Chapter 35

Kevin made his way back to the surgical waiting room where Joan had now joined his dad in the waiting game. She saw him approaching and ran toward him. He stopped and allowed her to hug him. While she was doing so, he whispered in her ear, "I know your secret."

Joan pulled back and gave Kevin a skeptical sideways glance. "What are you talking about?"

"I just had a conversation with a friend of yours. We'll discuss it later. I need to check on Beth."

Joan shook her head in disbelief. Certainly he couldn't be referring to what she though he was. Could he? She watched Kevin take a place beside her dad who confirmed that they hadn't yet heard from the doctor regarding Beth's condition. However, as they were engaged in this exchange, the door of the waiting room opened and a tall surgeon still dressed in scrubs approached the Girardi men. Joan silently took a seat beside her dad.

"Kevin?" he asked, and Kevin replied with a nod. "I'm Dr. Guyton, Beth's surgeon. Beth's out of surgery now and the nurses are just moving her to recovery. We checked everything over really well. She did have some bleeding from a small laceration of her liver, but we were able to repair that. Everything else looks intact. We're going to probably need to watch her for a few days to make sure no other vessels or organs are bleeding. She has some broken ribs, which will be painful, but all in all, Beth is a very luck lady. She should make a full recovery."

"Thank you so much," Kevin expressed his gratitude to the doctor. "Can I see her?"

"Sure. She's not awake yet, but I think she would like for you to be there when she does wake up. She knew how worried you would be about her."

"I just talked to her on the phone. I told her that the roads would be icy and that she and the baby should go home."

"How's your son?" Dr. Guyton asked.

"He's going to be fine. Thank God."

"Yeah. I guess this is your family's Christmas Miracle."

Kevin looked into the doctor's eyes. "I guess it is."

Dr. Guyton showed Kevin to the recovery room and shook his hand in parting. Kevin thanked him again for all he had done. The doctor modestly waved off Kevin's praise and told him to have a good holiday with his family. Kevin said goodbye and followed the nurse to a place beside Beth's bed where he could wait for her to wake.

Even from his angle, he could tell that she had been banged up quite a bit in the accident. There was a repaired gash on her forehead and bruised added a purple tinge to the already pale skin of her face and arms. He sat by the bed and carefully placed his hand through the railing to find hers. He was careful not to move or disturb her as he placed his hand under hers. He slowly caressed her fingers as he waited and prayed.

Kevin began to doze off until her felt Beth's hand move on top of his. He quickly turned toward her just in time to see her open her eyes. She blinked a couple of times before she looked over at Kevin and smiled. "Oh, man. I feel like I've been hit by a truck."

"That's not funny, Beth. I was scared to death."

"I'm sorry. You're right. Where's Liam?"

"They're going to keep him overnight. Mom and Luke are with him now."

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine. You're going to be fine."

"Thankfully."

"Yeah. It's pretty much a miracle," he whispered. "What happened?"

"We were on our way home, but I forgot that I needed to pick up some dry cleaning at the cleaners on the way to Arcadia. I don't know why I decided to go that way. That stuff has been there since we were staying at your parents' house. It's not like being there another day would hurt it, but I wanted to go get it while we were out. I should have listened to you."

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't. We could have died. I looked up and this truck was coming toward us. I just closed my eyes. It hit us and we spun back into the lane we had been traveling in. Liam started crying, and I tried to get back to him. As I turned I saw that the car behind us was going to hit us, too. I think that's when I got hurt, when I was trying to get in the backseat. That car knocked us out of the road and into the side ditch. I couldn't get to Liam, so I just asked him to please stop crying. I told him that we would be all right. I told him that you would come and find us and take care of us. And he stopped. He was just babbling happily when the rescue squad came. They all were so surprised that he wasn't crying. After they got me out, then I realized how much I was hurting. I guess I was too worried about him to notice anything else. They took him away from me in the emergency room, but there was a nurse who kept going back and forth. She told me when Luke got there to stay with him."

Kevin interrupted her here. "Luke was the first person here?"

"Yeah. He came in for just a second and asked me what I wanted him to do. I asked him to please stay with Liam. That's what he did until your mom and dad got here."

"He was waiting for me in the lobby."

"I was so glad he was here. Someone needed to be with Liam so that he wasn't scared. You have to stay with him tonight. He won't know where he is."

"I know, but I don't want to leave you. Maybe they can let you both be in the same room. I'll see what we can do about that later."

Around this time, a nurse came to check on Beth. She declared that she could be moved to her room. Kevin took this opportunity to ask if she could be put in the same room as her son. The nurse wasn't sure but said that she would check for them. After about 15 minutes, she returned and said that she had secured permission for Beth to be moved into Liam's room. Kevin thanked her as they began the transfer.

Kevin told Beth that he needed to find his dad and Joan and that he would meet her in the room in just a moment. She told him that she would see him soon. Kevin returned to the waiting room where, amazingly enough, his dad and Joan were still waiting. They explained that they hadn't want to leave that area so that Kevin could find them later. Kevin told them that Beth was being moved to Liam's room and the threesome started off in that direction.

Helen and Luke, who were waiting in the hall, stated that they were giving the staff some room to get Beth settled. It was at this point that Kevin was able to pull Joan aside. She was pretty sure what was coming.

Kevin didn't mince any words. "I talked to God this afternoon."

"I thought that's what you meant. Which one?"

"What do you mean which one? Capital G God. Monotheism. You're supposed to know about this stuff."

"Right, but what was He dressed as?"

"An old lady, but she was in a nurse's uniform. Why? Does She or He or It dress differently?"

"Well, yeah, I mean sometimes He's a man and sometimes a woman. And even little kids sometimes."

"Well, who was the first one you saw?"

"A cute guy in corduroy jacket about my age when I was a sophomore in high school."

"You've kept this to yourself for all that time?"

"I told Adam once, but he didn't believe me at first because I was sick. Then later he said he did believe me, but I didn't talk to him about it again. What did He say to you?"

"Um, just that He was real and I told him I was mad at Him about my accident. So, He just told me things about that."

"He answered your questions?"

"Yeah, and He told me that Liam and Beth would be okay."

"He never answers my questions. I always have to figure out stuff on my own."

"Oh, He didn't say anything about it, just that you helped a lot."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"About what?"

"Your new knowledge. I know you didn't believe in God."

"Well, what am I supposed to do? He said I didn't have to tell anyone about it but that you would understand."

"Oh, yeah, I guess so. Are you going to tell Beth?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe later. He said that she would understand, too."

"She probably would. I've almost told her a couple of times."

"So all of those weird things that you did and stuff, that was all…"

"Assignments, sort of. I mean, He always said that I didn't have to do anything, but really, who is going to ignore what God says to them? Well, not me. I guess He knew that when He picked me."

"Does He still talk to you?"

"Not as often as he used to, actually, recently it's been about you."

"Yeah, He mentioned that. That's kind of weird. God is worried about me? Talk about an ego trip!"

"I guess it is."

"He said that He didn't want me to be mad at Him."

"Well, are you?"

"I guess I was. I didn't really think that what happened was His fault, but I didn't understand why He let this all happen. He sort of explained that to me."

"Unbelievable. I wish He would explain some stuff to me."

"If I'd have known, I would have asked for you," Kevin smiled at his sister. "It's kind of hard to not believe when He's right there in front of you."

"Yeah, when He tells you things that no one could possibly know."

"Exactly!"

Helen poked her head into the hall, "Are you two coming in here?" she asked. Joan and Kevin hadn't noticed that the rest of the family was already inside the room. They both turned to go inside.

"Kev, if you need guidance in sorting this out, I can try to help. I'm not saying that I know more about this than you, but I have had quite a bit of experience with it."

"Yeah, thanks. I'll let you know."

"It's not a bad thing, you know. It's really kinda cool."

Kevin followed her into the room as he tried to digest what she had just told him. He wasn't so sure how 'cool' this was, but he was just thankful that he was on his way to talk to his wife. Beth was lying in her bed looking very tired, but someone had already handed Liam to her. Helen checked with Kevin to make sure that they were all set before she shooed the rest of the family out of the room, but Luke hung back.

"Uh, Kev, are you sure you're okay tonight? I mean, do you need me to stay?"

"No, Luke. You've done so much already. Thanks for being here with them."

"Hey, no problem, man. I know that you would have done the same for me."

"Thanks again."

"Kevin, I need to talk to you about something, but now's probably not a good time. We can do it later, but soon."

Kevin grabbed Luke's arm. "Wait. That doesn't sound good at all. I don't think I can take any more surprises today. Let me get the baby from Beth and you and I can talk. She's about to fall asleep anyway."

"Okay, yeah. Here, I'll take Liam." Luke placed the baby back in his bed as Kevin told Beth that he and Luke were going to go down to the cafeteria to find some coffee. Beth assured him that she and the baby would be fine until he got back. He kissed her hand and brushed her hair out of her face before he left. Then, Luke led him down the hall to a sitting area that had been vacated due to the late hour. Luke chose a chair and Kevin stopped to face him.

"What's going on Luke?"

"I found out something today, which is actually how I ended up here. I was hoping to catch you at home this evening and when Dad called, I was driving through Arcadia. He and Mom were both still at work, so I told them to get here as soon as they could, but that I was already here. But that's not why I was coming to see you."

"Okay."

"We received FDA approval today for our long-term injury treatment study. Our study patients who were injured longer than ten years ago are now eligible for trials of a variation of the procedure that we've been doing on newly injured patients for the past two years. Your name is the first one on our list. We can do the surgery whenever you want, and I can't give you a time frame because you'd be the first long-term injury we've tried it on, but your compensatory glial cells will become functioning motor and sensory neurons. You will walk."

Kevin was speechless for several minutes before he looked at Luke and spoke. "How can you be sure? That's not what you've been doing up until now. I'm way past the time point that the treatment you've been using will work."

Luke shook his head. "This is something else. It's not your run of the mill stem cell transplant. It involves reprogramming the cells within your body, as well. The new cells tell the damaged ones that repaired themselves incorrectly how to function again. It's a brand new technology, and I discovered it. It was pretty controversial work, even in my own lab, because no one thought what I was proposing would be possible, changing cell types after differentiation, but it was all a matter of finding the specific genes that made the mRNA that coded for the specific proteins I needed to produce. That's really what I'd been trying to do. Turns out, it's all receptor mediated. It was like penicillin killing the bread mold. I was mapping receptors for something completely different and the modifications of the receptor proteins on the two types of neuron tissue were right there in front of me. We had already done the protein mapping for the receptor complexes, so finding the one little guy that screwed up everything was amazingly simple. It was simple enzyme kinetics to change the modifications being made in the mRNA to give a faulty protein plus three erroneous post-translational modifications. All those biochemists and molecular biologists were bowing before me! And I'm just your average neurobiophysicist."

Kevin laughed at this. "Luke, I don't think anyone ever considered you an average anything, and that sounds way more complicated than penicillin killing bread mold."

"Thanks, Kev. I appreciate that. But I'm dead serious. I don't know how long it will take, but the procedure is minimally invasive, a lot like an epidural or a spinal tap and it's done below your injury level, so you won't even feel it. Then we monitor you and you stick to your approved physical therapy schedule set forth by our rehab people and it will happen."

"Why me?"

"Are you kidding me? You're the whole reason I've been doing this. After we knew that your peripheral nerves were intact, I knew that all I had to do was find a way to reroute the CNS and you were good to go. You've kept your neuromuscular junctions active with the electric stim. therapy, and you've maintained flexibility and strength. You're the perfect candidate for this trial."

"Won't it look a little biased if I'm your brother?"

"Maybe, but it's not like I injured you to prove that my research works. By the time we write it up, we'll have lots of results. We're planning to do the first round on thirty patients."

"Do some of them get placebo?"

"No. It's an all or nothing thing. We know what happens if they get nothing. We don't have to test that. Don't worry; I'm not giving you an unfair advantage. I'm just trying to give you a chance to be you again."

"But we really didn't get along back then. You want me to be an asshole again?"

"Believe me Kev, you can still be an asshole if you want to. Besides, I'm banking on the fact that you've matured."

"Right. I'll try to remember that."

"Kevin, this is the 'sci-fi crap that they come up with' that we talked about when I was still in high school. I want to give you this. I developed the treatment plan. This is what I've done for the past seven years of my life. It will work. I know that it will."

"What have your animal trials shown?"

"Kevin! You know that we wouldn't have gotten approval to test on humans if we hadn't had very favorable trials on the chimps. They're all walking around and jumping and swinging on things. You can come by and look at them if you want."

"I can't do it before the first of the year. I have to make sure that Beth is okay."

"Sure. That works best for us, too. Tell you what, why don't you stop by the lab sometime in the next few weeks so we can start the process of working you up. We have to do some diagnostics just to establish your baselines and make sure everything is all set."

"Yeah, sure. Just tell me which day is best."

"Okay, I'll let you know."

"Luke, you're trembling."

"I'm so excited Kevin. Dad and I were planning a fly fishing trip next summer. I don't know if you'll be ready that soon, but maybe by the next summer, you'll be able to go, too."

"That doesn't sound very scientific."

"No, it sounds like a guy who wants his big brother to be able to go fly fishing with him and his dad, not to mention teach his kids how to play sports."

"I'm sure that Hadassah will be very athletic, she does have some of my genes, you know, and Grace is sporty."

"I'm sure she will, but I was talking about her little brother."

"Her what?"

"Grace is expecting again."

"Congratulations! Luke, that's great. When is she due?"

"Not until the end of June. I know we should have told you all sooner, but Grace is only twelve weeks along, but the baby was in a perfect position and the technician said that the prediction at that gestational age is only 75 percent accurate, but she said it looks to her like a boy."

"You guys must be so excited."

"We were a little surprised, I mean, Hadassah is only 15 months old. It's going to be hard on Grace for a while, but hopefully by then my work will slow down a little."

Kevin looked questioningly at him.

"Okay, probably not."

"Hey, we'll all be here to help. My schedule is a lot more flexible than I ever imagined that it would be and Beth still isn't really sure what she's going to do about work. She'd like to do some part-time stuff from home, but even then, we'll definitely be able to pitch in when things get crazy, or better yet, before they do."

"Did you ever imagine that we'd be sitting here talking about our kids?"

"Honestly, no. Even if I ever could imagine myself as a father, which wasn't something that I ever really did, I never once thought about you being one, too."

"Gee, thanks, Kev."

"No, you're a great father. It just never crossed my mind that having a family would be a priority for you."

"I guess I can understand why you would think that, but it always was. I was always jealous of your relationship with Dad, you know, so I told myself that when I had kids I would do better."

"Luke."

"No, that's what I always thought, and then when that first baby comes you can't imagine loving anyone else more, until you find out about the second one."

"Dad always loved us all the same, Luke. I just happened to have more in common with him for a certain period of our lives."

"Yeah, my formative years!"

Kevin sobered. "Was it really that bad?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I felt left out a lot."

Kevin looked down. "What goes around…"

Luke snapped his head up to look directly into Kevin's face. "That's not what I mean. I didn't mean that."

"Even if you didn't, it's true though. You two are close now, and I can't always be a part of what you're doing."

"That's going to change, Kevin. I promise you that it will."

Kevin toyed with a button on his shirt before he answered Luke. "I'll go through with the procedure, Luke. I made myself available to your research a long time ago, and I won't go back on that commitment, but if it doesn't work, that's okay."

"It will work. I know it will."

"But if it doesn't, and I have to be prepared for that, I still have a very good life. I still have a beautiful wife and son and a career that I love. I want to get out of bed when I wake up in the morning. Do you know how long it took for me to actually feel that way about myself? Years and years. I can't put all my hopes into this and be disappointed again. I can't do that again. I want to believe your treatment will work Luke. You're the most intelligent and dedicated person that I've ever met in my entire life, but I cannot go into this thing thinking that it's a definite cure."

"That's fine with me, Kevin. But we'll be fly fishing before you know it."

"I hope you're right. Luke, thanks again for everything. I have to get back to Beth. I know she's probably asleep, but I just want to be near her, you know?"

"I do know. I'm going home to my wife, too. She called me earlier and said to let us know if you all need anything at all, okay?"

"Yeah, definitely. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Kev."