I never really expected anything would happen in my life that would be worth writing about. But maybe there's something here that someone can learn from. I know there's a lesson. I'm just not sure what it is.
My husband, Ben, and I were about five and a half years into our marriage, and things were going pretty well. Ben had just started his career as a police officer, and I worked as a secretary downtown. Things were going pretty well for us, even though I worried quite a bit about the potential dangers of Ben's job and didn't much care for the late shifts he often had to work, being one of the newer officers on the force.
Maybe it would help with the story a little if you knew what we look like. Or perhaps I should have said "looked like," because what I'm going to tell you about happened quite a few years ago. And unfortunately, none of us looks the same as we did 25 years ago.
Ben was not what anyone would call a handsome man, although his inner strength and wry sense of humor made him quite attractive when you got to know him. He was about 5-10 and was a little stocky at 185 pounds. He had wavy brown hair, which he kept clipped short because of his job, and piercing brown eyes.
It's funny, but when I try and describe Ben, I always think first about the way he smells—a really masculine combination of after shave and that just plain natural smell that many men seem to have. It's a little hard to describe, but it gets stronger whenever you're having sex with them.
Some people, I guess, considered me attractive. I could look pretty nice when I took the time to fix myself up for a party or other special occasion. I wore my light brown hair just below my shoulders and liked the way the natural curl sort of made it cascade down. My eyes were brown, too, like Ben's, and a few people had mistaken us for brother and sister when we first started seeing each other.
I had a slender build at 5-7 and about 125 pounds, and the occasional times when someone commented on my appearance, most of the comments were about my long, and apparently shapely, legs. My small breasts matched my slender frame, and I'd had to resort to padded bras for years to make my clothes fit right.
I always enjoyed looking at the wedding picture of Ben and me that set atop the bookcase in the living room of the modest home we'd managed to purchase right after he got on with the police department. It would be safe to say that both of us had never looked more attractive in our lives than we did that day. And I'm pretty sure we'll never look that good again.
All right. Now back to my story.
I was at work when I received the call—the one that all police officer's wives dread. Ben had been badly injured. Not shot or stabbed, thank god. But he had been in a serious wreck in his patrol car and had been rushed to the emergency room at University Hospital downtown.
I dropped the phone and didn't even take time to tell my boss where I was going. The hospital was only a few blocks from my building, and I ran every step of the way, arriving breathless, disheveled and trying my best to muffle the sobs that kept welling up inside my aching throat.
The emergency room admitting clerk wouldn't give me any information for quite awhile, until I finally made her understand who it was that I was looking for and that this injured cop was my husband. She treated me with much more courtesy after that, but I'll never forget how helpless I felt as she made me wait like that.
I won't go into a lot of detail about Ben's injuries. I really have tried to put that scene out of my mind—those first moments when I went back to the treatment area and saw the tubes sticking out of him and his poor battered face. Remember, this was in the days before all cars had air bags, so when you had a bad wreck, the chances were pretty good that your head was going to hit something hard. Ben's certainly did.
It wasn't long before I was joined at the hospital by Terri, the wife of a cop that Ben worked with. She and her husband, Mike, lived just down the street from us. We had become pretty good friends, sharing the cares and concerns common to police officers and their families.
It took several hours for Ben to become stable enough to be moved into ICU, but by the next morning, he was settled in and seemed to be getting almost constant attention. Terri and I stayed together all that day, talking quietly in the ICU waiting room, holding hands like sisters. Every two hours I was allowed to go in for a brief visit, and I did what I could to let Ben know I was there for him.
Three days passed, and I began to get used to the routine of the ICU. I had figured out the best times to grab a bite to eat in the hospital cafeteria and even the best times to make a quick trip home to change clothes. I did most of my sleeping on the hard couch in the waiting area.
I also began to get to know, or at least recognize, the nurses from the various shifts. I was so impressed with the caring and competence of most of the staff. But one stood out. Not just for her caring and competence, but also because of her physical appearance.
Appearance wise, she was everything that I'm not. Angela was beautiful, blonde, voluptuous. But the great part was she didn't seem to realize it. She just went about her business of taking care of patients—my Ben included. And I was so grateful for the way she seemed to care about him.
Fortunately, Ben made steady progress and was moved from ICU after four days . . . into a semi-private room. As his condition improved, I felt as if I could spend more time away from the hospital. In fact, I needed badly to get back to work—both for the sake of my own sanity and the sake of my employer.
As the building where I worked was nearby, I could take my lunch hours to visit Ben and help with his meal, too. I'd then make another trip to the hospital after work, help with his dinner, visit for awhile and head home.
About every other trip I'd see Angela, and we'd exchange a few pleasantries about how Ben was coming along. I was so glad to have the chance to tell her how much I appreciated her looking after him.
Finally, a month to the day after the accident, I brought Ben home. He was not able to move around easily at first and it would still be months before he could return to work. But every day, he could do a little more for himself, and it was great to see him making such wonderful progress.
Unfortunately, there was one area where there didn't seem to be much progress—our sex life. It had now been months since Ben and I had made love. To be honest, it wasn't as if fireworks went off every time we fucked before the accident. I'd have to say our sex life was . . . well . . . just ordinary. An ordinary sex life for two ordinary people.