“Where’s their father?”
“He’s a long haul trucker. They tracked him down in California. I sent the plane to bring him home. He’ll be here this afternoon.”
“You’d better call them and tell them I made it after all. Good Lord! My dying orders!? You’re kidding me, right?” I rolled my eyes. “So, you flew here from home, saw me here, drove to Springboro, saw the girls, and then came back? Did you get any sleep? What are you, Superwoman?”
“Able to leap tall husbands in a single bound!”
Marilyn opened her purse to pull out a cell phone, and a nurse came into the room. “Congressman! You’re awake!”
I nodded, which hurt, and asked, “What happened to me?” From what I could see, most of my left arm was bandaged, and I could feel some pain in my chest and some constriction there, and what felt like a bandage on the left side of my head.
“I’ll get the doctor!” She scurried out of the room.
I glanced over at my wife, who was talking into her phone. “… he’s fine. He’s wide awake and chasing a nurse out of the room. Here, you can talk to him.” She handed me the phone. “They’re your daughters!”
That’s never a good sign. I took the phone and held it to my ear, all of which hurt. “Who’s there?”
“DADDY!” screamed Holly. Then I heard her yelling to somebody in the background. “IT’S DAD!”
“Hi, I’m just fine. Now, you two are relieved of duty! Let those poor people have some rest and I’ll see you later today.” I felt suddenly tired, and Marilyn took the phone from me.
She smiled at me and said into the phone, “Now, will you two calm down!? I’ll be there sometime around lunch and rescue the people you are staying with.” I heard the ‘That’s not funny!’ from where I lay in the bed. My wife hung up on the girls and turned back to me. “How old were you when your family kicked you out?”
“We still have a few weeks to go before they’re that old.”
“Feeling better?”
“Water, please.”
Marilyn got me some more water and then the nurse returned with another woman, about the same age, but with a more serious look about her. She smiled as she saw that I was awake and alert. “Congressman Buckman, I’m Doctor Elizabeth Shooster. How are you feeling?”
I gave her a wry smile. “I think you’re supposed to be telling me that, Doc. What happened to me?”
She looked at Marilyn. “Is he always like this?” she asked, smiling.
“No, usually he’s much, much worse.”
I shrugged, but that hurt. “How about, I hurt all over?”
“That’s to be expected, but it will pass. All right, here’s what happened to you. When the building collapsed, something jagged — probably a wooden floor joist — clipped you on the side of your head, and then kept moving down, and buried itself in your left pectoral muscle and…” She stopped when she saw I had no idea what she was talking about. “It dug in here and here…” she explained, tracing a few areas on her own chest, “… and also dug into your upper left arm.” She tapped her own arm in emphasis. “While that was happening you also cracked a couple of ribs on the left side. They’re not broken, though. You also lost a lot of blood. So, when you came in we pumped some blood into you and removed the wood and splinters, and sewed you back together and taped your ribs.”
“Now what?”
She shrugged and smiled. “Now you get better. We have you on lots of antibiotics and some painkillers. You’ll be here a few days and then we can send you home. You’ll be wrapped up for a few weeks, but you’re in excellent shape. Three months from now and you’ll just have a few more scars to talk about.” She sounded like she was finished, but she didn’t leave, and she looked like she wanted to ask a question.
That was interrupted when Marilyn’s cell phone rang. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the name pop up on the little screen. She flipped it open and said, “Governor?” After a few minutes chatting, she gave the phone to me. “It’s Governor Bush.”
I wasn’t surprised. “Carl, how are you feeling? I hear you’re out of surgery and awake.”
“I’m just fine, Governor. It was nice of you to call. Thank you.”
“Listen, I’ll be flying in later. I’m at a fundraiser in Denver right now. We can talk and make a few plans, do a press conference, that sort of thing.”
“Of course, sir. I look forward to it.”
“Well, you get better! That was a hell of a thing you just did, I want you to know that! A hell of a thing!”
“Thank you.” The phone clicked and I flipped it shut. Marilyn took it back. I looked at the others. “George Bush is coming in. We’re going to do a press conference.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Congressman. There are reporters camped out all over the hospital trying to get in here. The Governor, of Oklahoma I mean, he ordered up the State Police to keep order! Everybody wants to see you and to talk to the doctors and everybody! It’s crazy out there!” said Doctor Shooster.
“And now George Bush is coming?” added Marilyn. “What’s he trying to do?”
I smiled at my wife. She could be a bit naïve at times. “He is going to bask in the sunlight of my reflected glory, or something like that. Politics 101, hun. Everything that is good happens because George Bush is wise and good; everything that is bad happens because Al Gore is wicked and evil. You ought to know that. By the time George gets through with this, Springboro will rename itself Bushville, since he was wise enough to send me to save the town from the tornado that Al Gore caused.”
“You weren’t this cynical when I married you,” she told me.
“I was just hiding it well.” I turned to the doctor. “Okay, how about you and me and your hospital’s communications director write up a press release. We can do a press conference tomorrow.”
“I’ll ask him about that. I’ll come back around lunchtime.”
“I need to find your daughters. What do I say when the reporters ask me in the lobby?” asked Marilyn.
“Just say that I am awake and feeling much better and we’ll be issuing a release later on.”
“Oh, by the way, I talked to both Tusker and Tessa and Marty and your sister while you were out but you need to call them as well.” Marilyn gave me a quick kiss, and then I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
I woke up again around noon, when Marilyn returned with our daughters, who were carrying a large cardboard box. They both came in, shrieking happily, and set the box down on the end of the bed, where it began moving. I looked over at their mother. “Don’t tell me, that’s not…”
“Oh, yes it is!” She peeled back the lid and a gigantic fuzzy brown head popped up.
The girls picked the pup out of the box and set her down on my chest. “We named her Stormy!” announced Holly.
“Yeah, after the storm,” added her sister.
I bit off a smartass reply, and simply warned, “If this thing pees on me…”
Stormy didn’t pee on me, but she did crawl forward and begin licking my face. How do you say no to a puppy licking your face? I reached up with my good hand and began to rub her fur, and she began licking my hand. This thing had an inexhaustible supply of saliva. She moved back to licking my face and I wiped my hand on the bedsheets.
Doctor Shooster came in at that point, followed by a corporate type and a nurse with some food, and gave a pro forma protest at seeing a dog in the hospital. This sort of abated when she put her hand on the critter and was licked. We sent them out of the room, with orders to find a leash and a collar. I wolfed down my Jell-O and juice while we crafted a press release. It didn’t say much, other than that I was alive and awake, in good health. It was expected that I would survive and be released in a few days, and that we hoped to have a press conference tomorrow. The communications director added a section where I was thanking the hospital for the excellent treatment I was receiving. I thanked him, somewhat dryly, for rectifying my oversight. Then we sent him off, Doctor Shooster was sent home to get some rest, and I went back to napping.