I fumbled through the rest of the day running on autopilot. I read to the twins and got the kids to bed, and then fell asleep in my recliner with Dum-Dum in my lap. We skipped Sunday school and church the next morning, and I waited until Janey Marocoski was dropped off by her mom. I climbed into my Caddy and drove back to the hospital. My headache was now down to a dull roar, and I could control it with Tylenol. I sat with her until about dinner time, and then promised to come back in the morning. She was to be released then.
Marilyn's parents arrived just around the time I got back to the house. They stayed with the kids while I drove Janey home and paid her. I got home just in time to have Harriet serve up something warm and awful for dinner. Her culinary skills had not improved. The kids didn't care, and I just smiled and ate it. I filled them in on the accident after dinner.
The biggest thing I told them was that because Charlie and the girls had been buckled up, they had remained safe. Back on the first go, in 1990, Mark and Lauren had been traveling to Florida in the winter for a vacation. They hit some black ice in Pennsylvania in the middle of the night, and lost control of their minivan, and rolled it down an embankment on the highway. This was eerily familiar. There were two big differences, though. First, only Mark and Lauren, riding up front, were buckled in. Their four children in the back, trying to sleep, were allowed to be unbuckled. When the minivan started rolling, they bounced around the inside of the van like pinballs in an arcade game. Every one of them had multiple broken bones, and two needed to be airlifted to a trauma center. Worst of all, their oldest girl, Nicki, was thrown out through the side door of the van and broke her neck when she was thrown into a tree.
The second big difference was that it was late, and Mark and Lauren had switched driving. Mark was dozing in the passenger seat when Lauren hit the black ice. No matter what my differences with Mark, I always admired how he handled the accident. It would have been so incredibly easy to blame his wife, and so incredibly destructive. He never said anything to her.
Now I pushed Big Bob and Harriet to let the others know to keep their little ones buckled up no matter what. Maybe they could learn from our tragedy, like I had learned from that one. Was that a different somewhere or somewhen? I couldn't figure out the causality of it. Very odd.
Sunday I called the Trooper Barracks and found where the minivan had been hauled away to. I drove over and retrieved what I could from it. All the stuff from the glove box, like the registration and insurance, came with me, along with what could be salvaged of the various possessions inside. I didn't want to chance the car seats being any good; I would just buy new ones. The thing was totaled. Even my cane, which I had set between the seats, had gone flying and broken.
Monday afternoon they released Marilyn to go home and rest in bed. Despite Marilyn's parents being down, I went and picked her up myself. Big Bob is pathetically helpless about anything domestic, like handling kids, so Harriet had to stay home, and Big Bob never traveled anywhere without her, not even to the store. So they stayed home with the twins, after I loaded Charlie on the school bus, and then I drove my car over to the hospital.
We were cleared to leave shortly after lunch. Marilyn had a number of bandages covering her lower abdomen, and a lot of bruising around the area. She moved slowly and tentatively, but she was able to walk from the wheelchair to the car when I brought it around. I drove slowly back to the house.
Big Bob had to hold onto Dum-Dum when we got home. I got my wife into her recliner and covered her with an Afghan. Dum-Dum was going apeshit out of control, and I had to smack her twice to calm her down. Then I let her scramble into the recliner with Marilyn, which calmed her down to normal. Marilyn winced as the mutt moved around, licking her face before settling down at her feet. Then I carefully let the girls cuddle with her. It would have been a beautiful little scene if it wasn't for the fact that she had been damn near killed by my driving a few days before. After a bit, the girls got bored and took off, but Charlie climbed into the chair with her when he came home from school.
Marilyn's parents stayed until Wednesday, when they took off. I took the week off while Marilyn recuperated. Quite a few of Marilyn's friends from the office or church called or came over. Tessa brought the boys over after school a few times.
Things got a little tense on Wednesday. That evening, after the kids were put to bed, Marilyn asked me to help change her bandages. Up to that point it had been her mother or Tessa who had helped. The bruising had begun to fade by then, but there was no hiding the ugly red zippers along her lower abdomen. These were larger and not as neatly stitched as the now almost invisible scar from her C-section with the girls. I applied the antibiotic ointment as instructed before putting on some fresh gauze and tape.
When I looked up, I found Marilyn crying. "What's wrong? Did I hurt you?" Marilyn turned away and began crying into her pillow without answering me. I climbed up closer on the bed, and I tried to pull her towards me, but she resisted and stayed turned away. "Marilyn, what's the matter?" She just kept crying.
I couldn't do anything but try and hold her, but it was like she didn't want my touch. I just sat there. I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong, but then I realized she was angry with me. I was the guy who caused the accident, who caused her to lose the baby, and caused her to get all messed up. Of course she was angry with me! I let her go and rolled away from her. No way would she want me even touching her! "Tomorrow I'll get a nurse to come out. I'm sorry. I won't touch you."
That only made things worse! She sat upright and slapped my face, hard, and then tried to hit me again. I just grabbed her arms and held her, so that she didn't hurt herself. "Marilyn! What's wrong?! I told you I'd get you a nurse. That way you won't have to put up with me! What do you want!?"
"You don't want me! I'm damaged goods! You don't want to touch me!", she blubbered, and she struggled in my arms.
"Marilyn, that's nuts! Of course I want you! You're the one who moved away from me! I just thought ... well, I thought ... I mean, I'm the one who caused all this. I thought you didn't want me touching you!"
She kept blubbering, and managed to slap me again. "This is not about you! I can't stand to have you see me like this! I feel so ugly!", she wailed.
Oh Holy Christ! I never heard of such a thing! Who the hell would be so callous as to think that? I just wrapped her in my arms and held onto her, rocking her like a baby. "I love you! You're just a little banged up. I still love you. You're going to get better." I just repeated this stuff over and over until she calmed down.
"Now, can we talk?", I asked. She nodded silently. "Okay. I guess I understand. You can't have any more children, so that makes you less of a woman?"
She nodded. "Yes! Doesn't it!? Didn't you want another child?"
I shrugged and smiled. "Yes, but that isn't going to happen. That has nothing to do with how much I love you. If you want another child, we can always adopt, I suppose."
"No!", she said, shaking her head. "It wouldn't be the same. I mean, unless you wanted to."
I shook my head, too. "No, it's not the same. We've already got three great kids. You were woman enough to make them. Are you worried I won't find you attractive any longer?" Marilyn averted her face and wouldn't answer, so I knew that was part of it. Partially this was my fault, since the exercise routines she did with me had kept her weight down and she looked a whole lot better this time than on my last time. I wrapped my arms around her again. "Right now you look crappy because you're crying and upset. I don't care about the scars or bruises. You're supposed to look lousy right now. Give it a few weeks."