PRESENT TENSE
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jack recovered quickly following the surgery.
No longer plagued by constant pain, and able to eat normally and rest well again,
his progress was rapid.
He spent most of the first four days
sleeping, exhausted from the strain of the past couple of months and from the
surgery itself, but after that he became more alert. Rose and the others
visited only briefly the first few days, but as Jack became more alert and his
mood improved, they spent more time visiting with him.
Jack was a model patient at first, quiet and
uncomplaining. Still recovering from his ordeal, he made few demands at first.
Those taking care of him would awaken him for the usual blood tests and
examinations, as well as to eat small amounts of food, but otherwise he slept
for the first few days. When food was brought to him, he ate it without
complaint, even the hated Jell-O. The weeks of near-starvation had left him
ravenous, and he hungrily consumed whatever was placed before him.
After a few days, however, as he recovered,
he began to grow bored. When the others came to visit, he complained about the
hospital cuisine, about the staff, and about how dull everything was. After he recovered
his appetite, he developed a strong dislike of hospital food and pleaded with
his roommates to bring him some real food. Helga and Rose both put their feet
down, but Tommy finally took pity on him and smuggled in some decent food.
Helga visited him the most, dropping by
during her breaks and lunch, but Rose came by every afternoon when she was
finished with work, and Tommy came by, too, though he stayed for less time than
the others. Mr. Messner came by a couple of times to confirm that Jack was
indeed doing better, and a few of Jack’s co-workers visited as well.
Jack was feeling better than he had since the
earthquake. The seizures had stopped, the headache was gone, and was regaining
his energy and his appetite. Moreover, the depression that had weighed him down
for so long was lifting, though he still took medication to treat it, and he
was more serious than he had been before his ordeal.
Still, he was doing much better overall, and
when Rose brought him books, magazines, and his portfolio, he took genuine
interest in them. He rekindled his interest in art, sketching the various
people that he met and sketching pictures of his friends when they came to
visit him. He also began a secret project for Rose, though he didn’t know when
he would give it to her.
*****
All of Jack’s roommates visited him at once
on the second Saturday after his surgery. His health and his mood had improved
enough that he felt able to deal with all of them visiting at once. Before
that, they had all dropped by for a brief time on the day of his surgery, but
had left soon after, leaving him to rest. Even Rose had kept her visits short
those first few days, allowing him time to recover.
When they came by on Saturday morning, Jack
had already finished breakfast and was sitting up in bed, reading one of the
books Rose had brought him. He set it aside when the others came in.
"Hey," he greeted them, glad for
the distraction. It would still be about two weeks before he could go home, and
he was already tired of the hospital. He hadn’t minded it so much the first
time, but he was feeling better this time around and was looking forward to the
time when he could leave.
"Hey, Jack," Rose answered him,
giving him a quick kiss. "How are you feeling?"
He shrugged. "I’d like to leave."
"Not until you’re through healing,"
Rose reminded him. "The last thing you need is a relapse."
"I know." He sighed, glad that at
least he seemed to be healing quickly and would be able to leave in another
couple of weeks. He looked at the place on his wrist where he had cut himself.
It had finally healed, and the bandage was gone. He would always have scars,
but he was getting better. There wouldn’t be a repeat of his attempt to take
his own life.
Rose noticed. "That finally healed,"
she commented, gesturing to the scar.
"Yeah, finally." He covered it with
his hand, aware that Tommy and Helga looked a little uncomfortable.
Helga looked at the healing surgery wounds on
his head. "Your head is healing, too."
He touched the still-bandaged area carefully.
His hair was beginning to grow back away from where the cuts were, though it
was kept shaved around the healing wounds to prevent infection.
Tommy looked at him. "Okay, Jack. I have
a question for you here."
"What is it?"
"Helga says that you now have a steel
plate in your head to replace the section of skull that was destroyed. Is that
true?"
Helga had gleaned that bit of information
from Jack’s chart, and he had told Rose about it. The two women waited
gleefully for Tommy’s reaction.
"Yes, I do have a steel plate in my
head. It’s covered up, though. I’m not going to look like a cyborg or
anything."
Rose and Helga laughed at the expression on
Tommy’s face. He shot them a baleful look. They just laughed harder.
"Okay. So, if you have a steel plate in
your head, does this mean that magnets will stick to your head?"
It was Jack’s turn to look at him balefully.
"Don’t even try it."
Helga snorted, unable to hide her mirth. The two
men looked at Helga and Rose as though they had lost their minds. "What’s
so funny?" Jack wanted to know.
Rose tried to stop laughing.
"Nothing."
"Tell me."
"Nothing."
"Rose..."
"You had to be there," she told him.
Jack looked at her oddly. "Okay.
Whatever you say."
The two women finally stopped laughing. Helga
stood up. "I’m going to go and get some coffee," she told them.
"Does anyone else want any?"
"I’ll go with you," Tommy
volunteered. "Rose?"
"No, thanks. I’ll stay here."
Helga looked at Jack before he could ask.
"No. You can’t have coffee. Eat what you’re given. I know you aren’t
starving, because you’ve obviously gained some weight."
"Oh, come on."
"Why don’t you drink some water?"
Rose suggested, pointing to the pitcher beside his bed. Jack’s expression told
her exactly what he thought of that.
When Tommy and Helga had left, Rose sat back
down beside him. "Coffee?" she teased him. "You don’t even like
coffee."
"It was worth a try."
"I know you don’t like it here, but
you’ll be home in a couple of weeks. You’ll survive."
"I know." He sighed. "I’m just
bored, is all."
"You’re certainly doing much better than
the last time, even if you’re not completely back to your old self yet."
"It’s been...quite an experience."
"It has been. But you’re doing better
now, and before long things will be the way they were before."
"I don’t know. I feel like I’ve changed
somehow. I don’t quite know how to say it. It’s just...I’ve been through a lot,
and I think it’s changed something inside me. Not for the worse, I think,
but...I feel like I understand things better now, like I understand other
people better."
"You were already very
understanding," Rose told him. "You were there for me when I needed
you, and you stuck with me even when I pushed you away. That hasn’t changed.
It’s one of the things I love about you."
"You’re the same way." He reached
for her hand. "You could have given up on me during this whole ordeal, but
you didn’t. You refused to give up, and I’m still alive because of it."
"I think you would have changed your
mind about slitting your wrists even if I hadn’t come home."
"Maybe. But by then, it might have been
too late. You probably would have changed your mind about jumping into that basement
that night at Elias University, but if you had slipped, with no one to help
you, it wouldn’t have mattered that you’d changed your mind. That would have
been the end of things."
Rose nodded. "We’ve been there for each
other, both in good times and in bad. We’ve both been very lucky,
considering."
"If you say so."
"I do. We’re alive and we’re together,
in spite of everything that’s happened."
He thought about that for a moment.
"You’re right. But still...it feels like something has changed...like I’ve
grown inside, because of what I went through. I wish I could understand
it." He paused. "Do you still have that psychology textbook that I
saw you studying a few times last year?"
"Yes. I kept all of my books. You never
know when one of them will come in handy. Why?"
"Could I borrow it? Maybe reading it
would allow me to learn something about...all this."
Rose smiled. "Sure. I’ll bring it when I
stop by to visit tomorrow. It’s actually not that bad a book." She paused,
smiling mischievously. "Just don’t do what I did."
"What did you do?"
"I had been learning about Freud, and at
the meeting where they merged Sunpeak and Titan Construction, I got mad at the
president of Sunpeak and told him that Freud’s ideas on the male preoccupation
with size might be of particular interest to him."
Jack looked at her, unable to hide a smirk. "That
was subtle."
"I don’t think he got it. Cal did,
though, and hauled me out into the hall to yell at me. That was the first time
you and I saw each other."
"I remember that day. But the way you
insulted Tim Isley...not many people would come up with such a...subtle way to
say that. If the other Sunpeak employees could have heard you, they would
probably have cheered." He laughed.
Rose looked at him, realizing that this was
the first time he had laughed in a long time. Throwing her arms around him, she
laughed, too.