Foggy, I rolled over to hear the phone ring. It was midnight and I did not recognize the number. I came to and answered.
"May I speak with Mr. Polylove? This is officer Jones with the beach town PD", an official voice directed to me.
"Yeah this is him, what is going on?"
He proceeded to tell me my son, who is 17 was in an accident riding down the beach front drive. A drunk driver hit his car head on sending him and his girlfriend to the hospital and both were headed for critical care. I could not say anything except to find out the hospital name and quickly jumped out of bed, woke my wife and we headed out to see him.
The drive was long, I gripped the steering wheel so hard my hands almost melted the vinyl. My wife sobbed in the seat next to me occasionally reacing over to hold hands when we came to a stop which was only a few times.
When we got to the emergency room we were ushered up to the ICU where we found Johnny asleep, swollen, eyelids taped shut with a breathing tube in his mouth and iv's everywhere. Our usher left and a woman came in, tall probably 5'10" with long blonde hair in her late 20's perhaps, who I assumed was Johnny's nurse. She introduced herself, "Hey I am Jenny, I am Johnny's nurse I just paged the doctor to come talk to you about everything. He is in a coma right now that we created by giving him medicine to sleep. His head was hit pretty hard in the accident." She rattled off in about 15 seconds.
We walked over and held Johnny's hand while an older man walked in and introduced himself as a brain doctor. He let us know this would take awhile to know whether Johnny would be functional again and if so months of rehab and work lay ahead. We cried but knew we had to be there. He also asked if we knew where his girlfriend's parents were, she lay in the room next door not as badly injured but on all the same equipment it looked like.
"I am not sure, she has no father and her mother works nights from what I understand. Do you have Johnny's cell phone somewhere I can try to find her." I replied questioning.
"Yes, security probably has it. I wil tell the nurse to try to get it. Get some sleep I will be back in the morning." The older gentlemanly doctor prosposed.
We stayed a few hours before making the decision to go home and gather some things so I could stay at the bedside and my wife could work and visit when she was free. I worked from home so it would be easy for me to set up camp in the hospital room. We told everyone our plan and headed out after some kind words.
It was probably 6 AM by the time I returned with my computer and all my gear. and settled down in Johnny's room. As I passed his girlfriend's room, her name is Brittany, I saw a woman at her bedside. This must be her mother. I figured it was time to go introduce myself. They had been going out over a year and we had never met. I stepped out behind the glass door from my son's room across into the next.
"Excuse me, my son is Johnny I believe this is his girlfriend, are you her mother?" I asked as I took inventory as I normally would. She stood 5'7" or so long reddish hair, not thin but not large either curvy and chubby with ample breasts and wide hips and a nice poochy butt and longer legs. She looked tired as her makeup had long faded but attractive nonetheless.
"Yes, I am Ginger and Gina's mom. I was hoping to meet you all but of course never like this." She said sadly.
"I know I am just glad you are here they were having issues finding you. I am Ben by the way." I reached out my hand. She took it in hers then pulled me in for a hug and started crying. "I am sorry. I know this is hard." I could only get out."
We small talked for a bit about our kids and talked about our plans on staying at the bed for as long as we could while they were in the intensive care unit. I started to head out as she began speaking again.
"Ben, they have a place behind the hospital the burger sling house, I am going to stay there for now. They have meals and a room like small hotel rooms if you find that easier to sleep in or catch a nap. They told me about it last night and got a room." She made sure she got in.
"Thanks, I will probably check that out as I will be here most of the time with my wife Liz, coming in the evenings and maybe some nights." I let her know back.
And that was that I spent the rest of the day talking to doctors and getting a little work done to soothe the worrying I could not stop doing. By the time I looked up I saw it was close to 5 and figure I would walk over to the burger sling house to see if I could see what they had. By the time I figured out how to get there I walked in. Place looked nice like a decent 3 star hotel with a little lobby area leading into a kitchen and rooms which came off that. I asked if they had anything left and was told maybe later in the week but not right now. I left my name and number and was directed over to the kitchen to help myself to some hamburgers they had cooked.
As I entereed in there were a few families sitting about. I felt weird but hadnt eaten much all day so got some bread and a burger and went over to the seating area.
"Ben! Over here", I heard Ginger call out as I turned to the right and saw her standing there, more done up than before. She was cute nice red hair with some curls towards the ends in a tighter shirt and jeans.
"Hey! Fancy seeing you here. How is Gina? Any progress?". I asked as she looked down.
"No just heavily medicated they said they may try to wake her up towards the end of the week. She had a bunch of tests today which I do not understand." She continued.
"Yeah same for Johnny, same old. They did some xrays of his head and things appear to be stable but nothing new." I returned. "Looks like we are in the same boat."
"Hey did you get a room? Seems busy in here." Gina asked.
