Session four.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Penny Watson exclaimed, half rising out of her armchair.
"Nice to see you again, too," Lauren said, a little irritated at the woman's brusqueness, as Joe took her crutches and helped her onto the couch.
"Jesus Christ, are you okay?" she asked, sitting back down.
"Oh, yeah, just got in a little car accident," she said, waving dismissively.
"You have a leg in a cast and your neck in a brace. It doesn't look like it was a little accident."
"My arm was in a sling, too, because I dislocated my shoulder, but it's pretty much better now. The brace can come off soon, too, but I'm being more careful about that. Whiplash is sly and subtle, the doctors tell me; if you're not careful, it can come back with a vengeance."
Penny shook her head in bemusement. "You didn't have to come today if you weren't feeling well."
"I'm fine as long as I have help getting around. I have my crutches, and Joe's been a great help too, now that he's home." She squeezed Joe's hand and said, "And anyway, I made a promise to him to keep to our sessions, because you were right; we have a little more work to do."
Penny removed her glasses and hooked one of its arms in her bottom lip. Lauren couldn't help noticing, over the weeks, that she was very expressive with her glasses, and was once again reminded of Sandra Bullock in Speed; she didn't wear glasses in that movie, but she had that look, those legs whose inner thighs Lauren wanted to run her tongue along. She was randy, and she couldn't really do anything about it with her injuries. It would be a long, dry season until she healed because, ironically, Joe was finally back in her bed but was too afraid to do anything to her for fear of hurting her worse.
"I take it you arrived at some new insights in the last week?" she asked.
"Lauren was pregnant with Al's baby, and seduced me to make me believe it was mine," Joe said.
The matter-of-factness of his statement jarred her, even though it was the truth, and she felt the need to explain. "I had fully intended on telling him, but when Joe saw Rachel with me, there to support me, he mistook her presence for an invitation to a threesome."
"Ah," Penny said, putting her glasses back on and writing something down in her notebook. "Now the threesome is explained."
"I'm not proud of what I did," Lauren said. "I took the easy way out, because I was so afraid of what his reaction would be when I told him. I thought, well, why not just have a little fun with him and with my best friend and lover instead? We were all into it, so why not?"
"Except you were going to let him believe the baby was his," Penny said. "We're all about telling the truth in these sessions, and that was a lie, at least of omission." She wrote a little more down and said, "So, how did the truth come out?"
"The accident," Lauren said. "I lost it, but I'm not sure if it was because of the accident, or because I've had a history of miscarriages."
Penny looked up, and her face dropped. "Oh. I'm so sorry."
"So, they told Joe about it because he's my husband, and, well, of course they thought it was his."
Penny looked cosmically sad. "Joe, my God, that must have been a horrible way to find out."
To Lauren's surprise, Joe's voice cracked with emotion. "Yeah, it was no picnic. At first I did think it was mine, but then I thought, wait, if it was already detectable, it was too far along for me to have conceived it."
Tears ran down her cheeks. This would never stop hurting, no matter how many times they talked around it. "I'm so sorry you had to find out that way."
He said nothing, but squeezed her hand.
"So," Penny said. "Let's say you didn't lose the baby. Would you have told him the truth, Lauren?"
"I..."
"Wait, first of all, Joe, if Lauren told you she was pregnant, how would you have reacted?"
"Uh..." Joe paused to think about it. "Well, to be honest, it would have been a shock. Not only because we already have two children who are entering their teens, but because, like Lauren said, we lost two others before, and with her being on the pill it would seem like a one in a million chance."
"That's exactly what I thought," Lauren said. "I never thought it would happen."
"Okay," Penny said, scribbling in her notebook. "Once you got over the shock, Joe, what would you have thought about it?"
He squirmed. He was really having trouble with this. "Well, you know, my family's Catholic, and we're supposed to be against abortion..."
"So, you'd feel like you had to keep it, even if a new baby would complicate an already troubled marriage?"
"It wasn't the baby's fault that their father wasn't my husband," Lauren said, to her surprise. "I mean, if worse came to worst, and Joe knew the truth and didn't want the baby, I could have always turned them over to Al and Rachel to raise."
"You'd do that?" Joe asked weakly, and Lauren saw him looking at her out of the corner of her eye.
"I'd do anything to save our marriage. Besides, Al was over the moon when I told him, he'd have been all for it."
"So, wait, Lauren," Penny said, "it never occurred to you to terminate the pregnancy without telling Joe?"
Joe let out a breath as if he were punched in the gut.
"It would have made my life a lot easier," Lauren admitted, glad she couldn't see Joe's face right now. Her own matter-of-factness must have winded him as much as his did her. "But, in the end I couldn't go through with it. I know it's a bit late for me to start over again with a new baby, but it would have been nice, too. I mean, I see how my own babies are growing up and..."
Shit, here came the waterworks. She waved her hand in front of her face and shook her head. She didn't want to cry now. "I just... it would have been okay having something small and warm and sweet smelling to hold again. Baby head, my God... sorry, do you have kids, Penny? Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Penny smirked and shook her head. "I haven't had that privilege yet. Someday. My own partner and I are taking things slow. I have smelled a baby's head, though, and I do know what you mean."
"And to have Rachel, my best friend in the world, there with me at the birth, when she missed my other two... that would have been so awesome."
"Even if the child you were giving birth to was her husband's?"
"It's fucked up, I know, but we discussed it, and she wanted it for me too, because she didn't want to get pregnant herself."
Penny scribbled some more in her notebook and said, "This is... wow... Joe, do you have something to say about this?"
Joe was silent a moment, and she didn't let herself turn around to look at his face.
"I have to be honest," he said. "It's not what I would have wanted."
"Okay," Lauren said, wiping her eyes. "I understand. I do. It's asking too much of you. It's bad enough that I cheated, but to carry Al's baby to term would have been the last straw."
"It's just a little rich, you know?" Joe said, suddenly hot. "You made me be doubly careful with Joanie, because you didn't want her getting pregnant."
"I know," she said weakly. "I guess, at the end of the day, it's for the best that... you know... the pregnancy didn't continue."
"Does Al know you lost the baby?" Penny asked.
Lauren's heart sank. "Uh, no," she said, her voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "He was in the accident with me, and... uh... he's in a coma."
Penny's face fell. "Oh. I'm so sorry. Is it bad? Do they think he'll ever...?" She trailed off, unwilling to even give voice to the dark future awaiting Rachel and her family.
"They're not sure. They were able to stop the bleeding and swelling in his brain. Now they're just waiting to see if he'll wake up. They say he's in there, but he's hiding, and they don't know when he'll show himself."
"Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you."
"Thanks."
"He'll have some bad news to wake to, though."
"If he does wake, I'm sure that won't be the first thing on his mind," Joe said, a little irritated now.
Penny nodded. "And what about Joanie?"
"What about her?" Joe asked. "She didn't need to know about the pregnancy."
"No, I mean, how's she taking your coming home?"
"About as well as can be expected. She misses me, but we're still in contact."
They were. Joanie had come by to visit Lauren at home and hear Joe's version of what happened late Sunday to early Monday. Lauren had been happy to see her, but Joe's parents hadn't; when they'd come by for a visit, and seen the tall redhead in their living room, it hadn't take them long to figure out who she was, and Joe's mom had hissed something at her in Italian, letting her know in no uncertain terms that she was unwelcome. Joe hadn't stood up for Joanie, either, and when she'd left, the look on her face left her continuing relationship with Joe in question. Lauren couldn't help feeling a spark of satisfaction even though she felt bad for Joanie; after all this time, Joe's parents were finally on her side, or at least someone else got to feel their wrath for once.
As for her own parents, there was never any question whose side they were on, but they'd fortunately been spared the awkwardness of meeting Joe's lover, because they were never in the same place as Joe's parents if they could help it. They weren't there that day, because they'd already visited her in the hospital. Joe's parents hadn't seen her there, they'd claimed, because hospitals still caused Joe's mom trauma after the nightmare of her husband's ordeal with encephalitis. Lauren could understand that, and she never really wanted them to visit her in the hospital anyway, but she couldn't help remembering that they'd visited Joe at VGH when he'd been laid up after the beating he'd taken, and it hadn't seemed to traumatize her mother-in-law then. She never mentioned this to Joe, though, in the interests of marital and family harmony.
The next time they saw Lauren's parents was when they visited the Nikkei Centre that Saturday. Toshiro Hasegawa had finally made up his mind to go, and they followed behind Lauren, Joe, Naomi, Tosh, Rachel and Emma in a van Rachel had booked through Modo, since the only vehicle left in the family car fleet was Lauren's Versa, which was difficult enough for Joe and Lauren to get around in just the two of them; Lauren finally saw a disadvantage in her peppy little car when she attempted to slide in and out of it with Joe's assistance. Something higher off the ground would make her life easier at the moment, but they were still negotiating insurance claims with the dealers of two separate leases and the New Westminster Police, so it would be a while before they could get a new vehicle, and Lauren was thankful Rachel and her family were still living with them and could obtain a sufficient vehicle with the press of a button on her phone.
Regan Nakamura met them at the entrance to the Centre, greeting the party escorting Lauren on her crutches as if she were the guide employed by the place. As she shook hands with Mom and Dad, she asked her, "Are you sure you're up for a visit today?"
"Actually, I feel really good today," Lauren said, smiling at the sight of her new friend. "I can get around okay with these crutches, and having my family and friends with me works as well as any medicine. What about you Regan? Are you okay with coming today? Isn't today election day?"
Regan nodded and waved it off. "I voted already, and I'm not going to think about it for the rest of the day, otherwise I'll be too nervous. I'll be holed up this evening with my campaign workers, eagerly anticipating the results, but until then I'm going to make this day about us."
As she held the door open for them all to enter, she asked, "Did you vote for your Burnaby candidates?"
"Uh..."
Regan sighed in mock frustration. "Democracy only survives when its citizens fully participate."
"We had no excuse," Rachel said, "but we've been dealing with other things."
Regan's face softened. "How's your husband doing?"
"Still being a lazybones, still not waking up. I talk to him whenever I see him, because they say there's a chance he'll hear me, but I can't tell. They're going to remove the intubation because they're decreasing the sedation; they're confident he'll be able to breathe on his own, but that just means the part of his brain responsible for his bodily functions is working. As for the rest..." She shrugged.
Regan nodded and said, "Fingers crossed, then."
The main hall of the Centre, called the Ellipse Lobby, was airy and well lit by the sunlight shining through its glass wall. Kids ran and played tag in the landscaped greenery on the other side of that wall, an incongruously cheery sight compared to the quiet, sombre mood inside the hall, inspired by the display in the middle, a mock-up of the layout of an internment camp in the Interior of British Columbia.
Dad approached the display as if he were sneaking up on a dangerous animal. Lauren watched him, holding her breath.
He circled it, reading the explanations of life in the camp. He nodded from time to time, looking lost in the haze of the past.
"I played with my friends in the streets," he said. "All around us were these long, wooden houses, barracks, really, housing multiple families. I never questioned why we were there; it was just what I grew up with. I was happy enough because my friends were there, and my family was together, even if it was tight with the other families. It never occurred to me that we were there against our will."
Lauren hobbled over to him on her crutches and said, "When it was all you knew, how could you think it was wrong?"
He nodded, and a tear ran down his cheek. "How could I know the toll it took on my mother? On my father, who did everything he could to make this country accept him?"
She took her left crutch in her right hand with the other one and threw her left arm around his shoulders. He'd always been slender and lithe, his muscle ropy and taut, but now he seemed so small and thin. "Oh, Daddy."
His arm snaked around her waist and drew her close. "I didn't want to come because I didn't want to cry," he said hoarsely. "And here I am, doing it anyway."
"I know," she said, crying herself, now. "But it's okay to cry. It was horrible, what they did."
He nodded, wiping his eyes.
Soon Mom appeared at his left side and put an arm around him, and then Joe appeared on Lauren's right and put an arm around her, taking her crutches, holding her up. Then Tosh and Naomi came up beside Joe and stared at the large diorama. Nobody said anything, and that was okay; sometimes, words didn't add anything to the simple act of bearing witness to the injustices of history. The kids didn't need to ask Dad if this was where he stayed, or a place like this. He'd told the story often enough, but to see it like this, so stark and in three dimensions, made it real for the first time in their lives.
She squeezed Joe's arm and said, "Thank you for coming with us today."
"I wouldn't be anywhere else."
Eventually Regan approached with Rachel and Emma. Emma was transfixed by the smallness of the houses, and Rachel had to hold her back from getting her face too close to the glass. Because her best friend wasn't exhibiting the same enthusiasm for examining the display as she'd exhibited for the sand sculptures in Harrison Hot Springs, Emma eventually wandered over to her and took her hand, looking at her inquiringly through her thick-lens glasses. Naomi put an arm around her and said, "We're being sad right now, but that's okay. It's just for now."
Dad came out of his reverie, looked at Naomi and Emma, and smiled. "You're right, Naomi-chan. I've been sad long enough. Let's look at some of the other displays. Look, there! The Vancouver Asahi baseball team. My father played first base, did you know that?"
They wandered the rest of the museum, enjoying the happier parts of Nikkei heritage, and Lauren filled Regan in on how the case had concluded last weekend. When they left the museum, Lauren took Regan aside in the parking lot and said, "Thanks so much for suggesting this. I got a lot out of it, the kids learned more about their heritage, and Dad finally, I think, came out of the cold."
Regan smiled and put a hand on Lauren's arm. "It was my pleasure. Let's go out for drinks when you feel better. Bring Rachel too so she doesn't feel threatened."
Lauren chuckled. "It may be a while. Will I have to call you Councillor when we do?"
"Hey, I haven't been elected yet. Don't jinx it for me."
"Fair enough."
"I can't believe we met on the night Sunny announced his candidacy, and that Jordan guy was there, and I made a fool of myself around him because I thought he was good looking, and now he's... gone." Regan shook her head sadly. "It just goes to show how fragile life is, how you just have to live every moment like it's your last."
"Yeah. And now we're off to see Al, who's more proof of your point."
"I'll be thinking of you all."
"Thank you. And good luck tonight, really."
"Thank you." Regan waved, then unlocked her bike from the bike rack, strapped on her helmet and rode away east, back to New Westminster.
Lauren and the kids exchanged more hugs with Mom and Dad, and then they parted ways so that they could go to Burnaby Hospital to visit Al in the ICU.
When they got there, they discovered the tube had already been taken out. He was breathing on his own, and his heart rate was steadily beeping on the EKG machine. The doctors let Rachel know about the activity on another machine, the electroencephalogram or EEG, which seemed to improve her spirits.
"They say he's in what they call a minimally conscious state," Rachel explained when she was back out of the room, and they were out of earshot of the kids, who were in the waiting room playing with the vending machines. "It involves regular sleep and wakefulness cycles, and some response to stimuli, mainly pain right now, but they're hoping more soon. They did this thing with a pen curled around his toe, pinching it down. He flinched! I saw him flinch!"
"I remember that," Joe said. "They did that to my dad when he was in his induced coma. It looks bad but doesn't do real damage, and it doesn't leave a mark."
"So, that's a good sign?" Lauren asked.
"If it goes the way it did with my dad, then yeah." He didn't say what Lauren was thinking, though, that Joe's dad might be around, but his circuits didn't always connect. Maybe with Al's younger brain, he might do better than Joe's dad, but only time would tell.
"The doctors were impressed with how well his injuries have healed," Rachel went on. "They had him in the MRI machine, and the images showed no evidence of the bleeding in his brain. His heart rate and blood pressure have also been self-regulating, without their intervention, and his muscles haven't stiffened. Even the site where they removed a piece of his skull and then put it back has healed up. It's as if..." Her face took on a dreamy quality now. "As if his body were rewinding itself to how it was before the accident, and any time now he'll wake up and be just fine."
"You don't think..." Lauren said, and she turned this way and that to make sure no medical staff were in listening range. "You don't think it was what Naira... I mean Jasminder... did to him?"
"If it works, I don't care what it was."
When the kids returned, Emma asked, "Is Al going to wake up, Mum?"
Rachel hugged her close and said, "We'll see, baby, we'll see."
Lauren looked through the window. Al continued to sleep, but he wasn't covered in bandages anymore, and his tube was out. That was something anyway, and with a little luck, and maybe some tiny robots in his bloodstream helping out, one day he'd be back with them again.
Thanks for reading this far! Circles are closing, and though poor Al hasn't come back to them yet, and won't by the end of this book, that just leaves room for a sequel! I'll announce what it is when I close the book with the last chapter, but if you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" and send this title up the ranks. If anything doesn't ring true about comas, leave a comment and let me know; I strive for authenticity.
Now, let's finish off this book with election night. Click on "Continue reading" to see if Sunny wins.