# Car 54

####
© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

### Chapter 23:
Private Road - No Public Access

I waited until we were all sitting at the table before I told everyone about the talk I'd had with Carissa, repeating most of the conversation.

The only question Wil asked was to find out why the doctors had Corinna in an induced coma, since he wondered why they would do that. When I explained it was to force her body to rest and recuperate faster, he simply nodded. During the rest of the meal he hardly spoke. It was almost as if he wasn't there and I found that rather eerie. Then, when we'd finished eating, Wil announced that he was tired and was going to his room to pack a few things for tomorrow's trip. After that, he said he was going to bed, purposely letting everyone know that he didn't want to be disturbed. He did pause and turn toward me before he left, asking what time I planned on leaving in the morning.

"When I get here, I guess. I'm afraid I don't know just when that will be, but it should be before noon," I shrugged my shoulders. "From the sounds of things they aren't going to be operating tomorrow under any circumstance and Corinna will still be in an induced coma. Carissa said her body has to recover and stabilize before they can do anything more, so I don't feel there's a huge rush for us to be there at any particular time, do you?"

He simply grunted and turned on his heel, leaving us behind as he walked away. For a moment or two everyone at the table was completely quiet, then Beth broke the silence

"Dammit. Wil is driving me nuts," she suddenly swore aloud.

"Yeah. Tell me about it. If he's like that for the whole drive to Edmonton, I'm going to want to strangle him by the time we get there," I agreed. "Silence is just not Wil's usual thing."

"No, it isn't. He's always brooded about things, but normally I can snap him out of it," Mom sighed. "I wish there was a way to snap him out of it by tomorrow, for your sake if nothing else, but I don't know how to do it this time."

"I don't either. However, I'd rather not worry about that until then, okay?" I sighed. "Beth and I still have to go up the hill, then we have some work to do yet tonight."

"No problem," Dad said quietly. "But, I think that you and I should have a short talk before you go back to the ranch. Let's go check your car and see what we can do about throwing a few tools in the back, just in case you have any troubles on the trip."

I frowned slightly at that because Dad knew that I always carried an emergency toolkit in the trunk, but decided he just wanted to talk to me alone.

"Well, while you two are out there talking, I'm going upstairs with Beth so she can pack a few clothes to have up at the ranch," Mom announced. "Beth, just leave the dishes for now. I'll get those later. You and Chris should head back soon. He has to show you all the chores you'll be doing and the things you need to take care of while he's away. That's liable to take a little while."

As I went outside, I was wondering just what was going on, then I decided that both Mom and Dad were trying to hang on to us and yet let us go easily. That darn will of Grampa Bender's changed everything. Outside, Dad walked right past my car and out to the barn, then gestured at some hay bales.

"Have a seat, Chris," he sighed.

"What's up, Dad?"

"Well to be honest, I'm not sure," he smiled. "Things have changed around here so much and so fast lately that I thought you and I just might need some time with each other. I was wondering if you had any worries that you'd like to share after being up at the cabin now. For instance, how are you and Carissa getting along? It looks very much to us like this relationship between you two could become a permanent thing and we were wondering how you felt about that?"

"Well so far, it feels great from my point of view," I sighed. "I think Carissa is happy too. Up until now we've told each other that we're taking it slowly, but it still seems as if each day brings us closer together. Today, I'm missing her something fierce and from the way she sounded on the phone, she feels the same way about me. Don't start digging out your Grampa boots yet though, we aren't planning on anything permanent for a while."

"Well, thank goodness for that," he grinned and chuckled softly. "Both of you are just a bit young to be starting a family, although I'm not sure that you were ever as young as Wil. For a guy your age, you do things that astound both your mother and me, you always have."

"Dad, I think both Wil and I act the way we do because of circumstance. Mama Kate died and I came along just when Wil was bonding to Mom. We grew up together and close to each other, but I think he's always felt that I was closest to Mom. I think he got into the habit of deferring to me from the time I was born, which seems to have pushed me into playing the bossy brother's role."

"You know in a strange way, that makes sense," Dad nodded. "It doesn't help any that you even think about things like that. Talking to you is just not like talking to any other sixteen-year-old kid. You act far older than you are. It's almost as if Grampa Bender was right and you're a throwback to two or three generations ago when a sixteen-year-old was considered a man and had a man's responsibilities."

"Well, you've always treated me as a grownup for as long as I can remember," I laughed softly and uneasily. "I guess being independent is just the way I'm built."

"Yes, I think you're right," he sighed. "Now it seems like circumstance has pushed you onto an even more independent road."

"You mean the ranch? Dad. I'll be honest, to me that's still a dream. I'm certainly not ready to handle that completely on my own. Even with Beth as a partner and Carissa helping, it's a big problem with some very heavy responsibilities. You can count on the fact that we're still going to be running to you for help and advice."

"That's expected," he laughed. "You should have seen me when I started on this farm. I was in almost the same boat as you are now, only I was older than you are by several years. There are going to be changes in your life, a lot of them. For instance, I think if you really plan on making the ranch a permanent thing, you might want to think about changing the subject of your studies when you go back to school in the fall."

"Actually Dad, I was thinking about that. I enjoy learning about electronics, but as a rancher it wouldn't be of much use to me. I think I'd like to take some time to think about where and what I want to study though. However, I think it's too late to enroll anywhere else for September, after all it is July already. Maybe I should take a year and work around the ranch?"

"Well, we thought about that and decided we'd rather you carried on with some kind of schooling this fall. So, your mother and I put out some feelers for you. One possibility is a four-month long animal husbandry course that's available at the Agriculture College at Olds and begins in midwinter. Wil is going back to Olds for the full year, so you could probably room with him for a few months."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Well, we'll have to see about that. Right now I think a lot depends on what happens in the next while."

"Oh, you're thinking about tomorrow again and the way Wil is acting, aren't you?"

"I can't help it, Dad. I think there's something weird going on between Wil and Corinna, something that he isn't talking about, but I don't know what it is."

"Oh, didn't anyone explain that to you? Corinna phoned here and talked to Wil the other night. She got so abusive on the phone that he hung up on her. The next morning we heard about her jumping from the church steeple. So, I think Wil feels that he might have been to blame for her feeling suicidal," Dad simply stared at me. "I thought sure your mother or Wil would have told you about that call."

I just shook my head. "No one said a word to me about that."

"Oh, I am sorry. Someone should have said something."

I just nodded, but at the same time I was thinking about the way Corinna had acted before and how Wil was acting now. Suddenly I made sense of things that I hadn't understood previously and I felt a lot more sympathetic toward Wil's feelings and actions.

I suppose it seemed to Dad that I drifted off and wasn't paying any attention to him and in a way he was right. He cleared his throat after a moment and broke into my deep thoughts about Corinna and Wil.

"Going back to a previous subject, there is one thing about my talk with Toby that I don't think came out exactly clearly when I spoke to you and Beth," Dad said slowly.

"Oh, what's that?" I suppose I frowned.

"Well, don't get worried. It's nothing bad," he smiled as he held his hand up as if to wave off any further comment from me. "You see, effectively Toby is passing control of the lease into our hands, meaning that Tom and his family as well as the five of us will each have a say in administering and maintaining that end of the business."

"You mean he's giving the lease away?"

"Oh no," Dad chuckled. "Toby is a little smarter than that, so he's not making a gift of it. That would let the government slap a huge gift tax against the whole deal. He's been planning this for a long time and I think he saw a lot of things coming that have happened in the last ten years. At that last meeting, over eight years ago, when everyone involved in the former lease setup signed, he had Tom and Alice as well as your mother and I sign an extra form. In effect, that gave all of us the burden of maintenance and repair of the fencing and other details to do with the lease."

"Yeah, I knew that," I frowned, wondering what he was talking about.

"Well, we never thought about payment other than the use we got out of the lease for running a few head of stock on that area or the hay we harvested for our own use. It seemed to us that we were getting a good deal even at that," Dad grinned. "Toby and his lawyer used that agreement somewhat differently. What they did was to give us all a back payment of wages and interest as shares in a limited company. So in effect they made it look on paper as if we've been earning shares in the company that holds the lower lease. What he's done now effectively gives us a lump sum payment of the debt that he supposedly owes all of us for work we've done previously."

"Well, we owe income tax on that then, don't we?" I frowned.

"Yeah, we do, but right now, on paper, the limited company isn't worth much. When you work it out, it's a lot less than the gift tax or inheritance tax for the same sort of control would be," Dad chuckled. "Besides which, if you think about number of years when we've thought we were in the hole because the farm got hit by hail or drought, we hardly owe anything at all."

"So what you're saying is that Grampa Bender has given the nine of us a share of the lease?"

"Yes, actually he has. Between the two families, we now have about two thirds of the shares of the limited company that handles the lease, but it still leaves our individual farms completely separate. The section that the cabin is built on is the actual key to the lease and it's still Toby's. So, he still retains ownership of a third of the company and the upper valley is still kept separate from the family lease. Effectively he's split the control of the lower lease and tied it to the three properties that the group owns as three individual families, but that upper lease is separate, at least for now."

"What do you mean, 'for now'?"

"Well, his will makes a gift of that upper ranch and the shares of the company that it controls to Beth and you."

"But what about Wil and Tom and Jasmine, as well as everyone else? Isn't that unfair to them?"

"Now think about that for a minute," Dad laughed. "Those of us living down here control over sixty percent of the lease. What he's done is to literally tie the amount of control to the actual area that the sections of the lease covers. Between all of us we still control a huge area and even you have to admit that the upper ranch is a lot less usable than the lower one. In that way it's almost unfair to you and Beth. Eventually, when my generation retires or dies, you five might want to renegotiate things, but until then it looks to me as if the deal is darn solid and very fair."

Dad and I talked for a while longer, but half of my mind was mulling over all the new facts about the ranch as well as trying to deal with the facts about Wil and Corinna. I think Dad realized that my attention was divided, because not long after he'd mentioned the will and its conditions, he encouraged me to go home and do my chores.

When we got back to the house, Beth had several bags and boxes packed up to take up to the cabin. In fact she even had a small dresser that she wanted to take along. We did manage to get everything into the car, but only by taking out the lower cushion of the back seat. Of course Dad and I both teased Beth about it as we fought that darn dresser into the back seat of the car, then packed all the bags and boxes around it. For once our teasing didn't bother her at all.

Of course on top of everything else she wanted to take along her saddle, bridles and halters for her new horses. Dad and I just shook our heads in the end and let her have her way. The car was loaded, in fact we ended up with a box on the front seat between us.

As we drove out of the yard Beth was chattering like a chipmunk, but I'd dropped back to thinking about all the changes that were going on around me and how they might affect us. After we'd gone only a mile or so, Beth stopped talking for a few minutes, then reached across and poked me in the arm.

"Hey, Partner, what's going on that's making you so serious and thoughtful? Corinna's problems, or what?"

"Oh, partly that," I sighed. "Corinna and Wil to start with. Then there's the new deal about the lease and of course there's Grampa Bender's will."

"Can I offer an opinion?"

"Well, of course," I glanced at her in surprise. "I was hoping you would. You might see something that I've missed."

"Well, to start with you aren't responsible for anything to do with Wil or Corinna, so you can't do anything other than to offer your support. There's not one darn thing you can do other than that. That's all any of us can do," she said vehemently. "So quit worrying about that right off the bat, okay?"

"Yes, Boss," I had to say just to tease her a bit. "I'll do my best try to put that worry to rest."

"Good!" she said firmly, then in the edge of my peripheral vision I noticed her turn to look at me. "I don't really understand much about Grampa Bender's will and about the deal with us up at the ranch, so I can't say much about that yet."

"Well, basically he set up a limited company for the lease and gave two thirds of the shares to all of us who stayed on the farm for the work we've done on it in the past. Then in the long run, his will leaves the upper ranch to you and me. Well, the control of that section anyway, that's because we're in line to inherit the section of land that actually governs the lease," I said slowly. "At least that's the simple explanation."

"Holy crap," she sounded surprised.

"Yeah, that's what we get for being 'throwbacks' who love horses," I grinned at her.

"Ugh, me cave girl and like it," she giggled.

"Oh come now," I laughed. "Isn't that going a bit far?"

"Who cares?" she was still giggling.

"Of course right now, you and I are just working for Grampa Bender. He still owns the land the cabin sits on and we're only helping him out while he's in the hospital."

"Yeah, but what improvements we make on the place will be there for our eventual benefit. That means a lot to me."

"Me too, I guess," Then I sighed. "Another problem that's bugging me is trying to decide exactly what I want to do in my own life. If I'm going to be a rancher, there isn't much sense in my being trained as an electronic technician, is there? Dad was mentioning a course or two at the Ag. School that deals with animal husbandry. I was thinking of taking that instead."

"Yeah, well I've been thinking about you doing that too, but what happens if Grampa Bender lives another twenty years?" she snorted. "Wouldn't it make more sense to have something else to fall back on besides the possibility of being a rancher one day? If Grampa Bender is still alive when I graduate from high school, I'm certainly going to get some training. Besides, you've already got a scholarship for that electronics course and you've bought your books for this year and everything. On top of that, don't you want to be in Calgary this winter? Carissa is going to be studying there too and you two might even be able to live together."

"Oh, I'm sure our folks would just love Carissa and I living together in Calgary," I snorted.

"What's different about living together there compared to what you've been doing here?" she laughed. "The two of you have just blown me away. I would have thought Mom and Dad would have said something about it, but they haven't said anything that I know of. I guess Corinna and Wil had them so wound up they didn't realize what you two were up to until it was too late to say anything much."

"Well to be honest, Carissa was the one who made the decision to move in with me."

"Oh sure. I'll bet you put up a huge argument about her hopping into your bed," Beth laughed.

"Well, not exactly," I admitted with a chuckle. "Still, she didn't really give me much chance to argue."

"No, I'll bet she didn't. She's got you wrapped around her pinky finger so tight you're starting to look like a mood ring," she giggled, then she paused for a second and seemed to shift gears "When you're in Edmonton, why don't you ask her and her folks what they think about your education this fall?"

"I sort of planned on that," I grinned at her.

"Do it right and her folks just might be the ones to suggest you guys live together in Calgary," she giggled again. "They might think of it as way to make the two of you come to your senses."

"What?"

"Hey, let's face it, the two of you are both taking crash courses, Carissa for nursing and you for electronics. That's going to load both of you with lots of outside pressures. If you can live together through that it'll be a good test for life after school."

"Hmm, you're right you know," I glanced at her and grinned. "The thing you seem to forget is that we've already spent years of school together. I think we already know what to expect the other one to be like under pressure."

I might have said more, but just then we crested a knoll in the road and I could see Mark's bright yellow Jeep pulled off the road ahead of us.

"Who's that?" Beth asked.

"I imagine that's Mark, the surveyor for Hydro."

I explained the fact that he'd been out earlier in the week, then I saw him near the road, so I pulled to a stop and leaned out my window to talk to him.

"Hiya, Mark. I sure didn't expect you back here this soon."

"Hi, Chris," he grinned at me. "Your Dad cleared the idea with my bosses earlier today and you'd mentioned that you'd like the phone in soon. Since the phone company tries to stick their lines in close to ours, I'm doing our layout and they'll be up here tomorrow, marking their line for their poles, probably on the other side of the road we'll be building. In fact I think we'll have a crew roughing in the road in a couple of days and both our crew and the phone crew will be setting poles by next week. Heck, I and my rodman are even working overtime in order to speed things along."

"Holy crow," I just stared at him. "What brought on the huge rush?"

"Well, we've had a huge holdup at that darn coulee, just trying to figure out how to get across the blinkin' thing. Your neighbour, Mr. Dumfries, is getting impatient with us about getting his power in. So, my boss has it worked out that we can darn near meet the original time estimate if we slap the poles in on this lease instead of up and down that damn coulee. I think we can do it too, but only if we use two full rigs and work from both ends."

"Well unfortunately, I'm heading for Edmonton tomorrow and I'm not sure how long I'll be gone. Since I won't be around for a few days, if you need anything special, you'll have to clear it with Dad," I told him. "This is my sister Beth, she will be at the cabin if you need anything up at this end."

After Mark said 'Hi' to her, his rodman called him, so Beth and I let him go and drove the rest of the way home.

The first thing we did after we got to the cabin was to look after the farm animals, then we fed the dogs. Of course Beth fell in love with the puppy, even if she couldn't get close to him. Following that, we unloaded the car and set up the back porch as her bedroom. Finally, I packed a small bag to take with me, while she made up her bed. Then we had a cup of tea out on the front porch. As we sat there talking and drinking our tea, we decided that we were both tuckered out, so we headed off to bed.

That night my mind seemed to oscillate between the subject of Wil's mood and worries about Corinna's operation. Of course, I also took a few side tracks into worries about my education and the responsibility of operating the ranch. I know I still didn't get much sleep, but at least I think I got more rest than I had managed to get the night before.

The next morning Beth woke bright and early, but she had to shake me to get me going. After that it seemed that everything we did took two or three times as long as I had expected it to take. It wasn't showing Beth around that held me up, it was a series of unusual circumstances that cropped up as we were doing regular chores that slowed us down.

For instance, the sow chose that morning to farrow, so we had to get her some fresh bedding and stand by until she was done, just in case anything went wrong. Then we found a broody hen in the chicken coop and we both thought that a few more chickens would be a good idea. That meant we had to set up a special nest for her with a dozen eggs. Of course the stallion and the mare took it into their heads to make whoopee that morning. By the time we'd cared for everything, then I'd cleaned up, it was lunch time. That meant it was after one by the time I got down to the farm to pick up Wil.

Wil chewed me out for being late, then he plopped into the passenger's seat and stared off into space. Actually, he sat there like a log, totally silent during the three and a half hour trip. Of course since he was being such a lame duck, I drove straight through, not even stopping for a coffee, gas or anything else. To top matters off, we hit the start of rush hour traffic as soon as we got to the outskirts of Edmonton. Thankfully, Mom had found out exactly how to get to the motel that John Coulter had booked for us and I'd written down the route so I was certain what streets to use to drive to the place.

They must have been watching for us to arrive. I'd barely pulled into the parking lot and was heading back to open the trunk to get out our bags when John Coulter and Carissa suddenly appeared to greet us. The greeting I got from Carissa almost embarrassed me because she wound herself around me so tightly. She didn't care who saw her, not even her father. When I was able to come up for air, John was standing next to Wil, talking to him quietly. I let out a deep sigh at that sight.

"What was the sigh for?" Carissa whispered as she stared into my eyes.

"Well first, I'm holding you again and second, Wil is talking. I don't think he's said a dozen words since we left home," I whispered back.

Only a few seconds later John turned to me and smiled as he held out his hand. "Hello Chris. I was just telling Wil that I'm glad you both came when you did. The surgeon just called a few moments ago and told us that we could go down and see Corinna for a few minutes this evening. We were hoping you'd get here before we left to see her. Since they're planning on starting the second operation in the morning, they wanted us to be able to see her this evening."

"Daddy, do you think we could all go?" Carissa asked. "I'm sure Wil would like to see her and I think Chris would too."

"I think that was the general idea, wasn't it?" John smiled.

"It's not so important for me as it is for Wil," I sighed deeply. "I'll be honest. I'm so tired that I might just fall asleep on you. First of all I didn't sleep very well last night, or the night before. Then there was a series of problems at the ranch this morning, followed by the drive up here and then the rush hour traffic once we hit town, so I feel totally wiped out. I'd really like to have a snack and a rest. I don't want to screw things up for anyone else by being a wet blanket, so maybe I should just check in and stay here."

"I'd sure like to see her if I could," Will said firmly. "I know she's not going to be awake or aware, but..."

"I know, Wil, I know," John clasped Wil's shoulder tightly.

"We've already handled the check in for you," Carissa said as she handed us each a set of keys. "This is your key, Chris, and this one is yours, Wil. You're each in different rooms now, but there's no extra charge for being separate."

I stared at her askance and frowned slightly, then suddenly she was hugging me again.

"Okay, okay. I admit it. I got them to change the rooms," Carissa whispered as she rested her head on my shoulder. "I slept rotten last night and I need a cuddle tonight. Tomorrow might be rough and I need to relax tonight."

What was I going to say to that? In fact, I didn't get a chance to say anything. Instead Carissa demanded the car keys, then spun away to grab my bag out of the back of the car.

"Daddy, we'll come down to the hospital once Chris has eaten something and rested a bit," she snapped as she grabbed my hand. "I'll stay here with him, so I can show him where we have to go."

I never got a chance to see Mrs. Coulter right then. Instead Carissa took me straight to the room and ordered me into the shower, asking me what I wanted to eat as she did. By the time I'd showered and changed, she'd ordered soup and a sandwich and was sitting on the bed, waiting for me.

"I need another hug, Chris," she whispered as I came out of the bathroom, still drying my hair. "These have to be the worst two days I've ever had in my whole life."

"I'm sorry about that," I said as I sat down on the edge of the bed beside her and wrapped her in my arms.

That's when she broke into tears. She was still crying when there was a knock on the door and room service arrived. I wanted to carry on holding her, but she shoved me away to go get my meal. She insisted that I eat then, even if she was still upset and crying. Of course she also unloaded, talking through her tears and her sniffles as I tried to eat. All I could do was listen.

She started describing the flight from the time she'd climbed into the plane and went on from there. As she talked, I realized that neither she nor her mom could have slept at all on the first night they were there. First they had sat through the operation, then they had sat and waited for the chance to see Corinna.

Even after John had arrived, he'd had to talk them into going to the motel with him before they'd consider leaving. In fact they wouldn't leave until after the doctor in charge of Corinna's case had ordered them all to get some rest. He'd given John some pills to help everyone sleep. But, Carissa had palmed hers, worried that she wouldn't wake up if she went to sleep and fearful that she wouldn't get back to the hospital in time if something happened to go wrong. By the time she'd finished telling me about the last couple of days, I'd wolfed down my snack and was again cuddling her.

To get her to relax a bit, I started to tell her about the things that had happened around the ranch since she had left. I hadn't talked for more than two or three minutes before I realized that she'd fallen asleep in my arms. Somehow I managed to ease her back onto the bed and lay down at her side, still cuddling her.

I admit it. I fell asleep holding her and I slept soundly for at least an hour or so. In fact what woke me up was knocking sound and then the door being opened so John could stick his head inside.

"Oops, sorry to wake you, Chris," he smiled when he saw me looking at him. "We thought we should check just to be sure you hadn't tried to walk to the hospital and had gotten lost. Unfortunately it's so late now that I doubt if they will let you two in tonight. Personally I'm happy that you two fell asleep. I think you both needed it."

"Was there any change or ..." I simply let my voice trail off, not knowing what I was really meaning to say.

"Not a lot, not that we could tell anyway," he sighed as he stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. "Perhaps her colour was a bit better, after all she did lose a lot of blood. To be honest, they had the room quite dark and we couldn't see much."

"Oh, that's too bad."

"Actually, I'm not upset about that at all," he shrugged his shoulders. "With all those bandages on her head, she looks terrible to me. But, they tell me she's going to be okay and that she's responding well. I just feel so damn helpless right now."

"If there's anything I can do, just ask," I looked him in the eyes, trying my best to sound and look as sincere as possible.

"I think you already are. I was really worried about Carissa before you came, but you've already helped her, just by being here," he managed a weak smile. "However, the hospital may be calling us early in the morning, so we should all try to get some sleep. Do you need a hand to get Carissa undressed and under the covers? I could get Wilma to come help you, if you'd like."

I stared at him and then grinned sheepishly. "You've got to be kidding me, right?"

"About what?" he asked, seemingly quite puzzled.

"Well, you're not going to raise a fuss about us sleeping together. Actually, it sounds as if you even think it's okay for me to undress her and put her to bed?"

He frowned for a second, then shook his head and smiled at me rather sadly.

"Chris, as long as Carissa wants to be with you, neither Wilma nor I are about to stand in the way. I've had eighteen years to learn that I don't have much say about things that concern the girls. If Wilma doesn't object, there's nothing that I can manage to do that will change the girls minds about anything they might want to do. Besides which, since Carissa is over eighteen if she wants to sleep with you tonight or any other night, she's made it quite plain that it's her business, not ours. Wilma and I have already talked that one out, quite thoroughly, with both girls."

"That seems a little harsh on their part, doesn't it?" I asked.

"Oh, it's not that bad. They both agreed to listen to our advice, even if they didn't like it or didn't plan to follow it," then he smiled a real smile. "Besides, we're lucky. Wilma and I like both you and your whole family. As far as Carissa is concerned, I think having you at that party was the best darn thing that ever happened to her. The two of them might have been screwed up then, but Carissa has really straightened out. And, even though she's going into a terribly risky operation tomorrow, I think Corinna is actually better off for knowing you and Wil as well. Now before I make a damn fool of myself, did you want me to have Wilma come down to help you with Carissa, or can you manage in your own?"

"I think I can manage, John," I smiled at him. "And, thanks for the vote of confidence."

He just waved a hand and stepped out the door. I heard the lock snap into place as he closed it behind him. I simply sat and stared after him for a moment, not really believing what he'd just said. Then I decided it was time to try to get Carissa under the covers.

When I turned toward her, I found that she was still out like a light. I managed to undress her down to her panties and get her under the covers, even though I had to roll her back and forth to do it. Then I slipped under the covers with her. It wasn't long before I fell asleep at her side.

I don't think Carissa moved all night, at least she was in exactly the same position the next morning when I was awakened by the telephone ringing, but that didn't last long. Even if I hadn't been awakened by the loud ring of the phone, I'm sure I would have awakened when Carissa leapt out of bed to grab it. I glanced at my watch and couldn't believe my eyes, who would be calling us at five in the morning? Almost instantly I found myself hoping that there wasn't any drastic change in Corinna's condition and I was suddenly all ears, trying to overhear Carissa's side of the conversation. I didn't get to hear much though, the conversation was exceptionally short.

"Hello ... Oh, hi Mom ... Yes, Mom. Thanks for letting us know, we'll be there," she said in only a few seconds, then she hung up the receiver.

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"The doctor's are going to start the operation in about three hours," she answered, then she realised she was chilly because all she was wearing was a pair of thin panties. "Who undressed me and helped me into bed?"

"I did," I admitted. "But, back to Corinna, if they're operating in three hours, what are we going to do until then?"

"Well, they're probably prepping Corinna now, so we probably won't be able to get in to see her immediately, but there is a chance that we might be able to see her before the operation. We thought we'd go down to the hospital just in case."

"Is she conscious?"

"Oh no, I doubt it, but I'd still like to be there," she walked over to a set of drawers and opened it to pull out a bra and panties.

I stared at her. "Is this your room or mine?"

"It's our room. Why?" she smiled.

"Well, I just realized that your Dad had a key to the door last night and your clothes are here. I just thought ..." I paused, not sure what I thought.

"Oh, I made sure Mom and Dad had a key, just in case, and I have one for their room. None of us has been sleeping well, but if we did fall asleep and anything happened, we wanted to be able to get hold of each other. Does that bother you?"

"No, not really," I shook my head slowly. "It's just not what I expected, that's all."

"Can we talk about this later? I want to grab a quick shower before I get dressed. We may be at the hospital for quite a while."

"Sure, go ahead. Do I have time for a shower and a shave as well?"

"We'll take the time," she nodded. "And I think we'll grab a coffee on the way. I want to have my shower first though, because I'll need to dry my hair, okay?"

"Yeah. Go ahead," I sighed. "Can I use the can once you're in the shower, as long as I don't flush?"

"Yes, you dummy," she snorted, already heading for the bathroom. "You could probably shave then too. It might save time, although I really don't think you need to shave, do you?"

I didn't bother to argue. Instead we both rushed to get cleaned up and ready to go. It seemed that we were to meet Carissa's parents down at their car because they planned on taking only the one car. I didn't have a campus pass for my car, so I couldn't have parked near the hospital. Carissa insisted that we had to stop on the way and grab takeout coffee at a convenience store, but other than that we drove straight to the hospital.

Once we were there, we expected to be forced to wait for word of any happenings, but they had held off on preparing Corinna for the operation, expecting that we'd all like to see her first. So we went in to see her, two at a time. Mr. and Mrs. Coulter went in first, then Carissa and I, and finally Wil went in. Since two people were allowed at a time, Mrs. Coulter went in with him.

When Wil came out, he looked positively grey. I don't think he had realized how much she had been hurt in her fall or how much she would be bandaged. Actually even though I had seen her as she was put on the plane back home, I felt a bit unsettled. Now, her whole head was bandaged, in fact you could only see one eye. Not only that, but she had tubes and wires attached to her in what seemed to be dozens of places. I found it quite upsetting and since Wil hadn't seen her after the fall, I can imagine how he felt. I don't think Carissa was in much better shape than either of us.

Because there were still two hours to wait before the operation was to start, a nurse suggested that we should all go for a walk and get some fresh air. She assured us that Corinna seemed to be in quite good shape considering her injuries and that absolutely nothing was about to go wrong in the next while. Carissa, Wil and I decided we wanted to take a break, but Mr. and Mrs. Coulter refused to leave.

I think I've mentioned that I hate hospitals. That morning, even after we were outside in the bright sunshine, with students and staff streaming past us in the rush of getting on with their lives, I still felt that strange 'heavy' feeling that hospitals always give me. It seems almost as if I can feel some vestige of the pain and anguish left behind by former patients and there are times when it wears on me quite heavily.

That morning, the feeling settled around me like a shroud.

### Chapter 24