by K. M. Scott
Patience wasn’t normally high on my list of attributes, but I took my place next to her bed and waited hour after hour for her to open her eyes. I needed her to see me and know she wasn’t alone there in that cold hospital room.
It had only been a couple days, but I felt like I’d lost her and now I wanted to make sure we never wasted another moment of our lives. Nina had the right idea with date night, but I wanted to expand that. I wanted us to get back to what we were before we married, those early days when we were just Tristan and Nina. Reading those letters made me realize we’d lost some of that over the years, and now I wanted to bring that feeling back to us.
“I think she’s waking up,” Diana said excitedly. “I thought I saw her eyelids move.”
The four of us focused on Nina, but I saw nothing that showed she was finally coming out of the coma. Disappointed, I smiled up at my daughter and shrugged. “Soon. I know she’ll be back with us in no time.”
Ethan pointed at his mother, shaking his head. “No, Dad. I saw it too. I think she’s waking up.”
My heart practically leaped out of my chest, and I focused all my attention on Nina once again. A second and then another passed, but I saw nothing. Holding my breath, I waited, eager to see her open her eyes.
Finally, I saw what the kids had seen. Her eyelids moved ever so slightly, and then slowly, she opened her eyes and looked around. Still groggy, she didn’t say anything at first.
I gently squeezed her hand as I finally let the air out of my lungs in a sigh of relief. “Nina? We’re here. I’m right here, and the kids are on the other side of the bed. We’re here with you.”
She didn’t speak, but I saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes when I told her we were all there with her. Diana quietly sobbed, and Ethan hugged her as Tressa whispered, “Thank God she’s going to be okay.”
Nina squeezed my hand in response and turned her head to look at me. In a tiny voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Tristan?”
“I’m here, honey. I’m right here holding your hand, and the kids are here with me. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. You gave us quite a scare there, but you’re going to be okay.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
She gave me a shy smile. “I remember we were having date night and it was going pretty well. Then I remember having an allergy attack and I couldn’t breathe. After that, I don’t remember anything.”
Leave it to Nina to be so sweet right after coming out of a coma. I smiled and leaned over to kiss her. “Yes, date night was going pretty well, but you didn’t have an allergy attack. You didn’t have the flu last week either. You were dealing with something called adult onset Still’s disease. But you’re going to be fine, honey. Now that you’re awake, you’ll get to go home and it will be okay.”
Nina looked at the other side of the room where the kids stood waiting. “It must be serious. You got the kids here.” She stopped and her eyes opened wide. “Ethan, you and Summer were on vacation. How did you get here?”
“It’s okay, Nina,” I said softly, directing her attention back to me. “They had to put you in a medically induced coma that night because you were in distress. You’re going to be fine, though, so don’t worry.”
She took a deep breath and shook her head. “A coma? How long was I out for?”
“A couple days, honey, but you’re fine now. They know what caused you to not be able to breathe, and they’re treating you for it. I don’t want you to worry, okay?”
Sadness filled her eyes. “Okay. I got worried that I’d missed weeks or months when you said coma.”
“No. Just a little well-deserved rest and now you’ll be fine.”
“Promise?”
I smiled and nodded. “I promise.”
“You scared us, Mom. Don’t do that again, okay?” Tressa said, leaning over to kiss Nina on the cheek.
“Yeah, you really scared us,” Ethan said, repeating the sentiment. “We need you to stick around for a lot more years, Mom.”
Nina smiled as her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was sick.”
Diana walked over to the bed and kissed her. “Now I think I know what you felt when I was in the hospital in a coma.”
“I always said you were more like me than your father. I just didn’t think we’d take it to this extreme,” Nina answered, smiling as Diana laughed.
Dr. Rankin walked into the room and grabbed Nina’s chart. “I heard from the nurses that you were awake.” He looked at Nina and then Diana. “You know, I thought you two looked alike, but now that I see you awake, the likeness is uncanny.”
“We were just talking about how my daughter has always been more like me. Now we’ve both spent time in a coma. Not exactly the similarity I’d choose for us, though.”
“Definitely not one I’d choose for either of you,” he said with a smile. “So we figured out what was going on. Adult onset Still’s disease was the culprit. We’re treating you for it now, and you’ll be seeing a rheumatologist once you leave the hospital so you can keep it under control.”
“Adult onset Still’s disease? I’ve never heard of that, doctor. That’s why I couldn’t breathe?”
Nodding, he walked around her bed to stand on the side opposite me and explained, “As I told your husband, it’s a rare disease that’s a form of arthritis. Actually, juvenile arthritis. That’s why they call it adult onset Still’s. But it’s treatable, and with the right drugs and careful attention to your diet, you’ll be fine. How do you feel now?”
Nina took a deep breath and shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s all so much to take in.”
“Well, don’t worry. You’re going to be going home soon, and now that we know what’s going on, we’ve got a handle on it.”
“Thank you, doctor. I guess I’m just a little stunned by this all. I am glad to hear I’ll be okay, though.”
“I’ll let you visit with your family, and I’ll be back later.”
Dr. Rankin gave her one last smile and left just as Nina tugged on my sleeve. Looking down, I saw she seemed unhappy about something.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly worried she wasn’t as okay as we thought.
“I want to go home, Tristan. I hate being in the hospital. Can you ask the doctor when they’re going to let me go?”
“Okay. I’ll be right back,” I said before kissing her again.
Just as he stepped into the elevator, I caught up with Dr. Rankin. Since he was alone in there, I held the door open and asked, “Excuse me. Nina wants to know when she’ll be discharged. She’s not a big fan of being in the hospital, and now that she’s awake, she’s already chomping at the bit to go home.”
“I understand,” he said with a nod. “Believe it or not, I’d hate it if I had to be stuck in the hospital as a patient. One more night here and then she can go home. We want to make sure there aren’t any aftereffects from her being sedated for all that time. If she’s fine tonight, I’ll let her go first thing tomorrow morning.”
That wouldn’t be the news she wanted to hear, but he had a good point. It wasn’t every day a person was put into a medically induced coma. She needed time to recover from that more than anything else.
“Okay, doctor. Thank you. And thank you for everything.”
“I’m just happy we found out what was going on sooner than later,” he said as I let the doors shut.
Nina wouldn’t be happy with another night in the hospital, but knowing she was leaving tomorrow was good news. I’d stay with her tonight, so it wouldn’t be like she had to stay here alone.
When I returned to her room, I found her sitting up with her pillows propped up behind her and talking to the kids like it was any normal day. Ethan told her about almost getting stung by a jellyfish, which made Nina laugh, and Diana followed up with the story of how she was driving by herself now, which impressed her mother to no end. Tressa stayed off to the side near the door, so I st
ood next to her so I didn’t interrupt them.
Leaning over, she whispered, “She seems like she’s going to be okay, Dad. Now that we know that, let me ask. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, knowing at least partly that was a lie.
She looked up at me and focused her attention on my eyes. “You took an awfully long time at the house finding Mom’s brush and that dress, Dad. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I promise. I just got a little sidetracked with something I found in your mother’s closet. I guess I took a walk down memory lane for a little while there. I’m fine, Tressa. Honest. But thank you for caring, honey.”
“I know you, Dad. We’ve worked together for years. I know when you’re off. Something felt off before. I have to admit I’m not getting that feeling now, though.”
I pulled her to me and kissed her cheek. “I guess maybe I was a little off for a while, but that time at the house did me a world of good. Knowing your mother is going to be fine makes me feel even better. So you don’t have to worry about me. I’m good. Honest.”
Once I finished, Tressa hugged me. “I’m glad because I don’t think I can handle you not being okay hard on the heels of Mom ending up here.”
Pushing her dark hair off her face, I pressed a kiss to her forehead like I used to when she was a little girl. “I promise I’m fine, but thank you for worrying about me, honey.”
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I love you, Dad. We’re alike, so I feel like I have to keep an eye on you. I know how I get when something’s bothering me and I don’t feel as if I can tell anyone. I thought I saw that earlier today with you.”
What she said was true. We were very much alike. The two of us tended to keep all our emotions bottled up inside us, only letting a select few see them.
“You might have seen that earlier, but I’m okay now. I’ve got a different perspective on things after my trip to the house.”
I never could hide anything from Tressa. Even as a child, she always sensed when I was unhappy about something, no matter if I talked about it or not.
Thankfully, she had someone like Killian to bring her out of herself like I had Nina. The two of them made us lighter and sweeter than the rest of world did. It’s one of the reasons I helped them get past that whole mess with that ex-girlfriend of his. I had a feeling Tressa thought it was because I loved New York football so much, but that wasn’t it. I just sensed in him the same thing I loved in Nina and knew how good that would be for my daughter.
“What are you two whispering about over there?” Nina asked, tearing me out of my daydreaming.
Tressa and I looked at each other and smiled. “Nothing,” I answered as I walked over to sit next to Nina’s bed. “Tressa let me use her car to go to the house before to get your hairbrush and something for you to wear other than the hospital gown.”
I lifted the brush and the T-shirt dress off the nearby cabinet. “See?”
Nina’s face lit up and she took them out of my hands. “Oh, you brought my favorite brush! Thank you, Tristan. I’m not sure why you chose that dress to have me wear home, but I’m sure it will work.”
“I was supposed to find a nightgown, but I couldn’t find anything I thought you’d want the people here at the hospital to see you wearing. Negligees aren’t exactly hospital clothes,” I explained while she brushed her hair.
She screwed her face into a funny look. “You know I don’t wear nightgowns. We’ve been married all these years, and you know I like to wear shorts and T-shirts to bed. You’d think you didn’t even know me after all this time.”
The wink she gave me after she said that made me smile. I knew Nina, and she knew me. She knew that after all the stress of what happened in the past few days that I’d need to smile, so she teased me so I would.
That’s what love was with us. Little things like a comment meant to make me smile and my letters to her meant more to us than anything money could buy.
Chapter Seventeen
Tristan
True to his word, Dr. Rankin released Nina the next morning, and after the five of us drove to the house, we got together in the kitchen for a meal together. We hadn’t done that in ages, so it felt good to have the kids back home again, even for just lunch.
Nina sat at the table enjoying the warm summer sun as it streamed through the window while the kids and I decided on what we should make to eat. We had bread but little else other than milk that had a few hours before it went bad since nobody had been home for the past few days.
“Mom, what would you like to eat? We can run out and get anything you want,” Ethan said, poking his head up from behind the refrigerator door.
“What is there to choose from?”
He took another glance in at the paltry offerings in the refrigerator and shook his head. “Not much. That’s what a few days in the hospital does to the menu. But we can go anywhere you want and get anything you want.”
For a few seconds, she thought about his offer, and then her eyes opened wide. “Tristan, do you remember that pizza place we used to go to when we were first dating? It had those Formica tabletops and the best pizza. What was that called?”
Instantly, I knew the place she meant. I had to think about the name because it had been so long since we’d gotten pizza from there. Tony’s? That sounded right, but there was more to it. Tony’s what?
Then I remembered. “Tony’s Pizza Heaven. They had all those black and white photographs of Italian landmarks hanging on the walls and red and white checkered tablecloths. Good pizza, too. I haven’t thought about that place in years.”
“Are they still open?” Ethan asked as he closed the refrigerator door. “I could go for some great pizza right about now.”
“That was a long time ago, Mom,” Tressa said, taking out her phone. “They might not be open anymore.”
Nina’s mouth turned down into a pout. “I wish they would be. Your father and I went on a date there right after we met. Do you remember that, Tristan?”
“I remember going there a few times when we were dating. I think we used to take the kids there when they were small too.”
Diana leaned over to look on as Tressa searched for Tony’s on her phone. “I think I remember that place. It was one of the few places you took us to eat.”
Smiling, Nina rolled her eyes. “You try taking three small children to a restaurant, and you’ll see why we didn’t go out to eat much when you kids were little.”
Ethan joined his sisters while Tressa continued to search. A few moments later, he was the first to yell out, “Found it! They still have a place just a few miles away. Amazing!”
“Good! Let’s get pizza from there today,” Nina said excitedly. “How many should we get? What does everyone want on their pizza?”
Each of the kids called out their choice of toppings. By the time we’d totaled it all up, we needed to order three with just cheese, one with pepperoni and sausage, and one with sausage and green peppers.
“And we need birch beer,” Ethan said just before Tressa called the order in. “Like a keg of it.”
His sister rolled her eyes. “I am not ordering a keg of birch beer. Does anyone even have that stuff anymore?”
“Yeah, they do. So get at least one bottle of it. I can drink that myself. Be sure to get Mom some too since she likes it, so that’s two bottles.”
Diana raised her hand. “I do too, but Mommy and I can share a bottle. Too much soda and I feel like I’m going to explode.”
“What about Summer and Cole? Will they be joining us?” I asked.
Ethan shook his head. “Summer texted me that she’ll be up in about an hour or so. I’ll save her a few slices and some birch beer.”
“Cole has to work, but he wanted me to make sure I told you he’s so happy you’re feeling better, Mommy,” Diana said with a smile.
Turning her back to all of us, Tressa dictated the order to the person who answered the phone at Tony’s Pizza
Heaven and then slid her phone into her pocket as she spun around to face us. “Twenty-five minutes and I told them we’d pick it up. I have the directions on my GPS, so I’ll drive. Who wants to come with me?”
Ethan and Diana grabbed for their sister’s keys on the kitchen counter, and Diana reached them first. “I call shotgun! Ethan gets to sit in the back!” she said before running out of the kitchen.
“I can get the keys off her in a heartbeat, Tress, so unless you can beat me out to the car, you’re riding in back,” Ethan said with a smile as he began walking toward the front door.
Tressa’s mouth dropped open, and she looked over at Nina and me sitting at the table. “If he thinks I’m riding in the back seat of my own car, he’s crazy. You’ll be down one child if that happens. Just want you to know.”
Then she ran out while she yelled, “Ethan, don’t you dare get in that driver’s seat!”
I looked over at Nina and saw her smiling. “You’d never know they’re adults,” I said with a chuckle.
“We have good kids, Tristan. I like seeing them like that. It reminds me of when they were small.”
“I like seeing you like this. You look happy.”
She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “I am happy. I’ve always been happy with you and the kids, but now I feel like I should be even happier because of what happened.”
Nodding, I reached across the table and squeezed her hand in mine. “I was thinking that too yesterday after we found out you’d be okay. We’ve had a lot of good in our lives. Not all good, but we got through the bad times. Now it feels like we have a second chance.”
“I like that,” she said with a sweet smile. “I hope our next date night goes better than our first, though. Exciting is good, but not so exciting that one of us ends up in a coma.”
Leave it to Nina to make a joke about all that had happened. Always lighter than I ever could be, she knew how to make me smile, even after what we’d been through.
“I’m blaming the cobbler,” I said with a smile.