One Hundred and Fifty Five Miles

Dana's Mom arrived Tuesday, we sat in the room and talked. I told her I had no idea at all what Dana was doing out there instead of being in Denver at her sales group meeting. She didn't know, either.

I had called her office, explained. I got the usual "really sorry to hear about that" and they did tell me that her job would be waiting for her when she recovered.

I didn't mention that I did not think that was going to happen.

When I asked about the meeting in Denver, I got a confusing response. They told me it wasn't scheduled for another five months.

By then I knew already that Dana had lied to me about the meeting, now I knew she had lied to me about everything she had planned for the several days she said she would be gone. I just did not understand that, if she had wanted to go visit with Sally, all she had to do was say so?

One day bled into the next, the waiting seemed to go on and on. Finally I had to go back to work, I had used up all of my leave, and we had bills, kids to feed.

The rest of the trappings of life goes on, Dana lay there wrapped like a mummy, in a coma, unresponsive. My Corvette began to rack up the miles, one hundred and fifty five of them each way, three to four times every week.

I began to have dreams of the sounds of the machines in her hospital room, finding myself waking up with a start.

I had called Jack Bittler, about a month after the accident. We had a short visit, I asked him if he knew what the women had been doing.

He told me he had no idea, he had not even known that Dana was up there. Sally had told him she was going shopping, they found her car parked in a lot a few miles South. Then Dana and Sally got into the rental car that Dana had.

He mentioned that the police investigators said Dana had been driving, he began to sound bitter and almost accusing, so I said my goodbyes, wished him the best and hung up.

I knew about the rental car also, I had to deal with that. Dana had purchased full added insurance, so it wasn't much of a problem. Just paperwork to sign.

I did drive out to the storage lot to look at the simple white Impala she had rented. I saw no way that anyone could possibly live through that, it was nearly totally destroyed. There was no passenger side of the vehicle left at all, even the driver's side had only a tiny space left, it didn't appear that even Dana's small body could possibly have fit in there.

I saw the dried blood still there on the remains of the machine, I just stood there and weeped.

Why were they in the rental Dana had when Sally had a car of her own? Why drive South, park the one car and take the other? Where could they possibly have been going? Nothing made even the slightest bit of sense.

It boiled down to Dana almost had to be having an affair, if so, then Sally was also involved.

And if so, then with who? And where?

Dana having an affair was not something I could even begin to understand, or accept. But what other possible answer was there? Especially since when I had been given her things at the hospital, I found her wedding rings inside a side pocket of her change purse.

Dana never took her rings off to my knowledge, not even in the shower.

It had to have been an affair, and I had no way to find out. A complete search of her purse came up with nothing at all, except in the bottom of her purse was a small black case, inside it was a canister of mace.

What in the world was Dana doing with a can of mace in her purse?

I did something I had never done before, I went through every single drawer in the house, came up with nothing.

I read her emails, looking for some clue. That was easy, I knew her password, it was DanaMikeMS, just our names and our kid's initials. I found nothing at all that was not perfectly normal. I checked every single place I could think of in the house, even in the bottom of her underwear drawer.

I also went over the telephone records for the last several months, trying to find phone numbers that sounded unfamiliar. There were a few, I called them. One was her Doctor's office, one was a spa she went to once in awhile to get her hair and nails done, sometimes a massage. The rest were all just perfectly normal.

There was nothing, nothing at all.

+++

Two more long difficult months went by, then I got a call from the hospital, Dana had come out of the coma. She was sitting up when I got there, some of the bandages had been removed.

It was another shock when I saw her.

She was awake, but appeared to be totally confused. There was a mass of scars on her face, angry and red, and several rows of very ugly ones where the stitches had been removed.

She now looked nothing at all like my Dana. The only part I thought I recognized were her brown eyes, and I could see just one of them. Even that did not look quite right, dull and lifeless, like she was trying to focus.

But I knew that she was probably still fairly heavily sedated, passed that off as just medication.

Her hair was beginning to grow back in, she had what looked to be less than a half inch of growth.

She looked at me with the one eye I could see, the expression was completely blank. Her mother sat there, her hands in her lap, her eyes damp.

"Dana can't remember anything! She doesn't know me, she doesn't even look like my little girl!" She said to me.

I looked at Dana, she looked back at me.

"How are you doing, honey?" I asked her.

"Who are you?" She asked. The words were slurred, difficult to understand.

"I'm Mike, I am your husband." She just stared at me oddly.

The whole morning went just like that, I showed her photos of our kids, got a blank look.

Later, I spoke with one of the Doctors.

"We simply don't know, it could be permanent, or of short term. Maybe partial or even complete amnesia. There are so many things about the human mind we just do not understand."

"What about her face, she is so badly disfigured that.....?"

"We can fix that, make her look just like she did before. You have very good insurance, so it can all be taken care of. But the memory, she may never recover from that. She is going to recover from the injuries, although it's a surprise to us that she is even still alive."

It was another full six months before Dana was released to come home. There was one therapy session after another, she had to relearn to walk, she had to relearn nearly everything, even proper speech.

By then the kids had visited several times, seeing her like that was a trauma in itself but I knew they would need to adjust.

Little Sally Ann had thrown a fit that first time and refused to go to Dana, Mark just climbed onto the side of the bed and hugged her.

"That's not Mommy!" Sally Ann had screamed, her head thrown back and eyes full of tears. I had never seen our little girl throw a complete tantrum like that before. Her initial excitement at seeing her mommy after so long vanished in an instant.

Dana's Mother took her outside into the hallway, it was obvious to me that the scars and everything were scaring her.

Plus once again Dana's face was bandaged, they had begun the plastic surgery process. I knew there would be many trips back and forth to the hospital, they had told me it could take as much as two to three years to restore her to the way she had looked before.

Even then, only if all went well. By now she was getting small red bumps that would fester up, tiny pieces of glass. Those were like little pimples, they completely changed what had been an almost flawless complexion before. Several times I watched as a nurse used what appeared to be a tiny vaccum, carefully working it over the skin on her face. They had to remove all of the tiny bits of glass before they could continue with the repairs on her face.

I knew that was uncomfortable for Dana, but she sat there and endured it without protest. After, we would sit and talk, I kept telling her about incidents in our lives, she listened carefully.

One day I leaned down and kissed her like I always did, just before I left to go home.

"I am ugly now, aren't I honey?" She asked me. It was the first time since the accident that she called me honey.

"You are beautiful!" I told her.

"Are you going to still love me...like this?"

"I will always love you, no matter what." I kissed her again.

"I love you, Mike." She said, giving me what passed as a smile.

"When the surgery is all complete, you will be just like you were before." I told her. She clutched at my hand for a long time that evening, almost like it was her lifeline to hope.

+++

I drove carefully all the way the day she was allowed to come home. The rental car I had gotten was huge, the biggest one they had. I wanted her to feel as safe as possible when she got into a vehicle for the first time after the crash.

I kept hoping that Dana would recognize something, but she showed no sign of that at all. She still wore the one large eye patch, she had lost most of the vision in that eye and trying to see through both eyes confused her. The bandages on the right side of her face covered her nose and mouth, with just a small opening to breathe through.

The Doctors had told us they could probably fix her eye with a lens replacement and some laser surgery.

Nikki was there to greet us, everything neat as a pin like always. She took the kids in and fed them, then they went out back to play.

Kids, they have such a wonderful ability to adjust, bounce back.

Dana looked around, total confusion on her face. She had come to accept me and the kids, but still remembered nothing. I held her hand as we walked inside the house.

It felt odd, slender, she had lost so much weight that she was very thin. I kept looking over at Dana.

I had been watching her closely, hoping for some sign.

Nikki came out, she helped Dana to a chair, she was still very weak and acting confused.

"Thank you." She told Nikki as she sat down.

Nikki looked at Dana very closely, then at me strangely. She tilted her head towards the kitchen. I followed her in.

"That's not Dana." She said flatly.

I looked at her, I wasn't surprised. It had also begun to register on me. I had seen her mostly bandaged, then even with the bandages off her face was slashed and scarred from the broken glass. One cheek was puffed up to nearly twice normal size.

"I have been beginning to wonder, but the police, the hospital all insisted. I am sure it is her."

I suddenly felt completely unsure of anything.

Then once again I tried to convince myself I was wrong, Dana now looked so totally different that I couldn't be sure. She had lost at least twenty pounds, her face was so badly disfigured that it was impossible to know by looking.

I had held her hand many times at the hospital, that by itself should have been enough. When I slipped her wedding rings onto her finger, they were loose, I passed that off to the weight loss.

Denial. It can take over the mind, even knowing the truth deep down, the denial sets in and takes over. I wanted it to be Dana, desperately, but deep inside my mind I think I always knew.

There was just one way to be completely sure.

"When you bathe her this evening, let me know? I need to....see her."

Nikki nodded. She understood perfectly.

After dinner, Nikki cleaned up, then she helped Dana into the bathroom. She still had a terrible limp, one arm was also very weak. I waited and then walked in.

She stood there facing away from me, Nikki was helping her out of her dress. The one she had on unbuttoned up the front. She wore no bra, the straps lay over sensitive scar tissue on her shoulder and hurt her. Nikki slid the dress off her shoulders, that was the moment I was completely sure.

Dana had very large and dark nipples, and even though she and Sally Bittler were very nearly the same size and shape, the woman standing there had smallish pink and soft looking nipples, slightly rounded and puffy.

I made it into the living room, managing to sit down. I had been holding my breath.

My Dana was dead, I knew it now for sure.

That was when the tears came, they poured from me in a torrent.

Dana was dead, I had cared for and worried about another man's wife for nearly a year. The Doctors had already begun the process of restoring her face. I had carefully gathered up every single photograph I could find. They had used a computer, demonstrating how she would look when all of the work was finally complete.

I had accepted all of that, it meant I would have my wife, my life back.

Our two children, Mark and Sally Ann had come to accept that this woman was their Mother. I knew that Jack Bittler had buried my wife, I was there at the funeral even though Jack and I really didn't talk except to acknowledge each other.

Jack Bittler had met another woman, they were engaged to be married. Life had moved on.

Nikki came out of the master bedroom, sat down next to me. She had a box of tissues with her, handed me one.

"What are you going to do now?" She asked simply.

"I don't know."

"I put her to bed, she is sleeping now."

"All right, thank you."

Nikki had long since put the kids to bed, she got up and said good night, giving me another concerned look.

I spent that night right there in my chair, thinking. I may have dozed fitfully, I am not sure.

The next morning, Nikki came out to find me still sitting there. She sat down next to me again.

"Can you keep a secret?" I asked her.

"Yes." She looked at me, then she smiled. Once again, she understood completely, there was no need to say the words.

Dana was home.

"I will go make some breakfast." She got up and went into the kitchen.

I walked into the master bedroom, Dana was awake and looking at me.

"Good morning, honey." I said.

"Morning." She smiled, at least what I could see passed for a smile.

+++

Four years later, I sat at the kitchen table. Dana sat there also, taking a bite of the eggs Nikki made for her, scrambled. I know that Dana had always liked her eggs sunny side up.

A tiny change, one of many. A person adjusts, some things become normal.

A lot of things have changed. The first time we made love, Dana was eager, it had been such a very long time for both of us. I did not press for that at all, she came to me instead, wanting.

It was different but the same, if that makes any sense at all. We became one once again, this woman now looked exactly like she was supposed to.

She felt completely different, but only for a short time. Then it was like the accident had never happened, Dana became my wife once again, normal.

I know that I allowed that to happen. For Dana, she now thought it was her life and always had been.

+++

"Mike, honey? Can we go talk? Privately?" Dana stood up after breakfast that morning. The expression on her face was different, concerned, I could tell her mind was busy about something.

Nikki overheard, she left and went into her own room, closed the door softly.

"It was my fault." Dana blurted out the moment we sat down in the living room.

"What was your?...OH! Do you remember some of it?"

"Yes. I'm not Dana, I am Sally." She had tears in the corner of her eyes.

"I know. But you are Dana now. You are my wife."

She began to cry. I reached out and held her hands.

"What do you think was your fault, honey?" I asked.

"The accident. I realized I had forgotten my phone, I slammed on the brakes and then just turned. I didn't see anyone coming until we hit."

I just nodded, I realized my new life was now probably going to come apart again.

"I killed Dana!" She was seriously weeping now.

"It was an accident." I told her. I reached out and gathered her into my arms, she came willingly.

"Oh, Mike! I love you so much!" She cried.

"I love you too, Dana." I told her.

"Can we? Please? I can't go back to....Jack. I love you, I love our kids!"

"Yes. It's now been years, there is no way back." We sat there and held each other for a very long time.

+++

The brain is a fantastic thing, the body has a way of healing itself. Dana told me that tiny things brought little flashes of memories. Each time she got a piece of it, she told me about it.

When we did talk, it was like a story of something that had happened to someone else.

Then one day it must have really poured in, she once again wanted to sit down and talk.

"She... Dana...called me a couple of days before she drove up. There was a terrible problem." She looked at me sadly.

"I have to tell you this, it's not fair to you not to know."

"Tell me what, honey?"

"A few years back, she was at one of those meetings. She ran into that Harmon White there. He was her first, you know, way back. She was barely 18, she said it just happened."

"I didn't know that."

"That day..when you were there, that was what the fight was about, she wouldn't let him...do it any more."

"I never knew that, either."

"I didn't think so. Anyway, he was, she told me. But it got worse, they talked and that night she went...to bed with him again."

I nodded, I had known it had to be something like that.

"Then Dana found out she was pregnant with Sally Ann, and she thought it was Harmon's."

"I see." I felt a cold chill run down my spine.

"He got in touch with her later, demanded she come to town, he wanted her again. He told her he would tell you if she didn't. She didn't want to, and knew she couldn't tell you. So she came to me."

I didn't say anything. Once again my heart was being ripped out of my chest.

"Dana didn't want to, she said it was a terrible mistake. That was where we were going that morning, to see Harmon. To convince him, one way or another, to leave her alone."

Now I knew what the mace was for.

"How did you end up driving?" I asked her.

"Dana started to, but she was terribly upset and crying. She was lying to you and terrified you would find out and leave her. I made her stop and we changed seats. Her purse was tucked in the driver's side, mine was on her side. That had to be why they thought...?"

But that didn't explain her rings. Why would she remove her rings?

"She took off her rings, why?" I asked.

"I told her to, with that guy things might have gotten violent. We figured with the two of us we could handle him, I had one of those stun guns, too."

"Stun gun? Where did that go, I never saw....?"

"I don't know, maybe one of the rescue workers or something like that? I know she also had two thousand dollars, she wanted to try and bribe Harmon. They never found that, either. But I really don't remember very much about that part."

"You were out cold, almost dead." I looked at her tearful face, reached out and took her in my arms.

She held me tightly, like she was frightened to let me go.

"Dana and I weren't thinking very clearly, were we?"

"No. If she had talked to me, I would have been hurt but...I don't know, I think we might have worked that out."

"What are we going to do?" She asked, finally.

"I want you to stay right here.....You ARE Dana! I really do mean that."

She sobbed, held me even tighter.

+++

Dana is home all the time now, she is healthy again. She is beautiful, there is almost no sign left of the accident except for a slight limp and a tiny trace of stiffness in the corner of her mouth.

There was just one thing I had to do after she told me about my wife's affair, and I did it.

I remember the morning the brown envelope came in the mail, I opened it with shaking hands.

"The probability of paternity is 99.9%" The first line read.

I grinned broadly when I read that.

"Hey, Dana!" I called out. She came out of the kitchen, looked at me.

"Sally Ann? She is all ours, 100%!" I smiled, waving the papers. Dana beamed and came over to hug me.

+++

Sometimes I lie in bed, thinking. Was what Dana and I did right? I don't know the answer to that, except for the fact that I do know I and my family are happy.