Chapter 2

It was Wednesday night Charlie was lying in bed next to me. I heard him groan and roll over on his stomach. I slowly opened my eyes. It was still dark. I heard Charlie groan again in the darkness.

"Char...I whispered. I was half asleep.

"Honey are you alright?"

Charlie was breathing heavily. I sat up and pulled my hair behind my ears.

"Char..."

"Har...Harmione...I can't...I can't get my breath."

"You wanna sit up, maybe that will help."

Charlie slowly sat up and leaned forward. I rubbed his back for him.

"Is that better?"

"Yeah...whoo...I thought I was gonna suffocate..."

"It's all that fluid around your lungs...you wanna take one of your fluid pills they gave you?"

"Yeah...I'll check on the kids while I'm up."

He kissed my forehead and left the bedroom. I sighed into my pillow.

I left Harmione and entered our bathroom. We had a medicine cabinet in there above the sink. It was actually our mirror. I had a bag of new pills to take. I took out one of my fluid pills and swallowed it. I held my back as I entered the kids room. Bryan, Annabelle, Mirabelle, and Isabelle all shared a room for now. They all slept in one large bed together. As I entered Annabelle was awake.

"Anna...what's wrong sweetie?"

"I had...a scary dream."

"Aww you did...?"

"There was a monster in my closet."

"Aww baby, come here."

I picked her up and carried her into the kitchen.

"You think if there was a monster in there, mommy and daddy wouldn't know about it?"

She smiled.

"If there were any monsters in this house, we got rid of them a long time ago."

I held her on my hip as I opened the fridge. I made her a sippy cup of chocolate milk.

"It didn't happen often, but when I had a nightmare your Grandma would give me chocolate milk to make me feel better. And a kiss."

I kissed her head. She smiled brightly.

"And then as I drank my milk she'd tell me everything there was to love about the world."

I sat in the living room with Annabelle on my knee. She began to sip from her cup.

"There's you...I don't think the world would go on without you Anna...it'll stop spinning...and let me think...there's the animals..."

"Kitty cats!"

"Yeah like kitty cats, or puppies, and there's all the great food you love so much...like pizza and ice cream...and gummy bears."

"And spaghetti."

"Yeah with the meatballs Mommy makes...and your toys, what would life be like without your dolls. And there are your favorite colors."

"There's you Daddy."

I paused and sighed heavily. I ran my fingers through her hair.

"Yeah...and you'll always have me baby girl...but no monsters."

She pecked my lips. I pecked her cheek.

"Ready for bed now?"

She nodded.

"Alright let's go."

I put her down in the floor. She held onto my fingers as I led her back to her room. She put her sippy cup on the nightstand and crawled over next to Bryan.

"Goodnight Daddy." She whispered.

"Goodnight Anna banana." I whispered back.

When I got back to my room Harmione was fast asleep. I tried not to wake her as I got back in bed. About an hour later, I was up again and trying to pee. I strained a little bit and began to pee blood.

"Oh...God..." I breathed. "Ha...Harmione..."

I didn't hear anything.

"Harmione, Harmione come here babe!"

I finally heard her coming down the hall.

"What is it?"

She merely stared at the contents of the toilet and sighed.

"I'm going to have to have them out Har."

She nodded and left to get her phone to call the doctor. I felt the urge to urinate again so I waited for her in the bathroom. The urge was so strong I pushed as hard as I could; to no such luck, I dribbled some, but that was all I could do.

After that horrible night, Thursday day morning Charlie was put on dialysis. He had lost 85 percent of his kidneys functioning. I was going to donate one of my kidney's to him, but we had to be sure I was the right fit. As we waited for those results I was with Charlie in the hospital room where the procedure for his dialysis was taking place. Bryan was at school, I had a substitute, and the girls were at preschool with Jennifer.

They numbed Charlie's arm. The process was going to take at least three hours. The nurse inserted two needles. Using an AV fistula to connect everything. One needle removes the blood and sends it to this machine, where it is filtered. The second needle allows the blood to be safely returned to Charlie's body. She briefly left us alone as the treatment began. She said she would check in on us every so often. Two hours into the treatment Charlie's arm was no longer numb.

"Charlie...do you need more pain medicine?"

"Huh, no...no Har...I'm okay..."

I nodded and supported his wishes. About 10 minutes later he shut his eyes and hid his face behind his hand. He was groaning and humming at the same time.

"Charlie..."

"Ah...mmm...Ah..."

"Charlie..."

He blew out a breath and put his hand on his knee. He began to bob his knees up and down.

"Ah...oh...mmm..."

"Charlie, baby I can get the nurse to give you more pain medicine."

"Ah...Har I'm fine!"

"Okay...okay..."

He blew out a breath again.

"Ah...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10." He breathed. He blew out another breath and began to count over.

"What are you counting for baby?"

"Just the minutes until this is over...Ah...shit."

"What hurts honey?"

"The needle closest to my wrist...ah...I can just feel my muscle twitching by that needle...Ah...Oooo. Oh."

He trembled.

"It's just kinda stabbing...you know...oh...God..."

He grimaced his face and shut his eyes.

"God that hurts!"

"I'll get the nurse..."

"No...no Har...it's alright...Arghh! Ah..."

"It's not alright!"

I stuck my head out in the hallway. A new nurse returned. We had never seen her before. She attempted to numb his arm once again. She explained that after the medicine wore off, all the pain he was feeling was because of his blood pressure dropping. He then suffered muscle cramps around the needle.

"You said by your wrist Charlie?" She asked. She then began to numb his wrist by using another needle. She ended up poking him pretty hard.

"Yeah...it hurts the most right there and ow! Shit!"

"Charlie!"

"Okay...okay...tell you what Charlie...I'll come back in another 30 minutes...and I'll see if I can't get those test results back any faster..." The nurse replied. As soon as she left Charlie got upset and frustrated.

"Just take me home Har...or divorce me while you're at it I'll be no good to you or the kids anyway!"

"Don't say stuff like that!"

"Well I mean... you'll have to put up with me, and this, and those damn nurses who don't know their ass!"

"Babe...please calm down...it's alright..."

"How can I be the husband or the father you wanted me to be...to be the Daddy those kids deserve..."

"Darling..its just a small donor surgery that will fix everything...you'll see."

"And if it doesn't what then...It's not just some minor surgery Har! I can't handle this..."

"Ssh...just stop...we'll cross bridges when we get there."

Dr. Payton entered the room.

"Oh Dr. Payton thank God! What have you found out, can I give Charlie one of my kidney's?!"

"Harmione...Charlie...to my knowledge you have both been in this hospital and under my care for both minor and critical injuries. For any blood loss Charlie was unable to provide blood to you Harmione because he is diabetic, and you were unable too for that same reason...however if blood had to be donated it wouldn't have worked anyway because Charlie has a very rare blood type. Type O negative. That means he can only receive O negative blood."

"And I am?"

"AB positive...there were two other types of tests from tissue type to cross matching at which you also did not match. I'm sorry Harmione, but giving him one of your kidneys would only harm him further."