Sorry our Thursday installment is late. This was originally supposed to be a single post story, but morphed into a four part series. Thus, it took more time to adjust and format than I had originally anticipated. Please enjoy and come back the next two Thursdays to read the rest:
John Huxley’s surprise at waking up in a hospital bed was eased a bit when he saw his wife, Sara, sleeping in the chair beside his bed. When he looked around the room, trying to remember how he got there, he saw cards, letters and pictures covering the walls. When his focus came back to Sara, he couldn’t help but notice that something seemed different about her, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
Nonetheless, her presence made John smile and he opened his mouth to call to her. No words came out. A second try released only a whisper so quiet no words could have been deciphered even if someone awake had been in the room.
When John lifted his arm to try and make some sort of noise that might wake his wife, it felt as if it weighed a ton. He let if fall back to the mattress and noticed then how thin it looked.
Before John could even process this new discovery a nurse entered the room and stared at him like he had an ear growing out of his forehead. He tried to speak to her with the same results as the nurse made her way to his sleeping wife. When she woke, the nurse silently pointed in John’s direction, prompting Sara to sit straight up and look at John with surprise.
John decided not to even attempt speaking again and smiled instead. When this lead to tears from Sara, he found himself wondering what he’d done to upset her.
Within a few short minutes, everything would be made clear to John Huxley. It would be explained to him that he was in a serious car accident that he had not been expected to survive. He would find out that he was taken to Minnesota for treatment once his vital signs had miraculously stabilized. This was far from his home in Toledo. Sara would explain that it was a blessing that she was there to greet him, because she only spent every other weekend with him now. He would soon understand that this was because he had been in a coma for the last six years.
It took several weeks before John could speak and before he could do such simple things like stand on his own. Walking was still quite some time off, but John was actually ahead of schedule in his recovery and his doctor cleared him to go home.
“You can get the rest of your strength back closer to home,” he said.
With this, John and Sara started driving. While their son, William had visited the hospital since John woke up, they had yet to spend real quality time together. The six-year-old boy who John had last played with was now twelve and there was a great deal of catching up to do.
“What does he like?” John asked Sara as she helped him into the passenger seat of their car.
“All kinds of things,” Sara replied and lowered a harness over John that made him feel as if he had just boarded a roller coaster. John thought to himself that his injuries must require all sorts of special modifications to the car and house.
“I want to bring him something,” John said and waited for Sara to enter the driver’s side before saying more. “We used to build with Lego together. Does he still like Lego?”
“Yes, he loves them,” Sara said excitedly and lowered the same kind of harness over herself. “He has Lego sets at home, all over his room. I think they reminded him of you all these years.”
John would have liked to lean over and kiss her then, but the harness over his shoulders restricted such movement. As Sara pulled the car away from the hospital, he decided holding her hand would have to do. He reached over and took her hand from the steering wheel, lacing his fingers between hers.
“I need to keep both hands on the wheel, dear,” Sara said suddenly and put her hand back on the wheel quickly. She nervously checked the rear view mirror.
John thought that driving probably made her nervous since his accident and shrugged it off. “I want to get him a Lego set on the way home,” he said.
“I think he’d like that.”
The drive back to Toledo was long. It was made longer by the fact that Sara refused to drive more than two hours at a time between breaks. When John hinted once that he was eager to get home and maybe she could drive a little longer one stretch, Sara told him, “Studies have shown that it isn’t safe to drive for too long. Giving your eyes some rest and stretching your legs every couple of hours will prevent fatigue and even blood clots.”
John couldn’t complain. After all, though it seemed to him he only took a short nap, he hadn’t been out of the hospital for six years. Taking a bit longer on the road, out in the fresh air seemed like a luxury he ought to enjoy.
At one point, as they drove, John noticed the other cars had the same harnesses where their seatbelts used to be.
“Honey, do all cars have these things now?” he asked, feeling the firm foam on his bright yellow shoulder harness.
“They made them mandatory about three years back.” She stared straight ahead through the windshield with tears in her eyes. “I sometimes wonder if it would have made a difference in your accident.”
Four days later, about two and a half days more than John had anticipated, they reached Toledo. They stopped at a toy store and John bought three Lego sets before they continued on to their home. It was a house John had never been in. As Sara had explained, they needed to downsize a bit to cover his medical expenses and there needed to be no stairs, a precaution he assumed his doctor had recommended.
Still, it was where he would be reunited with his family, so John was pleased to arrive there. He couldn’t wait to see his son’s room and spend some time with him.
William seemed concerned for his father as Sara rolled John into the house on his wheelchair. John noticed and wanted his son, now so much older and more mature than the boy he’d last known, to feel helpful.
“Why don’t you go and relax,” he told Sara, “and let William show me around the house.”
She agreed and went for a walk. “I ought to get a little break from all that driving.”
William proudly showed his father around the house. When the tour lead to William’s room, John noticed he had about a dozen Lego sets on the shelves on his wall. Some of them looked fairly complicated too, and John imagined his son sitting over them at his desk, building meticulously. He was proud.
“Do you remember when we used to build these together?” he asked.
“Yeah, that was so fun,” William said. “Lego sets were way better back then.”
John felt tears well in his eyes as his son said this.
“You know, I bought you some Lego sets on the way home. What do you say we open one up?”
“Sure,” William answered and rolled him into the living room.
“Here, let’s try this one.” John handed William a box with a yellow jet pictured on the outside. He felt a rush of anticipation as he watched his son open one end of the box. But his excitement turned to shock and disappointment as William pulled the jet, fully assembled, from the box.
“Thanks, dad,” William said, not surprised in the least. John thought this odd.
“What the hell?!” John exclaimed.
“I said thanks.”
“Not you,” John explained, snatching the now empty box from his son’s hands. “Why the hell is it already put together?” He lifted the box to his eyes and peered inside. “There aren’t even any instructions!”
“That’s how they come now,” said William. “They all come assembled. It’s a safety thing. They have to come that way.”
“What?! Bring me to your room.”
John was horrified to find out that every one of the Lego models on William’s shelves had come pre-assembled. Legislation had apparently been passed while John lay in his hospital bed. Stray Lego bricks were determined to pose an unnecessary hazard through either swallowing or stepping on. Now, all Lego models had to be assembled and super glued together by a licensed and trained professional.
“I did a few by myself when I was eight, but then I had to get rid of those.”
“You even had to get rid of the ones we did together, didn’t you?”
William took the look that a twelve-year-old boy will tend to take when he knows you’re asking him about something he’s done wrong.
“What are you keeping,” John asked. “Do you still have them?”
“I’m not supposed to,” William said and closed his bedroom door. Then, digging into the back of his closet, he removed an old shoebox. Upon opening the lid, he then had to remove piles of tissue paper before revealing a small Millennium Falcon which he held up to show his father proudly.
“Don’t tell mom,” William said.
“Still have the instructions?”
After William produced the small manual from the bottom of the box, the two frantically broke apart the entire toy. Then they began assembling it all over again. William was frightened that Sara might return home as they built.
“Does she have her phone on her? Call her and see where she’s at,” John suggested.
William looked at his father, astonished. “There’s no cell phones anymore. They said they were causing too many car accidents and giving people brain cancer.”
“Then we’ll just have to build it fast.”
John watched William as they assembled the Falcon together, brick by brick. There was a focus, a joy, an absolute fire in his son’s eyes. Eventually, John started just handing William the pieces he needed and let him build the rest. They finished just in time to high-five and put the finished item back where it had been hidden as they heard Sara enter the house.
“You two causing trouble in there?” She called as she opened the door to William’s room.
John laughed and tussled his son’s hair as Sara entered. “Just spending some father and son time, catching up.”
“I’m glad to see it. Billy missed you,” Sara said. “I’ll get some dinner started.”
“Why don’t we order out, hon?” John suggested. “No need for you to work harder than you need to. Take it easy.”
“That sounds good. What do you have in mind?”
“I’m dying for some fried chicken. Want to get KFC?”
“Oh dear,” Sara sighed. “I forget how many things have changed. Honey, fried chicken was causing cholesterol problems and leading to high rates of obesity in children. They got rid of fast food. There are a few of those restaurants left, but their food is all organic now.”
John stared blankly back at her. He didn’t know what to think and just said, “Maybe pizza then?”
Sara sighed again and shook her head.
“You know what? Just surprise me.” John didn’t want William to see his frustration and figured it was only food. He still had his wife and his son. Those were the important things.
As Sara walked out of the room, John asked William, “Are you playing any sports?”
“No,” William said and hung his head.
“Why not?”
“I can’t. Not until I’m eighteen.”
John sighed. “Is this a law they passed too?”
William nodded. “It was just football at first. Head injuries. Then they banned hockey. Fighting. Then people thought the balls and bats of baseball were too dangerous so they got rid of that. Then it was soccer and basketball mostly because of ankle injuries and people suing the schools and leagues. Now you can’t play any sports until you’re eighteen years old.”
“What do you do in gym class?”
“We ride stationary bikes mostly. Sometimes we get to take walks outside if it’s not too sunny out. They don’t want us getting too much sun.”
“Boy, if you were four years older, I’d have you drive me somewhere we could play some catch.”
“I’d only be sixteen, dad. You have to be twenty-one to drive.”
John laughed out loud. He was amazed. Each time he suggested something enjoyable, there was a restriction that had been put on it while he slept.
“Well maybe you could ride your bike and tow me behind,” he chuckled as he pictured the image.
“I can’t ride a bike until I have a driver’s license.”
John’s laughter stopped immediately. He stared at his son and thought how sad it was that none of this seemed ridiculously excessive to him. He looked around his room again and saw the Lego sets that William had been robbed of the pleasure of building himself. He couldn’t help but notice how devoid the room was of all the things a twelve-year-old ought to have like sports trophies, a football, a Nerf hoop over the door or a mitt sitting in the corner. John looked at the floor and took a deep breath. He decided then what he would do.
“Does your mom still use nail polish?” he asked.
“Yeah,” William answered. “That stuff smells, too. They should make that illegal.”
“I want you to get a bottle of her nail polish remover and hide it here in your room.”
William looked confused. “How come?”
John smiled and called William to come closer with his index finger. Then he whispered in the boy’s ear, “We’re going to build some more Lego when you get home from school tomorrow.”
The look of excitement on William's face was all John needed to be sure he was doing the right thing.
To be continued...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment