Dean Koontz - Winter Moon

Popped the cap off a third beer.

Purging his thoughts. Maybe in the morning he would have forgotten the sick, demented considerations that plagued him so persistently tonight,forgotten them or washed them away in tides of alcohol. Or perhaps he would die in his sleep. He almost didn't care which. He poured down a long swallow of the third beer, seeking one form of oblivion or another.

Through March, April, and May, as Jack lay cupped in felt-lined plaster with his legs often in traction, he suffered pain, cramps, spastic muscle twitches, uncontrollable nerve tics, and itchy skin where it could not be scratched inside a cast. He endured those discomforts and others with few complaints, and he thanked God that he would live to hold his wife again and see his son grow up.

His health worries were even more numerous than his discomforts. The risk of bedsores was ever-present, though the body cast had been formed with great care and though most of the nurses were concerned, solicitous, and skilled.

Once a pressure sore became ulcerated, it would not heal easily, and gangrene could set in quickly. Because he was periodically catheterized, his chances of contracting an infection of the urethra were increased, which could lead to a more serious case of cystitis.

Any patient immobilized for long periods was in jeopardy of developing blood clots that could break loose and spin through the body, lodge in the heart or brain, killing him or causing substantial brain damage, though Jack was medicated to reduce the danger of that complication, it was the one that most deeply concerned him.

He worried, as well, about Heather and Toby. They were alone, which troubled him in spite of the fact that Heather, under Alma Bryson's guidance, seemed to be prepared to handle everything from a lone burglar to a foreign invasion.

Actually, the thought of all those weapons in the house-and what the need for them said about Heather's state of mind-disturbed him nearly as much as the thought of someone breaking into the place.

Money worried him more than cerebral embolisms. He was on disability and had no idea when he might be able to work again full time. Heather was still unemployed, the economy showed no signs of emerging from the recession, and their savings were virtually exhausted. Friends in the Department had opened a trust account for his family at a branch of Wells Fargo Bank, and contributions from policemen and the public at large now totaled more than twenty-five thousand dollars. But medical and rehabilitation expenses were never entirely covered by insurance, and he suspected that even the trust fund would not return them to the modest level of financial security they had enjoyed before the shootout at Arkadian's service station. By September or October, making the mortgage payment might be impossible.

However, he was able to keep all those worries to himself, partly because he knew that other people had worries of their own and that some of them might be more serious than his, but also because he was an optimist, a believer in the healing power of laughter and positive thinking. Though some of his friends thought his response to adversity.was cockeyed, he couldn't help it. As far as he could recall, he had been born that way. Where a pessimist looked at a glass of wine and saw it as half empty, Jack not only saw it as half full but also figured there was the better part of a bottle still to be drunk. He was in a body cast and temporarily disabled, but he felt he was blessed to have escaped permanent disability and death. He was in pain, sure, but there were people in the same hospital in more pain than he was.

Until the glass was empty and the bottle as well, he would always anticipate the next sip of wine rather than regret that so little was left.

On his first visit to the hospital back in March, Toby had been frightened to see his father so immobilized, and his eyes had filled with tears even as he bit his lip and kept his chin up and struggled to be brave. Jack had done his best to minimize the seriousness of his condition, insisted he looked in worse shape than he was, and strove with growing desperation to lift his son's spirits. Finally he got the boy to laugh by claiming he wasn't really hurt at all, was in the hospital as a participant in a secret new police program, and would emerge in a few months as a member of their new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Task Force.

"Yeah," he said, "it's true. See, that's what all this plaster is, a shell, a turtle shell that's being applied to my back. When it's dry and coated with Kevlar, bullets will just bounce off."

Smiling in spite of himself, wiping at his eyes with one hand, Toby said, "Get real, Dad."

"It's true."

"You don't know taste kwon do."

"I'll be taking lessons, soon as the shell's dry."

"A Ninja has to know how to use swords too, swords and all kinda stuff."

"More lessons, that's all."

"Big problem."

"What's that?"

"You're not a real turtle."

"Well, of course I'm not a real turtle. Don't be silly. The department isn't allowed to hire anything but human beings. People don't much like it when they're given traffic tickets by members of another species. So we have to make do with an imitation Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Task Force. So what? Is Spider-Man really a spider? Is Batman really a bat?"

"You got a point there."

"You're damned right I do."."But."

"But what?"

Grinning, the boy said, "You're no teenager."

"I can pass for one."

"No way. You're an old guy."

"Is that so?"

"A real old guy."

"You're in big trouble when I get out of this bed, mister."

"Yeah, but until your shell's dry, I'm safe."

The next time Toby came to the hospital-Heather visited every day, but Toby was limited to once or twice a week-Jack was wearing a colorful headband.

Heather had gotten him a red-and-yellow scarf, which he'd folded and tied around his head. The ends of the knot hung rakishly over his right ear.

"Rest of the uniform is still being designed." he told Toby.

A few weeks later, one day in mid-April, Heather pulled the privacy curtain around Jack's bed and gave him a sponge bath and damp-sponge shampoo to save the nurses a little work. She said, "I'm not sure I like other women bathing you. I'm getting jealous."

He said, "I swear I can explain where I was last night."

"There's not a nurse in the hospital hasn't gone out of her way to tell me that you're their favorite patient."

"Well, honey, that's meaningless. Anybody can be their favorite patient. It's easy. All you've got to do is avoid puking on them and don't make fun of their little hats."

"That easy, huh?" she said, sponging his left arm.

"Well, you also have to eat everything on your dinner tray, never hassle them to give you massive injections of heroin without a doctor's prescription, and never ever fake cardiac arrest just to get attention."

"They say you're so sweet, brave, and funny."

"Aw, shucks," he said with exaggerated shyness, but he was genuinely embarrassed.

"A couple of them told me how lucky I am, married to you."."You punch them?"

"Managed to control myself."

"Good. They'd only take it out on me."

"I am lucky," she said.

"And some of these nurses are strong, they probably pack a pretty hard punch."

"I love you, Jack," she said, leaning over the bed and kissing him full on the mouth.

The kiss took his breath away. Her hair fell across his face, it smelled of a lemony shampoo.

"Heather," he said softly, putting one hand against her cheek,

"Heather, Heather," repeating the name as if it was sacred, which it was, not only a name but a prayer that sustained him, the name and face that made his nights less dark, that made his pain-filled days pass more quickly.