by Lucian Bane
The Good Husband
Book 1
By Lucian Bane
By Lucian Bane
© 2020 by Lucian Bane
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Lucian Bane or his legal representative.
To all the readers, fans, and or reader’s clubs. Thank you for supporting my work.
Also, if you need a different format, please contact me, the author.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my family. Thank all of you for putting up with me, for believing in me, for loving me.
Contents
The Verdict
Six Weeks Later
Home
Family Vote
Regrets
Calling About a New Head
Heading to China
The Wongs
Preparing For a New Head
The Expected Unexpected
The Operation
Alice in Wonderland
Waiting and Bonding
Charlie and Alice
Seeing Ben
Time To Wake Ben
What Operation?
Ben’s Released
Ben’s Memories
Ben’s Different
Jealousy
Show Me
Bad Memories
It’s Worse
The Spiral
Charlie’s Asian Angel
Going Back
Dead Bodies
Living with a Psychopath
The Verdict
The hospital room door opened suddenly, snapping Ben’s head up. He’d dozed somehow between the bouts of pain in his skull.
“Evening, I’m Dr. Richard,” the man announced walking in. Even with his jovial expression, he had bad news written on his weathered face. For some reason, Ben’s body decided fear wasn’t necessary even with his wife strangling his hand more than ever. She probably saw it too. He glanced at her as the doctor cleared his throat and stood at the foot of the bed, preparing to tell them something really bad judging by his hesitancy.
“We’ve run many tests as you know and have concluded that you have Gorham’s disease concentrated at the base of your skull. It… seems to be a rare form of it. And the rate that it has eaten the bone tells us it’s aggressive. The good news is, we have several treatments that can slow it down.”
“Is it curable?” his wife asked, sounding weak.
Ben squeezed her hand harder.
“Not currently, but the treatments have been known to slow it down a great deal and we’ll be trying them immediately. That means Ben will have to remain in the hospital while we run those treatments and find the one that works, if we can.”
Cheryl nodded and Ben stroked the top of her hand with his thumb, just wanting to hold her. They’d been so distant from each other for years and ever since he’d collapsed in their kitchen, worst possible scenarios made him hunger to connect with her harder than he ever had. “How long do you think it will take?” Ben asked.
“Anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. The first option may prove to work. If not, we move to the next and so forth. We’ll keep you informed of every step and the particulars. If you have any questions, write them down, and I’ll answer them as quickly as I can.”
When the doctor left, his wife stared at him. He saw it in her eyes, the need to break down and the need to be strong for him. He opened his arms and reached for her. She regarded what he offered even as her tears poured then finally fell onto him, sobbing.
Ben closed his eyes, holding her and petting her head. “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.” God how he missed feeling her. “We can beat this. Right? You and me, we can beat anything we put our mind to.”
She answered with wails and more sobs and Ben’s chest burned with unspent love. So much unspent love he needed to lavish on his wife.
No, he’d beat this. He had to.
Six Weeks Later
"Mom?”
Cheryl quickly wiped her eyes at hearing Charlie’s scared voice. Sitting at the foot of her bed, she turned with a weak smile, arm out to him. “Hey,” she said on a shaky whisper. “Come here.”
She swallowed the choking fear as her sixteen-year-old made his way over, steps slow. He sat next to her and she put an arm around his ever-growing shoulders. “How are you holding up?” she asked.
She waited as the unspeakable dread seeped through the cracks in the silence, holding them hostage. “Is... dad coming home?” he finally asked, keeping his head lowered.
Cheryl's guts twisted. He'd overheard her phone conversation with the doctor. His dad was coming home, but she couldn’t tell him why. Not yet. “He’s coming home honey, yes.” She knew it was wrong to put promise in the words. But Charlie prayed day and night. The doctors were out of treatment ideas—they’d all failed. And they were long out of money.
Ben just wanted to come home and be with his family to face whatever was coming together. Cheryl wanted him home too but was terrified at what was coming. They weren’t sure how it would end for him. How painful it would get or what brain disorders he could develop in the deterioration process.
Charlie looked toward her but kept his head down. “And…the treatments?”
She took his hand and held it, patting and stroking it as she nodded and nodded, willing something half-way honest into her brain. “The doctor explained all the remaining options, but…I need to get on the computer and look up the words,” she said with a light laugh. “As soon as I know, you’ll know.”
He raised his clear blue eyes to her with a small smile as if to encourage her. “I’ll keep praying.”
She quickly nodded, her tears spilling over. “Yes,” she half gasped, stroking his hand again. “That would be very helpful. Go finish up your homework. I’ll come and tuck you in soon, and we’ll say our prayers.”
He suddenly wrapped his arms around her, hugging tight. At feeling the tremble in his muscled frame, she matched his hold, wanting more than anything to protect him. All of them. After ten seconds, she forced herself to disengage, remembering his grown-up status. He was so much like his father. Ben wanted to come home because in his mind, he was still the hero, the protector of his family. He was in no way taking any of this dying bullshit lying down, it went against everything he was, everything he stood for.
Cheryl got on her knees next to the bed and clasped her hands tightly together. “I’m scared,” she half choked out to God. What was going to happen to him? How bad would he suffer?
Her sweet Ben. They didn’t have the fairy tale marriage she’d dreamed of when she was a young girl, but he was so good to her. She’d learned to be good back to him. He was nothing like the man she’d dreamed of marrying, but he was amazing in ways she’d never known about. His type of manhood had never been talked about or written into fairy tales. And now that she might lose him, she was bitterly sure it should have been.
He was different. So very different. She realized there was nobody else like him. But you only knew it by his actions. He wasn’t a toucher or a hugger. Or even a kisser. He wasn’t a man of mushy words even if he was a man of many words and expressions. He wasn’t even into sex, unless she was, and when she was... he gave it without question.
A sob gushed out and she held her breath to keep more from escaping. So many years she’d resented his lack of initiation in sex. Felt just like rejection to her. Like he didn’t want her and crave her like she did him. So…she’d quit initiating sex. They went from once a month, then once every few months, then never. And now… she wouldn't be able to initiate anything. Her chances to connect with him in that p
recious way were gone. He’d be there needing it and needing her, and she’d be helpless. The thought of it hurt so terribly, more than the rejection ever had. Deep down she knew, she'd always known that he loved her. He loved her differently, in that special Ben way.
“Oh God,” she wailed, pressing her face into the bed. "I’m sorry, I'm sorry. Ben, I’m so sorry.”
****
Cheryl’s eyes snapped back open at the computer. She blinked until the blurred words on the screen cleared, sucking in a deep wake-up breath. Her eyes lowered to the time in the corner of the screen. Two-thirty AM. She raised her gaze back to the bottomless pit of information she’d been digging through before dozing off. She had one night before Ben came back. Mere hours to save her family, it felt like.
‘Rare head disease cures’ stared back at her. She’d fallen asleep at the desperate curve of searching for something outside the normal.
The frustration of it all pressed into her chest, hammering at her withered-to-the-bone faith. She was searching for something that didn’t exist. The impossible. She put her fingers on her temples and rubbed slow circles, seeing Charlie’s innocent face so full of faith when she told him the truth and shattered his spirit.
Her spine slowly straightened with a mother’s stubborn resolve, pulling her trembling fingers back to the keyboard. Where was the answer? She was looking for something outside the box but really, she’d been searching with box terms.
What kind of terms would be out of the box? He needed a new head and they didn’t do head transplants.
Her fingers slowly typed the impossible anyway. H e a d t r a n s p l a n t s.
She pressed enter and the fourth link down hit her stomach like a punch.
First Human Head Transplantation: Surgically Challenging ...
She clicked the link, holding her breath as she read, her heart pummeling her chest.
Surgically Challenging, Ethically Controversial and Historically Tempting – an Experimental Endeavor or a Scientific Landmark?
Oh God, oh God, could this be for real?
She quickly scanned the page, double checking the name of the website. A half sob burst free at seeing National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health. Before she could officially hope, she searched to make sure they were legitimate. She’d checked so many in the past months, she couldn’t remember which were. Everything seemed authentic online but wasn’t always. She’d learned that the hard way.
She hurried to Wikipedia and pasted the name of the first institute into the search engine there. A light cry escaped her as she put a hand over her mouth, reading the result. It was legitimate.
She hurried back to the site, ready to find a contact number to call immediately. She read the abstract.
According to many, head transplantation is considered to be an extraordinary and impossible surgical procedure. However, relevant literature and recent advances suggest that the first human head transplantation might be feasible. This innovative surgery promises a life-saving procedure to individuals who suffer from a terminal disease, but whose head and brain are healthy…
She froze and re-read that. They weren’t doing head transplants but body transplants. He didn’t need a new body. But if they could transplant somebody’s good head to another person’s body, why couldn’t they transplant his good body to another person’s head? Wasn’t that the same thing?
Tears streamed as she searched for a contact name, scrolling to the bottom of the page, then back to the top. She found a single name and link and clicked it.
This paper was from somebody in Greece, she realized. Was there something in the US?
She hurried back to the main search results and typed--
Head transplants in the US
She clicked the first link, her breaths shallow at seeing them talk like it was a definite possibility even if it was ethically frowned upon in America—the great moral hypocritical leader that they were.
Her heart fell at seeing the price.
…estimated cost up to $100 million, involving several dozen surgeons and specialists.
She continued to read to the actual procedure.
The researcher said he would simultaneously sever the spinal cords of the donor and recipient with a diamond blade. To protect the recipient's brain from immediate death before it is attached to the body, it would be cooled to a state of deep hypothermia.
They were really doing this stuff. But that meant they would need a head donor. A brain-dead person still had a good body but... what would be required for them to find a dead body and a good head? Was that even possible? Paralyzed maybe? Some disease that didn’t affect the head but eventually would?
Even without those answers, her hope burned. There were plenty enough strange diseases that would meet that criteria. Surely. Something rare, like Ben’s situation.
She read further about the operation procedure, holding her breath as she did.
… What Canavero would do is bathe the ends of the nerves in a solution that stabilizes the membranes and put them back together," Sar said. "The nerves will be fused but won't regrow. And he will do this not in the peripheral nerves such as you find in the arm, but in the spinal cord, where there's multiple types of nerve channels.
“Most medical experts say the procedure would be a long shot, but even if the operation works, the biggest obstacle may not be the science itself but…”
The article finished with risks. Of course, it had risks; it was a freaking head transplant. But every operation came with risks. She read on, feeling high on hope.
"Other countries do not have the same ethical standards and requirements that the United States and Europe have. And I personally am willing to perform the surgery anywhere."
Oh God, he was their guy.
She opened the desk drawer on her right, her hand shaking with excitement as she snatched out the first paper she touched. She put it on the desk and grabbed a pen from the cup, clicking the tip and writing down his name. She could maybe raise money for it somehow. She didn’t imagine they had many candidates to practice this on, and he had nothing to lose. Wouldn’t that mean they needed each other?
She highlighted his name on the screen, right clicked and hit search Google. Seeing he had a Facebook page, she went straight to it and found the message feature.
Dear Dr. Vindel,
My name is Cheryl Rabinowski. My husband Benjamin Rabinowski has a rare form of Gorham’s disease in his skull. He has only a couple of months left to live before it reaches parts of his brain that will kill him. All the specialists are out of ideas and they are sending him home to wait for death. As I searched online for answers, I thought to myself there was no hope, because what my husband needed was a new head. It was sheer desperation that had me even search such a thing and imagine my shock to learn it was real. I realize that doctors are wanting to transfer a good head onto another person’s body, but my husband needs a new head, not a new body. But, isn’t it technically the same thing? And if so, is it possible?
If it is, I am hoping to discuss this option to save his life and we are willing to go anywhere in the world to have it done. I think I can raise the money, but it’s my thought that perhaps there are many in the medical world and beyond that would like to see the first human head transplant attempted and may help us raise the money to see it done.
My phone number is 445-239-9869. Please call me as soon as you can and let me know, if there is any hope for us. I will wait to discuss it with my husband after I learn if it’s even possible.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Rabinowski
Cheryl re-read her message several times, adjusting for clarification and grammar. Dear God, please, please, let this work. She hit enter and drew her hands away from the keyboard, staring through her teary gaze. This was real. This was actually real and happening. The hope surging through her veins overwhelmed her until sobs of sheer relief and joy gushed from her. Oh God, she knew it was premature to rejoice. But after a
ll these months of dread, her body and mind needed this hope to keep surviving.
Home
Benjamin was overcome with relief at being released from the hospital. But he couldn’t negate that the being-sent-home-to-die aspect of the conundrum sullied the piece of heaven. And no longer having full use of his legs was inconvenient but navigational. Ceasing to exist, on the other hand, was beyond his range of adaptation.
Not a man to poke and mope, he made quick work of the death-phase situation, arriving as unscathed as one could at the final destination--acceptance. But since he was under the self-imposed impression that he could carry on with his life as before, perhaps he’d come full circle and then some in his metaphorical trip to the grave.
Be that as it may, his significant other and fatherly duties remained intact until he drew his last breath. That meant life would indeed go on, and perhaps be celebrated with a little more gumption despite this most diabolical turn in circumstances. On the more gallingly painful days that were promised to come, he’d swallow his pride and one of the horse-coma-pain-killers they’d prescribed, and live normal for whatever time they had remaining on the life clock.
That was the gist of his plan anyway and execute it with every crumb of his strength he would.
Charlie’s silhouette appeared beyond the screen in the door and Benjamin put the brakes on the wheels of his chair, staring at him. Even in the shadow, hidden hopes sparked in his blue eyes, a fierce war clashing with their dire dilemma. Ben allowed a rebellious smile to pull his lips wide as he pushed slowly forward down the sidewalk to their home. At the bottom of the ten steps, the screen door flew open and his wife hurried out to him. She moved so quickly he thought she bypassed the steps entirely somehow.