Abigail was released from the hospital the following day. Jack came to pick her up and took her out to the car in a wheelchair, and from there he drove to Beryl's to pick up Jackson and Julie.
"What do you say we go to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Mama coming home from the hospital?" Jack suggested.
"Hurray!" shouted Jackson and Julie.
At the restaurant, Abigail and Jack ate salad and pizza and Jackson and Julie played in the tubes and slides and ball pit and rode the miniature Ferris wheel. Then they went home and Jackson and Julie settled down for a nap.
"Feeling okay, hon?" Jack asked Abigail.
"I'm fine," Abigail assured him.
"Why don't you take a nap too?" Jack suggested.
"I've got a better idea." Abigail winked at her husband, and he grinned back. Quickly all their clothing was shed, and quietly, so as not to awaken the children, they made love.
"It's so good to be in my own bed again," Abigail said as they lay together cuddling afterwards.
"It's so good to have you back in bed again," Jack chuckled. "I can't begin to tell you how lonely I've been these past couple of nights."
"I've been just as lonely," Abigail told him. She yawned. "Now I'm ready for a nap."
"Let's take a nap together," Jack whispered. So they did.
Several days later, Dr. Gordon called with the results of the biopsy.
"Good news," he told Abigail. "Your brain lesion is completely benign. After a few radiation treatments it should be completely gone. We'll follow up with a repeat EEG and cat scan just to be sure." Abigail felt as if she were walking on air for the rest of the day.
"Great news!" she announced when Jack got home from work. "Dr. Gordon called. My lesion is completely benign. I just have to go for radiation and then for another EEG and cat scan."
"That's great, hon!" Jack picked his wife up and spun her around. "I'm so glad to hear that!"
A few days later, Abigail was driving home from the hospital after one of her radiation treatments when she saw a car coming right at her in her lane. Terrified, she automatically jerked the steering wheel all the way to the right. She felt the car slide down a steep slope and flip over onto its side.
"Help me! Somebody, please help me!" she screamed, beating frantically at the window.
Within moments emergency personnel were there, opening the car door, freeing her from her seat belt, helping her to stand. She was shaking so hard that she could barely do so.
"How did this happen?" a policeman asked her.
"I saw this car coming right at me," she told him. "I was sure I was about to have a head-on collision. There was a car coming in the other lane too, so the only thing I could do to avoid hitting one of them was to go down the side."
"Can you describe the car and its driver?" asked the policeman.
"It was blue. It was a compact model, a Toyota or a Honda maybe. The driver was a woman, about my age, with brown hair."
Soon Jack arrived. "Abby!" he shouted, embracing her tightly. "Thank God you're all right!"
Abigail was still shaking like a leaf. Jack held her and comforted her. "It's all right now, sweetheart. You're safe. I've got you. It's all right."
"Do you think there's a chance that this incident was intentional?" the policeman asked.
Abigail was bewildered. "But who would hate me that much? I don't even have any enemies that I know of."
"It's not necessarily a matter of hatred," the policeman told her. "Sometimes mentally unbalanced people do things like this for reasons known only to themselves. You gave us a fairly detailed description of the car and its driver, so we'll be on the lookout for a car and driver fitting that description."
"What description did she give you?" asked Jack, suddenly very curious.
"A middle-aged brunette driving a compact blue car," the policeman told him.
"My God." All the color drained from Jack's face. "That sounds exactly like Karen."