Last time:
Clark
"You know," she said contemplatively, almost as though she forgot I was there, "I loved Chris with all my heart and I love your dad with all my heart, but they've always been different kinds of love. I think what I had with Chris could have turned into something like what I have with Dad, but it never had the chance. There's all different kinds of love, even between a husband and wife. I love Dad because he's my best friend, my confidant, my lover, my other half. It's not all heart fluttering and floating. It's deep, it's abiding, it's timeless."
She moved to stand behind me, wrapping her arms around me and resting her chin on my head. "I love you, Clarkie."
"I love you, too, Mom."
They were good words of advice, but she had no idea what a mess my life was.
Would Lois really leave?
Would I let her?
Now?
Later?
All of those questions had to go on the back burner. First, we had to deal with our son needing surgery.
I sighed and decided that sleeping on the veranda might not be such a bad plan.
*~*117*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I sat in the surgical waiting room and stared at the wall in front of me.
I had my laptop with me and had blogged about all this and had promised updates from the hospital's wifi network, but I just didn't have it in me.
We'd been at the hospital since 4:30 – well, Nate and I had been. Clark had gotten up with Christopher and then headed over, arriving about 6:30. We'd been sitting in a pre-surgical prep area, when they came to take him away. I breathed a silent prayer as I handed him over to a nurse who promised me that she'd take good care of him. Dr. Forest had been there and reassured us that he thought he could to the Fundoplication through the laproscopic procedure rather than the 'old-fashioned way'.
A Nissen Fundoplication.
I never would have thought I could remember that.
They were taking the top of his stomach and wrapping it around the bottom of his esophagus. Food wouldn't go down and in; it would go down and around and in. It would also have to go around to get out – and that was much harder, which was the point.
Dr. Forest thought he could do the surgery with cameras and such rather than actually opening him up, but he wouldn’t be sure until they got in there.
They'd taken him nearly an hour ago.
The pager they'd given us buzzed. I looked up, wide-eyed. "It's too soon," I whispered and darted towards the reception desk.
My insides were churning. The surgery was supposed to take two or two and a half hours and it had been less than one.
Another family was in front of me. Daddy and Clark had gone to get something to eat a few minutes earlier, but he was at my side before it was my turn.
"What's the name?" the receptionist asked.
"Nathaniel Kent," I managed to get out.
She pulled a clipboard out with his name on it. "They just called. It took longer than expected to get his IV started and all of that, so they just started the surgery a few minutes ago and they wanted to let you know that there had been a delay."
My knees nearly gave out underneath me and only Clark's arm around my waist kept me upright. "Thank you," I told her as she turned to the person behind me.
"You need to relax some," Clark said quietly, keeping his arm around me as we headed back to the chairs we'd staked out. "I know it's hard, but you're going to make yourself sick."
"My *baby* is in there," I reminded him. "What if they find something? Or he reacts weird to one of the drugs they give him? Or..."
"Stop," he said forcefully. "He's fine."
"Can you see him?"
He shook his head. "No, I’m not sure where he is."
I glared at him. "Then until we know for sure that he's okay, I'm going to freak out a bit." I jerked away from him and went to sit near Daddy, but far enough away that he wouldn't immediately try to start a conversation.
I heard Clark tell him why they'd paged me. I watched them from under my lashes. Daddy looked fairly relaxed. He'd known Dr. Forest through professional conferences and so on and by reputation for years. He was completely confident in Dr. Forest's skills.
Clark looked slightly more stressed, but not nearly like I was.
My stomach was churning and it wasn't *just* because Nate was in surgery.
It was because of the fight we'd had the other night, the feelings the kiss had reawakened in me, everything else. Even though we hadn't been anywhere near each other most nights, at least we were in the same bed. The last few nights... Clark had slept on the couch and probably would for the foreseeable future – at least when I was home and I wouldn't be home for a few days. There hadn't even been any tears over it, just a deep, abiding sense of loss.
I'd brought my favorite blanket in with me and curled up underneath it, my head resting on the wall next to me. I wasn't quite sure how, but somehow I managed to fall asleep.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I gave a small sigh of relief when Lois fell asleep. She was going to give herself an ulcer if she wasn't careful.
"What?" Sam noticed the sigh.
"She hasn’t been sleeping well," I told him, nodding towards Lois. "Maybe she can get a little bit of rest and sleep through most of this."
"That would be good. I know she's scared about this, but it really is a pretty routine surgery."
"Surgery is only routine when it's not on someone you love," I said quietly.
He smiled slightly at that. "Very true, but I promise you that it really is fairly simple – even if they do have to open him up instead of just the tiny incisions."
I sighed. "I still wish..."
"I know."
Sam turned back to his magazine and I popped open my laptop, logging in to the Daily Planet's blog site and posting an update.
Notes of encouragement could be found on both of our blogs and that was nice. People all around the city – or country even – were pulling for Nate.
Mom and Dad came back just then. They'd been with us for a while then went to get something to eat. They'd ventured all the way to the cafeteria while Sam and I had hit the small stand closer to the waiting room.
Dad and Sam were soon involved in a detailed discussion about football that I normally would have enjoyed, but not this time.
Mom sat next to me and rested her head on my shoulder. "How are you?" she asked quietly.
"Just waiting," I said.
"That's not what I meant. You and Lois. How are you?"
I shrugged. "Same."
"Still fighting?" she asked and I could hear the disapproval in her voice.
"Not really. Just not talking."
"And you're still on the couch." It wasn't a question.
I sighed. "It's not the first time and it probably won't be the last either."
"What fixed it the last time?"
"She found out she was pregnant and told me I could come back."
"Did you actually resolve whatever the problem was?"
Had we? The problem had been that I'd kissed her and practically thrown her on the bed and made love to her without committing fully to her.
And that hadn't happened again and wasn't about to happen any time soon.
That was resolved wasn't it?
"More or less," I finally said. "We agreed... not really to disagree, but that there were strong opinions involved and we were going to put it behind us."
"And this time?"
"I don't know what the solution is this time," I told her honestly. "I think part of it is the stress and emotions over Nate, but beyond that... It's just something we have to figure out and I don't think we'll be able to while we're focusing on Nate. Give it a couple weeks..."
"I'd bet that a big part of it is stress over Nate. Don't give it a couple weeks," Mom advised. "Find some time to talk to her today and try to work out whatever it is."
"I'll see," I finally said noncommittally.
Mom sighed and picked up a magazine. I turned back to my laptop and checked my email. I had a couple from professors wishing us well. I pulled up one of them and replied with an assignment that was due the next day. Lois' laptop was open on one of the chairs and I was able to log in to her documents. I checked her assignment and it looked done so I sent it, too. She'd said she was reading over it one last time the night before.
I hovered over her 'eBooks' file. I knew that was where she kept everything she'd written and I'd seen her pounding away on another NaNo project. I thought about opening it, but logged off instead. She hadn't even told me what her story was about this year.
I poked around online and played a few games of Mahjong Titans on the computer when the pager Lois still had on her lap buzzed.
She practically jumped up. "Where is he?"
"They just paged you, honey," Sam said. "You've been asleep for a couple hours."
Lois headed for the desk with me in her wake.
"Name?" the lady said a minute later.
"Nathaniel Kent," Lois told her.
She pulled the clipboard back out. "They're done with the surgery itself and are just finishing up and getting him to recovery. The doctor should be out in about fifteen or twenty minutes to talk to you. We'll page you again when it's time to meet him."
"Thank you," Lois and I both said as we turned back.
Jimmy had joined our parents while we were up there.
"Surgery's over," Lois told them, sinking back into her seat. "They'll page us when Dr. Forest is ready to talk to us."
Lois pulled her blanket back over her and stared into space while the rest of us talked quietly. Her dad was closest to her and reached over to hold her hand, whispering something I couldn't hear. She nodded, but didn't really move much more than that.
A few minutes later the pager buzzed again. Jimmy offered to stay with our stuff while the five of us met with Dr. Forest in one of the small rooms off the waiting room. Lois ended up sitting between her dad and my mom, on purpose I thought, at least until Mom moved over and gave me a pointed look. I gave an internal sigh and took the seat she'd vacated. Lois didn't even look at me.
The room was quiet until Dr. Forest entered a few minutes later.
He had a big grin on his face. "Everything went *great*," he told us.
Lois' shoulders slumped in relief.
"We were able to do the surgery laparoscopically. The smallest we can do laparoscopic surgery on is about eight pounds. Nate is eight and a half so it was kind of up in the air whether or not we could, but it worked just fine. He'll have four small scars, but that's it. I couldn't have asked for it to go any better."
"So no G-tube?" Lois asked.
He'd warned that a G-tube was a possibility for releasing gas – or maybe even feeding for a while, if the wrap was too tight for him to swallow well – for a while but he was hoping not to go that route.
"No G-tube." He let loose a big yawn. "Sorry. We have to keep it pretty warm in there for Nate's sake, but I promise that's the first time I've yawned. Once you get out of surgery it kinda catches you sometimes." He stood and stretched. "They'll have him in recovery in a few minutes and will page you then so Mom and Dad can go back. It'll probably be an hour or so until they move him back over to the Peds unit. Like I told you before, he won't be able to burp for a month or six weeks or so. I'd stock up on Mylecon gas drops because since he can't burp, the gas will probably be pretty bad for a while." He squeezed Lois' shoulder lightly. "Honestly, it couldn't have possibly gone any better."
We all gave voice to our thanks and stood to leave.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I had to ask. "Dr. Forest?"
He turned from where he was saying something to my dad. "Yes, Mrs. Kent?"
"Everything looks normal? You didn't notice anything else looking off or anything like that? This should fix it all?" That wasn't *really* what I wanted to know. I really wanted to know if he noticed two stomachs or three livers or something.
"Everything looks perfect," he reassured me and I breathed a sigh of relief – I was sure the Kents did, too.
"Thank you."
We headed back out to the waiting room where Clark filled Jimmy in on what the doctor had said.
It was only about five minutes before they paged us again and Clark and I headed towards recovery. We gave everyone hugs as they were all heading out – it would be an hour or more before Nate made it to a room and there was no point in them waiting. We used hand sanitizer and were led to a bed where Nate slept.
He was wrapped a blanket, IV tubing coming out from underneath it.
"Would you like to hold him?" one of the nurses asked.
I nodded. I did. I wanted very much to hold my son. She helped me pick him up and I settled into the rocking chair next to the bed. Someone else pulled up a chair for Clark.
He reached out and stroked Nate's cheek.
I looked at him and could see the emotions warring on his face. He'd been just as scared – if not more so – than me. He just dealt with it better.
"I'm sorry," I said suddenly, surprising both of us.
"For what?" he asked, never taking his eyes off Nate.
"The other night. I should never have asked questions I knew I wouldn't like the answers to, much less get upset when I don't like what you say."
He sighed. "And I should never have answered them – at least not like I did." He looked straight at me. "You are *not* inherently unlovable. You're a wonderful person, a great mom, and you've given me two beautiful boys. You deserve better than this – better than what we have. You deserve someone who loves you with his whole heart, something like my parents have, your parents had, my grandparents had. You deserve that, not some platonic thing forced by a dictator like what we have." He moved his hand from Nate's cheek and reached out to brush my hair back. "You are beautiful and pregnancy didn't destroy that."
He sighed. "You’re my best friend. I want you to be happy. I want you to be safe."
Tears filled my eyes and the hole in my heart grew. Happy. Safe. But not enough to decide to love me.
A nurse came over and interrupted whatever else either of us might have said.
I sighed. Nate was doing well and they were ready to take him over to the Peds unit. Any conversation with Clark would have to wait for later.
*****
TBC
