Chapter 37

Zeus

It was in month seven of the pregnancy that Arti delivered two babies that mystified her doctors. The twins were, apparently, as developed as any full-term babies, and not even undersized or underweight as sometimes twins are.

Arti was, as you can imagine, huge. She wasn't small of build, but it was like a normal woman had swallowed a weather balloon. She was unsteady on her feet and was forever going to the bathroom. She was also eating like – well, she was eating for three people.

We had decided to name them after us, in a fashion. Zebulon and Allison. Zeb was a 7 pound boy and was born first. Allie came out 4 ½ minutes later. To be accurate, as our friend Io pointed out, it was 4.3572 minutes. She was almost the same size: 6 pounds 14 ounces. Arti needed a few days of hospital rest after having nearly 16 pounds of instant weight reduction (gotta count the placentas, you know).

Oh, me? From the day I woke up, it took about another week of hospital stay before they would let me go. I was very weak and it took me nearly three months of PT to get back to where I needed to be. That is, three months not counting the adrenaline fueled rush when I had to get Arti to the hospital. That I did just fine, then nearly collapsed in the waiting room.

Shortly after Arti came home with Zeb and Allie, we had our first big outing. We visited Navajo Pete and BlueBird. To our surprise, they had invited the entire Navajo hierarchy: the council of elders, the President of the nation, and other assorted big- and small-wigs. We invited Midnight and Ramon, Astrid Little Feather, and practically anybody we knew.

We were sitting around after dinner, munching on popcorn in the living room, the twins were sleeping quietly, and Io was listening through our ITEs. The subject of my time in coma came up. This was really the first time I'd ever had to talk about it.

"Well, I was running through the tunnels when there was a cave in." We'd decided that it was better not to tell everyone that we were in China. Just that I'd just been caving with Arti when I got hurt. "The ceiling was coming down in chunks. Everything went black and then I woke up in the hospital bed." They seemed to be buying it.

"You were almost dead, Together with the Spirits," BlueBird said, using the English version of my Navajo name. "Did you have any out of body experiences, or get closer to the Great Spirit?"