In this installment: Alarms go off in ICU, Skeeter confronts Diane, Jenny receives good news.

Melissa pushed the chair that was besides Chase’s hospital bed a little further away from where the child had placed it. She was only gone for a short while, having visited a nearby sandwich shop that served a healthy assortment of salads. Though her meal was quite enjoyable, Melissa wished she had discovered the place under completely different circumstances. She slowly sat in the chair and took her husband’s hand into hers. She had come to terms with all that had happened to Chase, accepted where he was and his condition, yet for all her intellectualizing the situation, she was still emotionally drained.

“Wasn’t that nice that the baby visited, Honey,” Melissa talked to her unconscious husband and sometimes wondering if doing such a seemingly futile task was making any difference whatsoever. “She really loves you. You know that, don’t you? She looked so pretty earlier today in her yellow dress and I swear she’s still growing. I bet by the end of the year she catches up to Christine; she’s almost there. Remember when you first brought her into my life and I thought she was an infant. That seemed so long ago, but it’s only been a couple of months. I think you loved her from the moment you laid eyes on her. Sure, you claimed it was guilt, but I think somewhere inside you, you knew.” Melissa paused to gather herself. “You knew. You loved her so much that she grew and her old hurts are fading quicker than anyone could’ve hoped and prayed for. It would be cruel for you to leave her now. Chase wake up. Wake up for the baby’s sake. She need her daddy at home. We all need daddy at home.”

Melissa stared at her husband. Chase remained still, his eyes didn’t move or magically open, his hands didn’t struggle against the restraints, nor did his toe wiggle in the slightest instance to show consciousness even in its smallest amount. Melissa sighed in defeat as the hopefulness she had for a brief moment faded. She hoped against her own common sense that her words could rally the man she loved to consciousness. “Perhaps later or tomorrow or whenever you’re ready,” she said as she slumped in the chair and the doldrums returned.

Melissa looked out of a small window and peered at the tops of a few trees that were not too far off. She wanted to escape the confines of ICU without leaving her husband’s side. She watched a few birds, doves perhaps, but she couldn’t discern which kind from the distance. The birds flew around and she wished that as a family they could walk through a park and feed the birds crusts of bread while walking hand in hand.

A raspy huff coming from her husband turned Melissa’s attention back to the hospital bed. The machine next to the bed let out an alarm. It seemed that Chase was trying to huff again, making a sound as if he were gagging on his own tongue, and his wife had no clue what was going on. She sprang to her feet and started towards the door so she could yell for help. Alarms in ICU could not be a good thing and perhaps Chase was choking, Melissa thought. Before she made it to the foot of the bed, the door swung open and a three person team came barging in.

“My husband,” Melissa said frantically, not knowing what other information she could give them as she forgot the meaning of most words in her vocabulary and didn’t know which ones to use.

“Ma’am,” a nurse said as she firmly took Melissa’s arm. “It’ll be okay, but we need you to stand in the corner while the doctor does what he needs to. Your husband is trying to breathe on his own and when a patient tries to do that, sometimes they work against the machine.

Melissa heard all the words but as soon as one word was spoken she forgot the word preceding it as she watched what the doctor and nurse were doing to her husband. The alarm stopped and Melissa wondered if she should take any comfort in that. She watched as the doctor inserted a syringe into a clear round bulb that was connected to the tube that fed oxygen into Chase’s body. She was aware that the small ballooning plastic sealed her husband’s trachea was being deflated. A moment later the tube was pulled out of Chase’s mouth. Her husband gave two short coughs and the inhaled a deep breath of the hospital air as the doctor looked on.

Though Chase still lay unconscious, his breathing kept a rhythmic pace and as his wife stood in the corned watching, she found herself counting the seconds he inhaled and exhaled. “Four seconds in, three seconds out,” Melissa thought as she counted three cycles.

“Mrs. Milan,” the doctor on duty said as the nurse left. “I know that was probably a harrowing experience. It can be for one who is unaware of what’s going on. As the nurse was explaining to you, Chase’s body decided to once again breathe on its own. He tried for a little while last night, but we kept him on the machine as a precaution. It is a very positive sigh. We’ll want to keep him in ICU for a few more days to keep him under close observation; if all goes well, we’ll move him to his own room and hopefully he’ll be one step closer to walking out of here on his own power.

“Thank you,” Melissa said as she cried and smiled.

The doctor smiled back momentarily. “He won’t be needing these for now,” the doctor said as he pulled apart the Velcro on the soft restraints that kept Chase’s hands at bay. “I’ll leave you two alone now,” the doctor said as he left.

Melissa collapsed by the side of the bed and lifted her husband’s hand to her cheek. “You’re getting closer to doing what I asked of you,” she said as she dried her tears with the back of Chase’s hand. “Don’t you scare me like that ever again, you big dummy,” she said lovingly.

Skeeter pulled into his reserved parking spot of his apartment complex. After driving around aimlessly, trying to decide what the proper course of action was, the one he chose was not something he was looking forward to. He decided he stayed in the car long enough and, with the air conditioning off, it was getting quite stuffy. He got out and walked the few yards to his front door, opening it quietly and stepping in.

“Shh,” Shawn said as he met his dad by the door. He had been waiting by his bedroom window for his father and as soon as he saw the car pull up he took sentry by the door. “Mom’s sleeping.”

Skeeter looked at his son and noticed a piece of toilet paper sticking out of his right nostril. “I see,” he said. “And what’s this?” Skeeter asked as he plucked the tissue from his child’s nose. The toilet paper was bright red.

“I got a bloody nose,” Shawn said in a whisper.

“I can tell. But how did you get the bloody nose?” Skeeter pressed.

“I, ah, I, um,” Shawn searched for the words to say. “I ran into the side of the door and hit my nose with it,” the child said while he looked down.

Skeeter gently cupped his child’s chin and lifted it so he could look at Shawn’s face. The outside of the boy’s right ye was a deep red and his father knew that it would soon turn a dark purple. “Did you get the black eye from the door too?” Skeeter said in a doubtful tone.

“I was standing on a chair and I fell and I hit my eye on the corner of it,” Shawn said quickly. He tried to avoid looking at his father, but the way Skeeter held his chin didn’t give him the option.

Skeeter looked at the child’s eyes and noticed the well of tears that his son was so stoically holding back. “Okay, why don’t you go and play and be careful not to run into any doors that step in front of you.” Skeeter could think of nothing else to say to the child at the moment. He was beginning to get a much clearer picture of life while he wasn’t around, but didn’t want to rush to conclusions until he knew for certain.

“Okay dad,” Shawn said as he quietly walked to his room, not at all like a four year old should.

Skeeter shook his head while he watched the child leave the room. He walked to the living room where he wife was sprawled out on the couch, sleeping in front of an unwatched television. Her large mug of coffee sat on the wooden end table, leaving a ring and the remote sat haphazardly on the floor. Skeeter picked up the mug of coffee, which was still half full. His intent was to simply pour it down the drain, but as he lifted it, he could smell that more than cream and sugar were added to the cup. He took a sip and tasted more vodka than coffee in his mouth. He spit the liquid back into the cup. Disgusted, he walked into the kitchen and poured the drink down the drain. He then looked around, wondering where his wife hid the bottle of booze. It was a house rule they both decided on not to allow liquor into their home; that they would only drink on rare, special social occasions. Now was not the time for a thorough search though.

Skeeter returned to the living room and snatched the remote from the floor. He knew of one sure fire way to garner his wife’s attention, he changed the channel.

“Hey! I was watching that you little,” Diane paused as she opened her eyes to see her husband standing right in front of her.

“You little what?” Skeeter asked, his lips became tight and drawn.

“You little rascal, if you must know,” Diane said as she sat up.

“We need to talk,” Skeeter said as he turned off the television.

“Okay, talk,” Diane said with a hint of malaise. “What about?” she changed her attitude quickly as she saw the glare she got from her husband.

“I wanted to talk about our son and something I noticed,” Skeeter said as he sat down. His goal was to solve the problem peacefully.

“Oh, the little piece of meat, he’s still in his room isn’t he?” Diane asked as if she really didn’t have a clue as to where the child was.

“Yes, he’s there.” Skeeter narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath in order to keep him from exploding. “Why do you keep referring to Shawn like that?”

“Oh, it’s just a pet name. You know, like dumpling or honey-bunch.” Diane saw the displeasure in her husband’s face. “I’m only joking around with him. Come on, he’s built like a butterball turkey.”

“Then maybe we should be a little more careful about what we feed him, make a few less trips to McDonald’s, call the pizza place less often and have a few more healthy home cooked meals. But I don’t think insulting a four year old is really going to do much good,” Skeeter said sternly.

“Okay, okay, obviously you’re a bit uptight about things and you don’t like the harmless little nickname, so I’ll stop just for you,” Diane said sarcastically. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

“Thank you, but I’m not done,” Skeeter said flatly as he closed his eyes to avoid seeing red. “There was something else. When I was changing him this morning I noticed a few bruises on his thigh, they look kid of bad.”

“You know boys, always running and jumping and playing rough. I think he got those when he fell on some of his toy cars that he forgot to pick up off the floor. He’ll live, I’m sure of it,” Diane made light of the situation and looked about the room.

“He must’ve had a bloody nose not too long ago, I had to take a piece of toilet tissue out of it. The bleeding stopped you’ll be happy to know. I wonder how he got that one.”

“He was running around and banged it against the table if you must know,” Diane said quickly. “Just because you get to interrogate people at work…”

“That’s funny,” Skeeter stopped her mid-sentence. “He said he ran into the door and he bruised his eye on the edge of a chair.”

“Table, door, chair, whatever. The kid has always been kind of a klutz, you know that. Didn’t you get a few bumps and bruises growing up?”

“Yeah, but only a few. Maybe you should keep watch over him a little more closely before someone gets the wrong idea and reports idea and reports you, us, for child abuse,” Skeeter said pointedly, hoping his wife didn’t take his comment as a vague threat.

“I think it is you who is the one known for hitting him in daycare,” Diane shot back.

Skeeter shook his head in disbelief. He walked off to his son’s room to check how Shawn was doing.

Karen hung up the phone. Everyone else was in the back yard as the children made a fuss over the large dog that seemed more intent on lying in the hot midday sun than in playing around. Karen walked over to where her husband was watching the girls as they lay in the sun wearing just their underwear as they rested their heads on Neesa’s belly. Karen smiled at the sunbathing beauties as she wrapped her arms around he husband’s shoulders. “I just got some good news,” she said in a hushed voice.

“Oh really?” J.D. said as he looked up.

“Yes. That was Melissa on the phone,” Karen informed. “They took Chase off the respirator an hour ago, he’s been breathing on his own ever since.”

“That’s great!” J.D. said. “I wonder why she waited an hour to call.”

“She probably didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up in case it was a false alarm,” Karen explained. “The important thing is that she called us first,” she joked.

“And right she should.” J.D. grinned. “Jenny, Jenny, come over here. I got some news for you about your daddy.”

Jenny rolled off the dog and onto her belly, making her way quickly to her feet. She ran full tilt into the arms of her God-father. “What about my daddy? Is he coming home tonight to get me?” she asked excitedly.

“No, but he is getting closer,” J.D. said in a way not to disappoint the child. “Do you remember that big blue tube taped to your daddy’s mouth that was helping him breathe?”

Jenny nodded her head yes as J.D. placed her on the ground.

“Well, the doctor took that tube out because your daddy is getting better,” J.D. said so the child could understand it in simper terms.

“Yea, Daddy,” Jenny yelled and smiled and did a little dance that the adults found amusing as she flailed her arm and spun around until she got so dizzy that she fell on the smooth stoned patio. Jenny laughed as the adults giggled. “I knew Daddy would come back to me, I just knew it. First Neesa, now Daddy.” The child beamed with happiness.

J.D. hoped that he wasn’t setting the child up for greater disappointment later on. He knew people could remain in a coma for years and that Chase wasn’t exactly out of the woods yet. “I think he tried extra hard because you visited today,” J.D. said though all his logic warned him that there was still a long road yet to hoe, but he too had hope that Chase’s ordeal was almost over.

“That’s because my daddy loves me,” Jenny said with a proud confidence.

“That he does pumpkin,” Karen said. “That he does.”

Author note: I am still trying to create a buzz for God Bless the Child at WWW.BookCountry.com please take a peek at it so I can somehow get this book on it's front page and attract a publisher. Thank you. Here is the link God Bless the Child