Sister Golden Hair Delight

Chapter 26

Never sleeping alone again...

Evening, Thursday, August 16th

Crowell Complex Medical Center, Malibu

Alessa....

As I had every evening since my Jimmy was home, I sat down next to his bed and opened my King James Bible while the nurses took a break for dinner. Even though there had been no discernable response, I continued to read and pray for him each night as I had done for more than two weeks and vowed to continue until he came back to me.

On the floor was my seemingly perpetual bag of Oreos... my new constant companion. Even though I should have known better, I became addicted to them this last month. Much to my continuing frustration, I was gaining weight. Whether it was from my great depression or my ability to just have whatever I wanted for a change, I didn't know.

What I did know was what the doctor had told me this morning.

I thought back to a month ago when we had met for the first time in Kevin's office. All I had worried about that day was how nice my ass looked in my skirt. That I was so naïve was now amazing to me.

How my life had changed for the... for the what? I had ridden an emotional high falling in love with him and fallen to the depths of hell now, waiting, hoping, wondering if he would ever wake up and return to our baby and me.

Discovering I was pregnant should have been the shock of my life. As much as he said he loved me and we were going to be married, all I had was a diamond ring on my finger, an unfulfilled promise and no marriage ceremony.

If he doesn't come back, then what? Single motherhood seemed to be the curse in my family and now, after all those years of being 'good', I, too, had become pregnant and unmarried.

I should not have been surprised. It was bound to happen; neither of us took any precautions during our wild days together. Even if I had started on the pill the day before I met him, it wouldn't have helped and the feeling I experienced when he drenched me with his hot, life-giving semen was unbelievably so good.

I put my hand on my stomach, rubbing gently where I thought the baby was but even I knew enough about babies to comprehend that there was nothing much to touch then.

Being pregnant explained my dizziness and nausea that had bothered me for days. It also explained my weight gain, which although small, had confused me since I had been following all the diet and exercise regimens that were given me by the doctor when I first arrived... except for my wonderful Oreos.

As much as I thought I wanted this baby, the idea of my body moving away from what Jimmy had said was such a fine piece of God's handicraft was selfishly disturbing. If Jimmy came out of his coma, it would still be a year before I could reasonably expect to look like I did right now, if I ever did at all.

I wondered what it would feel like, having a baby move around inside me as my stomach grew and stretched to accommodate it. Other women who have let me touch them... it was the tight firmness of skin that I remember the most.

The ones who really wanted their babies told me that it was the most wonderful thing they've ever felt and would rub their tummies and talk and sing to their unborn children. If it was true, I hoped that was how I would feel over the next eight months.

I became afraid that I would be one of those women who ballooned out after having a child and never returned to their pre-pregnancy looks.

As soon as I thought it, I was ashamed that I could be so shallow. I think it had to do with the fact that I was terrified having this baby without him.

In answer to my thoughts, I reached down to the Oreos and without hesitation put two of them straight into my mouth, crunching through the small chocolate cookies and into the creaming white filling as my tongue moved them around to touch my taste buds.

I knew I had to stop eating them, so full of empty calories... but I couldn't... I needed someone to save me from myself.

What had I ever done to deserve this life, I didn't know. My only hope now was to continue praying. I had become conscious of the ironic fact that I prayed from the Catholic traditions while I had grown up Baptist. When Maria had shown me the beauty of her ancient customs, I became entranced with their wonderful expressions of love toward God and at one time considered converting.

Now, I had two persons to pray for, gently imploring God that everything would turn out well.

Each evening, I began with Genesis and read until I was tired and finally had to sleep, sometimes waking up slouched in the chair as morning arrived with a sore back.

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the..."

To my great astonishment, Jimmy moaned, slowly opening one eye and then the other. He seemed to carefully look around the room, as if wondering where he was and why his head hurt so much. Trying to sit up was too much for him and he sank back against the pillows.

My heartbeat went into both panic and joy. Jimmy had come back to me!

"You're awake! You're awake, thank God, you're awake!" I began hugging him and covering his face with kisses. "Oh, Jimmy, thank God! Oh, Jimmy, I love you."

I knelt down on the cold pale-green tiled floor and as Maria had taught me, carefully made the 'Sign of the Cross' and began praying to God, praising Him for His gift to me. That night, though, "Oh, God... oh, God... oh, God..." was all I could really say.

I put my head down on the side of the bed and held it there on the light-blue blanket, tears streaming down my face and taking his left hand between mine, kissing it, holding it tightly to my face for at that moment he was the most important person in my life.

"Jimmy," I whispered, "you're going to be a father. Oh, Jimmy..."

Two nurses, drawn in by my screams, came rushing in and gently pulled me away from the bed. One pushed a button above the hospital bed, summoning Doctor Riner. The other began observing Jimmy's vital signs downloading into her laptop.

**********

2 a.m., Friday morning, August 17th

Crowell Complex, Intelligence Wing, Malibu

Maria....

I was in the middle of a vexing problem I knew Jim would have just looked at and solved. As smart as I might have been, trying to be him without his incredible mind was next to impossible.

On my desktop was a bowl of M&M peanut candies. As a child, I used to eat them by color so that the bowl changed it's 'personality' as I continued to scarf them down. It was a funny habit that I still was doing thirty years later.

When I was especially frustrated, I found myself crunching them down like water. Between the sugar rush and the nagging worry for Jim and Alessa, I was exhausted and felt useless.

Tapping my pencil erratically against the desk blotter when my Blackberry buzzed; from the little song it played I knew it was Alessa.

I looked at it with a great deal of fear and foreboding. Alessa never called me during the day; it was our unspoken agreement made when we brought Jim back from Hawaii.

I stared at the phone as it kept buzzing relentlessly. Mary, Mother of God, it had to be about Jim. My trembling hand slowly reached for the phone as I began silently praying.

"Alessa?" I asked, slowly. Whatever it was, it was either very good or very bad.

"I need you, now... Maria, please come."

I stared at the phone, feeling the extreme tension in her voice and knowing in the depths of my soul that I didn't want to know the reason for the call.

"Uh, Major... hold down the fort, I've got to go back to the main building... something's come up. Have Louise prepare a list of five aides to choose from for these trips... don't tell her why, just that I want the best we have. I'll let you know when I'm coming back. Oh, and call... never mind, I... never mind."

I made the lonely walk over to the main building knowing what the call was about and yet not wanting to know, refusing to know.

Taking the elevator up four floors to the medical clinic, I entered the room to find Alessa kneeling on the floor next to Jim's bed, her head resting on the blanket face down. She had not stopped crying since she made the call and the linens were soaked with her tears.

When I had put my hand on Alessa's shoulder, Alessa put hers over it. It was enough. We had moved past the foolish rivalry that had darkened our relationship realizing we had to stand together in order to live on.

The room never looked so empty and sterile yet it still had hissing and beeping medical equipment running and the screens showing Jim's heart and lungs working with assistance but the most important lines were flat.

While his body still remained and assisted by machines, his blood still flowed and his lungs still breathed, the magnificent bright spark that was him had left both of us, to go where?

Where do we go when we die? That simple question had plagued humanity since the first man looked up into the sky and became aware of his own fragile existence. If you believe in heaven, you have to believe in hell, and Alessa and I were trapped in our own private hell already.

General James Crowell, USMC, holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor, genuine American hero who had helped save both Hawaii and the southwestern half of the United States from total destruction, generous philanthropist and most importantly, lover of three different women in three different yet equally important ways, was gone from us forever.

I was sick to my stomach. As much as I had been angry with him toward the last days we had together, in the end, I realized that he had loved and respected me, just not in the physical and emotional way I wanted, I needed.

I knew his actions, directly or indirectly, had pushed me down the sad path toward Michael Hunter, my everlasting disappointment for a possible husband.

Yet, now that Jim was dead, I no longer held any animosity toward him. All now so very permanently in the past, I vowed whatever unhappiness I had with him would be locked away in some dark part of my soul never to be visited again.

I still loved him.

"Alessa... are you..." I stopped. Asking if she's all right is the damn stupidest thing people can ever say. Of course, not, and neither was I. Who would dare to console me?

Alessa would. Only she understood my feelings for her lover and only she could give me any comfort.

"I'm sorry, Maria... I know how much he had meant to you. I don't want anyone to know, just not yet. There are things... things that have to be done first. Would you please pray with me for a while? I feel so all alone... all my dreams have been shattered. Now, all I have is you."

I didn't answer but knelt down with the grieving woman and holding hands, we began to pray the Catholic Prayer for the Dead.

"Maria?" she said, squeezing my hand so hard it actually hurt.

"What, Alessa?" What was going on in her mind?

"Maria, I'm going to have his baby."

Ah, Jesus Christ! Now, this! Whatever problems waiting for me back in my office could wait... they could wait forever as far as I was concerned, my only concern, strangely enough, was Alessa.

"Hey, Soul Sister, I'm here for you... don't worry, we'll get through this together."

I gently kissed her on the lips.

Of course, now, I realize that everything that has ever happened since the beginning of time inexorably led to Alessa and me becoming lovers.

That night was the last night we slept apart.

*

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