to be there to pick her up, and to bring something for her to wear. Then, astonished at how reluctant he was to kiss those lips ... lips that some irrational part of his mind said would infect him ... he overcame that feeling and leaned down to kiss her goodbye. There was something missing from that kiss, even then. But it was missing on the part of both individuals.