Chapter 5

Charlie was wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair. As with a lot of patients, she had argued that it wasn’t necessary, except that it was. Her prosthetic was packed away in her luggage, which Betsy was carrying. Either the infection had been a little more aggressive than she had thought, or she had really been a lot more tired than she had felt. She was so weak that she was afraid that she might not be able to use the crutches she’d been given.

Once they were outside, Betsy handed the suitcase to Gary. He put it in the trunk of Betsy’s Oahu Island car while Betsy picked up Charlie and put her in the backseat.

Stacy came out pushing a cart loaded with the stuff Betsy had sent Charlie ... in the five hours between the time when the gift shop had opened, and her release from the hospital. Fortunately, the flowers had been left with the nurses. That left the stuffed animals, the food baskets, and the balloons to be removed. Stacy hoped she had gotten everything.

“Hello, Charlie,” Wheels said.

Happy to see a friendly face, Charlie said, “Hi, Wheels!”

Wheels said, “We’ll be at the airport before you know it.”

“I can’t wait to get home.”

“You’re staying at Betsy’s until she decides you’re healthy enough to be on your own,” Wheels said.

“That’s right,” Betsy said while poking her head in the car.

“Oh, joy,” Charlie said.

“You look horrible,” Wheels said with a grin.

Charlie said, “I know.”

Betsy said, “She looks like you did when you were on my boat.”

“Don’t mention that,” Wheels said, turning pale at just the memory.

Charlie laughed. Sam and Wheels were suspiciously touchy about that little adventure although several stories had made the rounds. Neither woman would step foot on the Bloated Shark for love nor money.

Stacy asked, “Is that everything you ordered?”

“Except for the bracelet.”

Holding up her wrist, Charlie said, “I’m wearing it.”

“Then let’s close up and head home,” Betsy said cheerfully.

Everyone got into the car. Wheels pulled out of the parking lot, sliding into a space between two cars that looked way too small for a car of their size. With a quick jerk of the wheel, she was in the next lane and passing cars. Her total confidence in controlling the vehicle was not shared by everyone. Gary was hanging onto his seat for dear life.

Stacy said, “So it wasn’t your prosthetic that was the problem?”

“It was a blood circulation problem. It caused a little swelling, and that rubbed against the prosthetic.”

“Did they fix it?” Stacy asked.

“They said it should be better, but I’ll have to come back and have it checked.”

Betsy said, “They also said that if you had gone to a hospital three days ago, that you’d have been out in two hours and would not have had a problem with infection.”

“I know,” Charlie said.

Betsy said, “We’ll get you home and into bed. Alice, Sam, Wheels, Stacy, and Gary will keep you company. I know that none of them are George, but they’ll have to do.”

“I know,” Charlie said with a sigh.

George had been sent to rejoin his unit in Pakistan, right after Betsy had left for her conference. Charlie hadn’t heard from him since he had left, and that worried her. She knew the fighting over there was pretty intense. Even the news was covering some of the engagements.

Now the United Nations forces were dealing with the most battle hardened Mujahedin remaining at large, along with some former members of the Pakistan military. The rebel forces had air cover, high-tech weapons, satellite communications, and a supporting infrastructure for essential supplies like food and medicine. More importantly, they had an extensive intelligence operation embedded within the Pakistani military, and the civilians.

The United Nations commanders in charge of these operations appeared to take great delight in dropping the American forces right into the hottest spots. The American forces had a greater number of engagements with the enemy, than all other European forces combined. The troops were not pleased with that.

Stacy said, “I’m sure he’s okay.”

She wasn’t going to mention that Alice was very worried about what was going on in Pakistan. She now had two sons stationed there. The Colonel in command of her older son’s unit was up on charges of violating a direct order. He had sent her son’s unit into an engagement in support of another group of Marines who were engaged in a firefight. He did so despite having been ordered not to do so. The relief force of Marines had kicked ass.

Unfortunately, a group of civilians, individuals who were not wearing uniforms, had been delivering food to the enemy (food that had UN markings on it) when the Marines launched a four hour long mortar attack. By the time the dust cleared, there were a lot of dead and dying people there. Although none of the civilians were UN personnel, the fact was that they were ‘civilians’, and soldiers weren’t supposed to shoot at civilians. There were rumors that her son might be one of the men charged.

Betsy said, “We set up a television in your room.”

“That’s nice.”

“You don’t have cable, but we did buy a bunch of movies from the video store for you to watch,” Betsy said winking at Stacy.

Stacy snickered and said, “Some of the movies have even been rented once.”

“Don’t tell me you got B-grade science fiction movies,” Charlie said horrified at the prospect of watching low budget sci-fi films.

Betsy said, “No! There are some people who actually like those. We really searched hard to select the bottom of the barrel.”

“I started to watch an Indian Musical. The blood was actually pouring from my ears,” Gary said.

“An Indian Musical?” Charlie asked, terrified at the prospect.

“Don’t forget the bad spoofs of the bad Kung Fu movies,” Wheels said.

“Oh! Those are horrible,” Charlie said.

“We found one of the movies where Wheels drove in a car chase scene,” Betsy said.

“You didn’t,” Wheels said.

Gary said, “It was titled, ‘Wheel’s Lost Weekend.’”

“That was one of my best movies,” Wheels said, laughing.

Charlie thought about it for a few seconds, then she said, “Wait a minute. There’s something wrong here. When did you have time to go to a video store?”

Everyone cracked up laughing.

“Okay, you got me,” Charlie said.

Wheels pulled the car into the parking spot reserved for it at the hangar.

She said, “We’re here.”

“I don’t want to be carried to the plane,” Charlie said.

“They have a wheelchair here. We’ll wheel you over. They have a special lift to get you to door level,” Wheels said.

It took a few minutes but everything and everyone, including Charlie, was soon loaded into the plane. This was an executive turboprop plane, with ten seats, rather than the jet. The runway currently available for their use on the other island was just too short for the jet. The jet was also more expensive to operate for such short flights. Before they took off, Gary checked on the pilot to make sure it was someone on whom they had done a background check.

Once they were in the air, Charlie looked out the window. The sandy beach, the blue water, and the gray human constructs along the beach provided an amazing contrast. She could see the waves breaking along the shore. At times it was hard to believe that she lived here.

She said, “This is truly a beautiful place.”

“It sure is,” Stacy said, thinking about how far she and her brother had come.

“It’s a lot different from where we grew up, isn’t it?” Gary said unaware that his thoughts were in sync with Stacy’s thoughts.

“You can say that again,” Stacy said.

She and Gary had grown up in a small house, on the wrong side of the tracks; in a town that was, itself, on the wrong side of the tracks ... even for a dirt poor region of Florida. Their home town had produced criminals, police, soldiers, and priests. It was sad, but most of the people ended up being criminals. She knew every state had a district that produced hard tough people, but she felt that they had it rougher than most.

It was kind of strange to think that they now lived in a part of the world that most people viewed as a luxury vacation spot. There was a time when anyone who thought of Hawaii, cast it as a tropical paradise where only the rich and famous lived. No one who had known them as kids, would ever believe that they lived here.

Although she hadn’t thought about them in years, she wondered what happened to the kids she had known growing up. She was pretty sure that most of them were in jail. The thought kind of depressed her.

Everyone quieted down and watched out the windows of the plane. They were all lost in their thoughts. Even Betsy was thinking about the differences between Hawaii and Arizona. The only thing they had in common was sand. There was sand on the beach in Hawaii, and the sand was everywhere in Arizona. They got more rain in a week in Hawaii than they got in an entire decade, where her parents lived. The weird thing was that she appreciated both places.

It wasn’t a long flight from one island to the next. They landed, unloaded, and headed towards home. Charlie was definitely showing signs of being tired. The easy teasing banter that had been present on the drive to the airport had disappeared under the stress of traveling. Charlie realized that she had been in worse condition than she had thought.

When they arrived, Alice and Sam were outside waiting to greet them. It had been very quiet around the large house with Betsy, Charlie, and Stacy gone for so long. They were looking forward to hearing all of the details concerning Betsy’s adventures in Canada.

Betsy carried Charlie into the house, ignoring her feeble protests, and laid her on the bed in the largest guest room. There were more than enough pillows on the bed to allow her to sit up comfortably. Unfortunately, in her current state there weren’t enough pillows in the world to make her comfortable.

Charlie said, “Give me my crutches.”

“You’re sick. You’re staying in bed.”

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom!”

Betsy looked surprised at that. She hadn’t given any thought to that particular issue. She grabbed the crutches and handed them to Charlie. Charlie managed to get into the bathroom. Alice came in a couple of minutes after the bathroom door had closed.

“Where’s Charlie?” Alice asked expecting to find her on the bed.

Betsy adopted a worried expression and answered, “I think the pillows swallowed her whole.”

“What?”

Betsy shifted a pillow around as if looking for something underneath it. Unfortunately, the sound of the toilet flushing cleared up the mystery as to Charlie’s whereabouts.

“I’m going to get you for that,” Alice said.

Charlie made it back into the bed. Almost pushing Betsy out of the way, Alice spent a minute helping to arrange the pillows so that Charlie would be comfortable. Once Charlie was settled, Alice set up a bed table tray.

“What’s that for?”

“I made your favorite cookies. I thought you might enjoy a little milk and cookies after your long trip,” Alice said.

“That would be heavenly,” Charlie said.

Betsy asked, “Can I have some?”