The waiting area outside of the emergency room had been recently renovated into the facscimile of a fancy hotel lobby, with features such as comfortable leather seats, plants and even a small fountain to soften the mood. Returning from the vending machine alcove, Marty had his hands filled with bottles of water, while Angie accompanied him with a variety of protein bars, chips and a small bag of peanuts. Peter, the former night-owl, was slumped in an overstuffed leather chair in the seating area closest to the receptionist's desk.
"You should get something inside you, Pete. Choose your poison," Angie asked as she held the selection out in front of him. "We might be here for awhile."
He looked up at her weakly, acknowledging her presence by his gestures if not any words but didn't make a choice. Then Marty nudged him with his foot.
"Which one do you want?" he asked.
"What was that?" Peter said, turning his head so that this good ear was directed toward him.
"Oh, wait a sec!" he replied, as he reached up his shirt and fished Peter's hearing aid out of his pocket.
"Here, I took this out earlier. It looked like you had partially removed it already, so it wasn't hard," he said as he handed it over to him.
"Thanks," Peter replied, "I kind of remember starting to take it out of my ear, then I just don't remember anything. Glad you had it," he added before placing it in his ear.
Marty reached down and cupped Peter's ear, giving it a gentle, playful twist. "In OK?"
"Uh huh," Peter responded, shaking his head up and down.
"Good. So now you need to get something to eat." he ordered.
Angie again spread the options out in front of him. "Like he said, time for din-din. Go ahead and pick."
"Yeah, you'd better pick one of those, or it will be picked for you!" Their heads all turned toward the sliding glass doors as Kurt's tall frame entered the lobby.
"Everything OK?, he asked as he approached, looking at her first then at the guys. "Angie's text said he bumped his head this time."
"He did, but I don't think, or I hope it's not too bad. There was some blood, but it's a possible concussion that I'm a lot most worried about."
"They're checking him out now," Marty said to Kurt. "But there wasn't a big distance that he fell, so we're hopeful."
"He's been pretty lucky through the years, but I think a large part of it has been Uncle Brad. He just makes things LOOK normal around the house," he said, getting a slight chuckle out of Peter.
"Anyway, I'm interrupting. I think that you were just given an order, if I'm right," he said to Peter.
"Yeah, you're right," he said, another slight smile coming onto his face. "But you all can pick first. You know me, I can eat anything."
"We've already nibbled ourselves, so just take your pick," she responded.
"Cuz?" Peter said, looking at Kurt. "Do you want anything?"
"Later," he replied, waiving away the offer.
"Are you sure you don't want anything right now? Dinner was a long time ago, you know," Peter again asked Angie.
"Yup! I'm sure. So go ahead and pick something for yourself. I can tell that Marty is eager for you to get food into you, so you'd better choose before he chooses for you," she added, glancing over at her brother, who was staring down at Peter.
"That's good advice," Marty added.
Peter finally took the chocolate-covered protein bar with nuts, and then offered the rest of them the empty chair next to him before then taking one of the clear plastic water bottles from Marty. It felt cold to the touch, which was just how he wanted it.
"You feeling OK?" Marty asked. He offered the seat to his sister and remained standing in front of Peter, rocking back and forth on his heels to `keep the blood flowing,' as he'd say. At Kurt's behest, she took the seat as he then sat next to her on the arm.
Peter rotated his head from side to side, trying to get his bearings. It was already past midnight, way past his typical bedtime. He covered a yawn with his hand before answering.
"Not really. I mean I feel OK, I just wish I could do something. He's so helpless now, and I feel helpless myself," he said, his head now staring down at the carpeted floor.
"Man, that fall must have really hurt, hitting himself on the noggin' like that. And my dad! He seemed relatively composed and controlled on the way over here, but I know he's really upset."
"Has it happened like this before, I mean, with your Pop getting hurt?" Angie asked, crossing her legs in the chair as she opened the bag of nuts and offered Kurt some.
"Yeah, that's why it's so scary. But we've really been lucky so far. He cut himself bad once in the shop when he fell into his tool bench. It was just inches from his chisels, which would have really done a lot of damage," he said. He then raised his head up and turned toward her. "You know I think my Dad and I were both really glad that Marty spent so much time with him there," he said. "It's pretty dangerous for someone like my Pop in a place like that, but he wouldn't give it up. And I don't think he could. It's just who he is. Dad said that Pop's been doing woodshop stuff ever since he's known him." "The worst part is that these seizures are so unpredictable," he continued. "That's the thing about epilepsy, at least the way he has it. There's just no way to tell when it's going to hit. Luckily, he doesn't have them nearly as often as some people. But it's still so hard. Especially on Dad."
"You all have done a pretty good job taking care of him. I could see this summer how your dad always tried to make sure that someone was around him wherever he was," Angie observed. "He wasn't real obvious about, but after a while I could tell."
"There's lots of other subtle things, too, that you'd hardly notice, things that I didn't even notice or took for granted until someone Bik and Robert told me," Peter added. "Like Kurt said, my Dad has set things up in subtle ways."
"Like what?" Marty asked.
"Well, one of the big things is what he eats. He's supposed to be on a special diet, kind of a low-carb thing. I'm not sure, and even my Dad's not exactly sure if it really does any good, but even if there was a hint of a cure or some improvement he was all over it. And he'd really enforce things with him, too. Whatever he made that was supposed to be good for us kids but not part of my pop's diet was just off limits. But he was always sure that pop plenty of food that he did like."
"I did notice that he didn't eat your Dad's cakes and stuff that much, but he'd nibble on other things that he made," Marty said. "He even brings some of the low-carb or ketonic snacks out to the garage and we'd share them sometimes. They didn't really taste that different, actually. I kind of liked a lot of them."
"Speaking of being out in the garage...like I said earlier, just your being out there with him helped a lot. It gave Dad peace of mind," Peter said.
'I didn't really do anything, but I guess just having anyone around him would have helped."
"Well, it helped a lot tonight, too, when you were actually able to hear Angie, and that fact that you two were even around," he said as he turned again to Angie, who was now sunk deeply into the equally overstuffed chair next to him, her arm on Kurts leg. It was past her usual bedtime, too.
"I never would have noticed, and dad would have had to run over to the other side of the house to get me and leave Pop all alone. Even for a few moments, that's not a good thing especially when he's in that kind of condition."
"Peter, I think I've done the least of all, really, I was just in the right place at the right time tonight," she replied.
"You were a lot more than that, Angie, believe me!" he responded.
Noticing that Peter hadn't even opened his protein bar yet, Marty gently took it back, partially opened the wrapper enough to expose the chocolate covered tip of the bar, and then returned it to Peter's hand.
"Eat!" he ordered.
Angie then reached over and put her hand on Peter's arm. "I think you'd better eat something or Marty is going to call for the orderlies."
Peter raised the bar to his mouth, took a small bite and started chewing. But before taking another, he suddenly looked up and became ridgid. "Oh my gosh, I need to call Bik and Robert!" he said as he put the bar on the arm of his chair and started to reach into his pocket for his phone,
Before he could retrieve the phone, however, Marty took the protein bar and put it back in front of him. "You finish this and I'll call them right now, OK? Just get something to eat first."
Without waiting for an answer, Marty forced the bar into Peter's hand then took out his own phone. Flipping it around with one hand and quickly scrolling down his contacts, he punched the Robert's number.
Even as he was waiting for some kind of answer on the other end of the line, he stared at Peter until he took another bite.
Watching her brother pass the news onto the other Kovar brothers, Angie was struck that Peter let him do all the talking. Sometimes Peter would nod when Marty said something or explained something, but he didn't seem to have need to talk to them directly. That kind of distinction didn't seem to matter anymore.
"Pete, I'm not sure that there is a lot more that you could do here. I know that you'd like to be with your Pop, but he'd probably want you to go home and get yourself some rest." Marty suggested after looking at his watch again. It was 1:30 a.m and Brad had just joined them after spending most of the evening somewhere deep in the bowels of the hospital.
Peter started to protest before his Dad interrupted him. "He's right, Peter. There's nothing that any of us can do right now so it wouldn't help to have more than me here. And I'm not even sure how much good that I'm doing, frankly." he said as he rubbed his eyes with his hand, exhausted himself.
As focused as Brad was on his partner in the hospital bed, he couldn't help but feel Marty's own struggle in getting Peter to take care of himself, too. After all, he'd spend the past decades trying to do the same for Mike.
"I feel like we can at least be here for you, Dad. I mean I know that you'd at least like the company."
"I definitely would, but I'm not planning on being here all night myself either. I'll stick around for another hour or so, but, you know, the docs always kick me out eventually. And your Pop as already reamed me out for staying all night. He himself knows that there's nothing anyone can do so he's always insisted that I leave after I give them his insurance card," he said with a half smile.
"He's always had kind of a practical side like that, I have to say," he continued, looking beyond them at the window to the parking lot beyond. The almost industrial-type security lighting cast an eerie bluish tint over the few cars that were there.
"I think I agree with that, especially as late as it is right now," Marty said before turning to Peter. "I'd feel a lot better if you went home, Pete. I could stay with Dad if you promise me you'll go home."
"Why don't you all go home and I'll stay with Uncle Brad? You all did the heavy lifting and have all been here longer than I have," Kurt suggested.
"But he'll try to stay here all night, Kurt, you know him." Peter protested,
Then he looked at his Dad. "You won't' come back home. Not until they drag you out of here."
His Dad smiled back at him. Years ago, he'd always tried stayed all night or all day with Mike, wherever he was, until he woke up, And that was usually about a day later. But after hearing from a nurse about Brad's all-nighters in the lounge or the vending machine room Mike knew he had to do something.
He hadn't actually 'reamed him out,' as Brad humorously remembered it. He was probably not even capable of that. But he was clear and direct in telling him that his time would be much better spent going home and taking care of the kids. The grandparents were there for much of the time, or course, but Mike always felt is was the most convincing argument that would get him home getting some rest himself.
Because of Mike's protests, and the fact that it had been a long time since he hurt himself enough to get a trip to the ER, it had been a while since it got extreme enough for this kind of `professional' intervention from the family.
But Brad did have his vengeance, of a sort. Whenever Mike had a seizure where he didn't appear to injure himself and Brad could actually keep him at home, he would make sure that someone was always in the room with him when he woke up. It was sort of a vigil by shifts.
"OK, I'll tell you what. Let me talk to the doctor or nurse first. Then I'll go back with you guys. After all you've got the car," he replied.
"That should work well. If the doc says OK, then I'll drive you both back home," Marty said.
"But we're coming back first thing tomorrow, right?" Peter asked.
"But weren't you guys heading back tomorrow?" his Dad replied.
"I don't think that that's what Peter has in mind right now, if I dare say," Angie interjected.
Peter looked at her and gave weak smirk. "We'll stay until we're sure that everything is OK. School doesn't actually start until next Tuesday, so we can always go back on Monday. It's a long drive, but we can do it in a day if we need to." then he caught himself and looked at Marty.
"Will that be..?"
"Of course!" Marty answered, not needing Peter to even finish the question. "We'll just get ourselves prepared. Luckily, Kurt is taking Angie back later next week, so we don't need to make that detour to Connecticut. We'll just do what we need to do here."
"I can stay a couple more days too, even if Kurt takes me," she added, then looked over at him. "We both drive pretty fast anyway."
"The way Kurt drives, you'll probably beat us there," Peter replied, showing his biggest smile of the night..
After the push-pull of decision making at the hospital, the guys finally made it back home and into bed only a few minutes before 3 a.m. Even though it was the middle of the night, the dogs met them at the door and followed the pair upstairs while Angie and Brad retired to the main wing of the house. Kurt had texted them that he had made it home OK, too, so they were finally ready to settle in.
Having pulled the cover up over both of them, Marty had expected Peter to rest his head on his shoulder and conk out, as he often did at night after a difficult day. But instead, he had propped a pillow up behind himself so the he could sit up straight in the bed.
He clearly wasn't anticipating sleep, at least not for the moment.
"Hey, don't you need to get your head down, bud?" Marty asked. He always asked nicely the first time. "You probably need to take out your hearing aid, too."
Peter reached his hand underneath he blanked and stroked Marty's leg but didn't say anything at first.
There was a certain anxiety that Marty felt in his touch, not the usual relaxation that he had come to expect with these encounters. He was about to remark on it when Peter finally spoke.
"With all this stuff happening with my Pop and all, there's something that I wanted to ask you about." he said, looking at Marty before withdrawing his hand and staring down at the end of the bed, where he could see Reese's tail wagging.
It was an unusual request from Peter. In fact. unheard of in Marty's experience. For a nanosecond, he panicked, but then just slid himself closer to Peter. "Sure go ahead. Are you OK and all," he asked, just a hint of tension in his own voice.
Peter picked up on the anxiety immediately, and reached his hand back underneath the covers. "It's nothing bad, don't worry, he said as he squeezed Marty's thigh. "But it is kind of big. I'm not sure what you'll think, but I should tell you first that I can do anything or go anywhere, OK?"
"OK," Marty responded immediately, his tension only slightly diminished. "But tell me what's on your mind."
There was another pause. "Well," he finally answered, "I've been thinking about this for a while, but didn't quite know how to ask it. But with this happening to my pop again, I think I'd better ask you."
"...OK...go ahead."
"I was wondering if...well, I guess I'd better be direct, so here goes... I was wondering if we could actually come back here after we graduate. This episode with pop reminds me of how much I kind of want to be here for him, and really both of them, as they get older. I know that Bik wants to come back, and I think that Robert does too. And I'd like to be here with them also, and for my Dad's." he said, the words coming at a pace that was faster than usual.
"I know it's not home for you, it's home for me, and it would be a lot to ask. But I really feel like you're so much a part of this family already that everyone would love to have you here."
He continued his pace, still faster than usual, especially for how late it was. "I know that you're not close with your own family, but you still have one. And you might want the same thing for them that I want for my Dad's. You would want to be there for them when they need you." he swallowed and took a deep breath.
"If you have other ideas, or maybe need to think about it, that's cool. I just wanted to ask, give you some time to think about it if you would even consider it."
There was quiet for a few moments and now Peter himself was the nervous one. Marty didn't move, but at least he didn't move away, Peter thought, trying to encourage himself.
"Is there anything else you wanted to say?" he asked, wanting to make sure that Peter was done and had said all that he needed to say.
"I think so. Sorry I kind of sprang this on you and all, especially as it's so late. Like I said, I'll go anywhere that you'd like to go. We can decide together. But I did want to at least ask you."
"Gosh, I'm so glad you asked," he said, his head suddenly plopped back on the pillow, almost like he was relieved more than Peter.
"You've been waiting for me to ask this?"
He paused before answering. "Not exactly that, but..."
"But what?"
Marty drew a deep breath, his own eyes now directed toward the ceiling. "You know, we've really coasted along these last few months, for most of a year, after we really started going together. It's been so great. It's almost like our relationship is so natural that we really haven't ever had to talk about stuff like this. It's just always been assumed. And I really, really like that. Like I said, it's been great...so great..." he said trailing off, before catching himself and continuing.
"But the fact that you now ask me if I'll come back here and live with you. It sounds...wonderful. Not just the fact of being in this place, but being here with you. To know that we'll have this home and all and be together, it's just... what I've always wanted."
Peter slid right next to him. "Should I have asked sooner?"
"No, no, it's not that. It's not even this exact question really. It's just the thought that we we're going to drive a stake in the ground and say, "here we are. Together."
Peter bumped his elbow into Marty's side. "You're OK with not going back home?"
The answer came immediately. "Home is where you are, Peter. I've know that since we got together. It's just you and Angie that I build my life around. I'm sure you've noticed that she and I talk to our Mom maybe every couple weeks, and hardly at all to the other relatives who helped raise us. Those aunts and uncles have done their duty, but we were never much more to them than that, just duties, obligations. And Mom. as I've probably said too many times, she's got another life now. She cares about us and all, but she has so much...well, baggage, worries, memories. All sorts of stuff that I'm not sure any of us can help her with. And now, at least she's with a guy who at least seems to be a good provider, so I don't worry about her like I once did."
"Did you worry about her before?"
He shook his head in the affirmative. "I still do sometimes, and I won't abandon her. But I think even in her own mind that her life has moved on. I wouldn't call it negligence on her part as much as it's some kind of defense mechanism. We're like some people who are the symbols of better times, or something she lost and she can't face that loss. I don't think that she blames us or anything like that. But for whatever reasons, can't deal with it. So we're OK being separated. It works."
He paused and pulled the covers up further over both of them. "So we all move on... I guess..."
Peter quietly rolled over and kissed him on the forehead, then when rolled back to his own place in the bed as they lay motionless next to each other.
Suddenly, Marty turned roughly on his side to face Peter. The whole bed shook, and even the dogs peered over the edge of the bed to see what was happening.
He propped himself up with his elbow and looked at Peter. "So...does moving here mean this particular house, or would you like to get another place close by?"
Peter smiled. "Um...I think you're anticipating the next part of the question. To be honest, I'd love to live here, but that would be something I'd have to ask my Dads, and even talk to Bik and Robert about. I know that they both want to come back, too, so maybe they have similar plans, I'm not sure. But...yeah, I'd like to live here, or at least be close if someone else is here. After all, this has always been a multi-generational house to our family."
"I kind of like our little nook up here, maybe we could be here again?" Marty asked, looking around the room and then out at the glowing aquarium.
"Well, that kind of leads to the next question, you know..."
"And that is...Kids?"
"Yeah. How'd you guess?"
Marty leaned back and collapsed back on his pillow. "Kids," he repeated to himself as he gazed at the ceiling. There were four recessed lights in the ceiling, but the guys were using the lamps on the nightstand so they were now just dark holes. He noticed how they were perfectly symmetric on the ceiling, equally distant from the four walls.
Reached over with his hand and rubbed Marty's leg again. "You OK? Too much information right now?"
Without a word, Marty silently rolled over until he was on top of Peter, putting a hand above each of his shoulders to support himself as his legs also straddled the bed. Peter reached up and slowly stroked the powerful arms that were like columns standing on either side of him.
"Are you OK?" he asked, looking at his face as he stroked each arm up and down, his fingers reaching underneath the sleeves of the t-shirt to tease the tensed muscles on the upper arms. "I know that I'm dumping a lot on you right now. We've talked about some of this before, but not...kind of all at once. And I know it's late and all."
"Yeah, I'm good. Real good. I really like talking about that last part, the kids. I mean I like everything we've been talking about now, but that one...I..."
"We've talked about it before, you know, that I would be a house husband and all," Peter replied.
"I know, but I guess all of it together, thinking of this place being here and all. It just seems so...real."
"Well, it is. Or it will be. We've got some logistics to do, of course."
"We do, that's for sure," Marty replied with a laugh.
Peter reached over and pushed Marty's blond hair up and back, fully exposing his forehead as he ran his fingers through it. "You are so great with kids. Bik and Laura think that you walk on water. You can get Chessy to actually sleep when no one else could do it. Not even her parents."
"Maybe, I think that's mostly good timing, after they've already worn her out."
"Well, that's possible," Peter replied, continuing to stroke the hair, "but I think it happened too many times to be just a chance occurrence. You really do have a connection with them."
"I do like them both, that's for sure. But who wouldn't, they're so cute and all."
"Believe it or not, lots of people. Some people, for whatever reason don't like kids or can't make any connection, at least that's what my Pop says. But you do. I think you've got something special that they respond to. I saw it."
"I think we'll have plenty of chances to test that out in the next few years. But for right now whatever I can do, I do really want to try for our own."
"Me , too," Peter said as he pulled his face down and kissed him gently. "Me too!"
*** "Hey...um... could one of you guys give me a hand here?"
Marty, who was the closest, was immediately at his side, sliding his arm under Mike's as he attempted to get up the stairs. He had only returned from the hospital moments before after spending the night there and finally waking up from his seizure.
"I've got you, Pop, don't worry. And you don't need to go fast, just take your time," Marty said. He was trying to sound so calm he practically whispered it.
Peter reached over and hit the switch to light the stairs, as it was already getting dark outside. With the fancy wall fixtures and the soft glow of the recessed lights illuminating the way, it was a lot homier than the harsh commercial lighting in the hospital.
There was only enough room on the stairs for two people side-by-side, so Peter placed himself behind his pop as the threesome went up the stairs together. To keep his grip sure, he wrapped his fingers around his pop's belt, something he'd learned from his Dad years before.
It wasn't for lack of strength that he needed help, but mostly for balance. In fact, he was able to go up at almost ¾ speed, not bad considering that he was only recently asleep for practically a whole day.
But he did pause at the top of the stairs to rest himself against Marty and his son, who was now on the other side of him.
"You Ok Pop?" Peter asked, his right hand again wrapped in his pop's belt, just from a different angle now.
"Yeah, I'm OK, just need to hold here for a minute, get my bearings," he said. Peter could feel him wavering a bit, but he seemed to be able to keep himself standing.
"Can we hit the bathroom first, guys?" he asked.
"Of course. Let us know when you're ready. Just take your time though, like I said, no hurry," Marty answered.
"You guys better get to school pretty soon. Don't classes start in just a couple days?" Mike said as he stood between the two of them, relying on their strenght to hold him steady.
"Yeah, they do. But we can make it up there in a day, and don't need a lot of time to get ready. Besides, neither of us has a big schedule that day, anyway."
Mike gave a half smile and laughed silently to himself. He thought that they were probably lying, but didn't have the strength to challenge them, at least right now.
"You all can let go of me, but if you just...walk next to me, maybe, I'll be fine."
"OK, Pop. But one of us needs hold on to you when you pee. Sorry, Dad's orders."
Mike chuckled again, this time out loud. "I kind of knew he'd say that to you."
"Do you want us to wait for him to be up here," Marty asked, not sure how comfortable Peter's dad would be with him there.
"No, I trust you guys. Either one of you is fine."
Peter glanced at Marty. "Can you take him, Mart? I'll get his room ready.
"Sure, I'd be glad to. You can let go now, I can take it from here."
Peter followed them down the hall and into his parent's room, where Marty escorted Mike into the bathroom where only the night before he had passed out.
As Peter pulled the covers up on the bed he could hear the steady stream of his pop's urinating, even though it was from the room. There were only occasional interruptions of "no worries, I've got you, take your time..." from Marty to interrupt the continuous sound. Even though he had done the same thing at the hospital, he always had a lot stored up after these episodes and would have to go to the bathroom multiple times to get himself reasonably comfortable.
"Thanks, Marty. I know that wasn't in the job description, but I really appreciate it," Mike said as they left the bathroom.
"No worries, Pop. I'm glad to help."
Mike paused for moment before he crawled into bed. He looked at his son, who was waiting at the foot of the bed, having just pulled back the covers, and back at Marty.
He had no doubt that he meant his words.