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Next Edit!

Once again I've been busy editing my novel. Here is the first part again in a revised edited format:


Chapter 1 FULL with editing:

I never realized just how frail the human body can be. A simple malfunction of a blood artery can kill, paralyze, or cause permanent bodily damage.
Petra was lying on a hospital bed with a tube in her arm while I softly stroked her hair. She was unconscious and although the doctors called her condition a ‘coma’ I couldn’t bring myself to utter that word, and so I substituted the word ‘sleeping’ instead.
While she slept, I walked over to a small bag, searched diligently, and found her hairbrush. I lumbered back to her bedside, careful to avoid the tube inserted in her arm. I brushed her hair gently and this seemed to give me some relief, or maybe it just distracted my mind from thinking about my own emotional pain, if only for a few moments.
The doctors were optimistic. They believed she would wake up, but they could not tell me anything more. They advised me to remain positive, but that wasn’t the easiest request in the world.
I had not slept for three days, as that was when her coma first started. I refused to leave the hospital, naively believing my presence would aid her in some way.
My daily meals since the start of Petra’s coma revolved around whatever the hospital cafeteria was serving. In Finland, there seems to be an abundance of fish meals. Normally this would be great, but I wasn’t very hungry, especially for fish.
Luckily a nurse took pity on me and made me a small bowl of chicken soup near the nurse’s station on the third day of Petra’s coma. It was probably made from a pouch of ready-to-eat instant Asian soup ingredients, but it tasted better than tepid fish. I thanked the nurse for the soup and even offered her some Euros as compensation for her kindness, but she declined.
Afterwards, at Petra’s bedside, I whispered into her ear that I loved her. I felt helpless, wondering if there was anything I could do to evoke a response. The pitchy beep of her medical monitor was the only reply I got.
I convinced myself to try some verbal stimulation to see if that might help her. I brought a British novel from home that Petra had started reading a week ago. She dog-eared a page in the novel. She had this habit of folding the corner of the page into a small triangle several times to mark her spot where she had stopped. I had never asked her why she did it. Now I wondered why she did this in this specific way. I was angry with myself that she could not answer me.
Page forty-six or page forty-seven? I did not know on which page she stopped, so I began reading from page forty-six. I apologized to her if I started on a page she had already read previously. Of course she couldn’t answer, but I pretended she could.
I was reading in the middle of page forty-nine when my attention was diverted to Petra’s mother standing at the door of the room. I closed the book, but before doing so, tried to emulate the dog eared fold Petra made to indicate the point on the page where she stopped. I fumbled with the paper and ended up making a crinkled mess of the page.
Standing up, I faced Petra’s mother Anna, who was only eight years older than me. Anna had stopped seeing Petra just before our marriage. She was in complete disapproval of our relationship from the beginning, and our marriage was the icing on the cake. She still was opposed to it. The opposition was not in my love for her daughter, which she knew was strong, but rather in the age difference. When we first married, I was nearly forty-five years old. Petra was almost twenty-six, nearly twenty years younger. Our hope was that Anna would eventually accept me as a son, but we had yet to see that day. I worried that Petra would never see that day…or any other day, for that matter.
I had not shaved or properly bathed in three days. The sleep deprivation also made me look much older. No doubt the gray hairs on my three-day beard contributed to that fact.
I approached her slowly and gazed into her tired eyes. Perhaps it was best if she started the conversation. After a few seconds, neither of us spoke, so I said something in a feeble attempt to break the ice cold atmosphere between us.
“Thank you for coming.”
I wanted to say that in the Finnish language, but my concentration was poor due to physical fatigue, so I could only speak my Native American English at that moment.
She walked briskly past me. I thought that she would completely ignore me. She saw her daughter lying on the bed with a tube in her arm, then burst into tears, spun around, and embraced me.
In Finnish she asked me a lot of questions. I answered most of the questions in English and a couple of questions in Finnish. I told her everything the doctors had told me. She then broke the hold, wiped her eyes, and looked at me.
“Is the baby alive?” she asked in English as she patted her eyes dry.
I grinned reassuringly. “Anna is just fine.”
“Anna?”
“Yes. We decided to name the baby Anna after you. Would you like to see the baby, your granddaughter?” I offered.
With eyes wide, she gaped at me in a moment of disbelief and said, “A grandmother. I’m a grandmother?”
“Yes, you are. Right now little Anna needs you. Petra needs you,” I breathed a heavy sigh, “and I need you too.”
Petra’s hospital bed was no more than a stride away, and Anna stood at the end of it, examining her daughter lying motionless beneath colorless sheets.
“I know you don’t approve of me. I’m not going to ask you for that approval.” There was nothing else I could say but that.
I walked over to her and looked at her with my worn-out bloodshot eyes. I placed my hands on her shoulders.
“Please don’t abandon Petra and your new grandchild,” I pleaded.
She looked at Petra and stood silent for a few moments. I wondered if my request was too much for her. Perhaps her feelings towards me would blind her feelings towards Petra and our new baby.
When what felt like an eternity passed, she finally met my gaze.
“Can I see the baby?” she asked.
“Of course, I’ll ask the nurse to arrange it.”
I left the room so I could speak to a nurse. I asked the nurse if it was possible to bring our baby to see her grandmother. The nurse said she would be able to do this in an hour.
On my way back to Petra’s hospital room, I took a detour into the men’s restroom (toilet) to wash my face. I looked at myself in the mirror wondering what ugly, disheveled person stared back at me from behind the mirror. That glass revealed just how old I was compared with Petra’s youth.
My imposing self-consciousness quickly passed as I reflected on my love for Petra—a love stronger than anything I had ever known. The passion between us was so deep that sometimes I wondered if everything was in fact a dream.
After washing my face a second time in an effort to try and keep awake, I scrutinized each wrinkle, each facial crevice in the mirror again, but that same man was still there. I told the mirrored reflection goodbye before drying my hands and shuffled back to Petra’s hospital room.
I opened the door to the room. Anna was sitting beside her, holding her right hand. I placed a chair on Petra’s left side and held her left hand. I tried to be careful not to let Petra’s mother believe that I was trying to keep Petra all to myself. An impression of being selfish was not what I wanted to portray.
Exhaustion overtook me quickly because, when I laid my head down near Petra’s pillow, it was mere minutes before I fell asleep. I dreamed.
In the dream, I found myself in a large white room. Petra was wearing a white dress. She walked up to me and took my hand.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said to me in Finnish.
“Not as long as you’re here with me,” I replied in English. “Stay with me, Petra,” I begged as I pulled her in an embrace.
She slowly broke away from me to place her hand on the left side of my chest.
“I am always there with you, Robert. I am there in your heart,” she told me, but in English this time. “You have to be strong.”
“Robert,” a voice said from behind me. In the dream, I turned around. No one was there.
“Robert!”
I was startled awake by an awkward realization that I had fallen into a deep sleep. I saw Petra’s mother holding our little baby Anna. It was Anna who had called out my name, rousing me from my slumber.
I looked at my watch. It was after nine o’clock in the evening, and the sky was growing dark. I had slept for about an hour. The nurse must have come in to give the baby to Petra’s mother while I was asleep.
“She is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen,” Anna cooed while holding her granddaughter, little Anna.
“Well, she has her mother’s smile and your eyes,” I said, “and I think she has my nose.”
Anna smiled, if only briefly.
“Yes, I think you’re right.”
Suddenly, in a colossal moment that I will never forget, we heard a small sigh escape from Petra’s lips and her eyes flickered. I jumped up and gently grazed the side of her face.
“Come on, Petra, you can do it. Open your eyes, Petra. Come on.”
I softly caressed her face some more. “Come on, sweetheart, open your eyes.”
As if on cue, Petra opened her eyes and looked at me. I held her hand and pulled it close to me. I kissed her cheek and her lips.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said softly into her ear.
“Robert...the baby...”
“The baby’s fine, Petra, just fine. How do you feel?”
“I feel tired.”
I excitedly looked up at Anna and she showed the baby to Petra. Petra was surprised that her mother was present. Petra touched the baby’s face, but Petra could not hold the baby with the tube in her arm. She was also fatigued. The baby responded with a gummy yawn and I smiled. It was the first genuine smile I had in days.
“I am going to get the doctor.”
Before I let go of her hand, Petra squeezed my hand gently.
“Stay,” she insisted.
Anna bent down to whisper something in Finnish, which I couldn’t hear into Petra’s ear. Anna kissed Petra, looked at me to make eye contact, and left the room with the baby without saying anything more to me. The barrier Anna had built between us was still there, but perhaps that barrier would soon crumble. I knew she would go straight to the nurse’s station. More than likely a doctor would arrive soon.
“You look like crap,” Petra said as she softly stroked my three day old partially gray beard. There was no doubt she also saw my bloodshot eyes.
I kissed Petra’s right cheek and her mouth.
“That’s the best compliment I’ve had all day,” I joked.
“What happened?” Petra asked.
I did not want to scare her with the traumatic situation that occurred three days prior, so I skipped telling her the details.
“You’ve been in a coma for three days.”
“You’ve been here all this time?” She asked while continuing to stroke my facial hair stubble.
“Yes my love. I have never left your side. You know how stubborn I can be.”
Petra smiled. I instinctively knew she would be fine. The Finnish doctors had done so much for her, but Petra was a fighter. Her inner strength was probably one reason why she was still alive after such a severe bleeding during child birth.
“Well good looking woman are you ready to start a family?” I asked her while still holding her hand.
“I’ve been working on that for nine months. Who’s going to change the first diaper?” She asked.
I looked around the room then raised my left hand like a school kid in a classroom wanting to answer a question from the teacher.
“I volunteer,” I said.
“Liar,” she countered.
“No, really, I am really going to try and attempt it. Of course I’ll need you to supervise,” I said to her as I kissed her cheek again.
Very carefully, while avoiding the tube inserted in her arm, I put my arms around Petra as carefully as I could and held her close. I inhaled deeply and smelled her skin. She always had this wonderful feminine scent. I kissed her neck several times as I softly brushed her hair back with one hand.
Petra moaned a little bit and whispered in my ear, “Don’t make me horny in the hospital. That’s probably against Finnish law.”
At that time a doctor entered the room. He introduced himself as I had met several doctors through the course of several days, but not this one.
I stepped away from the bed as he began to examine Petra. A few moments later a nurse came into the room. The doctor instructed her to increase the amount of fluid the tube in her arm was feeding her. I assumed the doctor thought Petra might be slightly dehydrated.
After he talked to Petra in the Finnish language for a few minutes he came over to me. He escorted me outside the room so Petra could not hear.
“She needs rest before she can do anything. We want to keep her here and then see if she is strong enough to go home,” the doctor said to me in absolutely perfect English.
I shook his hand firmly and asked, “Thank you doctor. When will Petra be allowed to go home?”
“We need to do some tests and if those are good she can go home in one or two days or perhaps tomorrow afternoon, but only if she is strong enough.”
Petra’s mother approached me and the doctor. She asked the doctor a few questions in the Finnish language. He shook her hand after the questions were answered and departed.
“Robert, I have taken some time away from work. I would like to help you both,” she said to me.
I raised my right hand with three fingers showing.
“There are three of us in our family Anna. There are Petra, myself, and little Anna,” I said correcting her.
“Yes, I am sorry, all three of you.”
“Anna, can you show me how to change a diaper?”
Anna laughed, “I have been out of practice for a while, but I am sure I can remember.”
I smiled a little bit and rubbed my head. Exhaustion was trying to overtake me, and it was succeeding.
Anna then spoke to me in the Finnish language. I translated it into English in my head, “You need some sleep.”
“Yes, I know,” I replied in Finnish, “I’ll try and get some sleep tonight.”
“Robert, how are you and Petra going to raise little Anna?” Anna asked me in Finnish.
I was beyond physical exhaustion. I had to stop translating in my head to Finnish because my mind could not focus on language translation. I had to speak English again.
“Petra and I talked about this for a long time. Petra is going back to work. I’m going to be the house husband.”
“What is a house husband?” Anna asked.
Apparently she did not understand what I meant or there isn’t a term in Finnish that translates what I said in English.
“I am going to raise our child at home. Petra will continue working at the airport.”
Anna laughed a little bit.
“No, I am very serious Anna,” I said sternly, “Petra and I talked about this for a long time. When I sold all of my business interests in the Netherlands we have enough money in the bank where we both don’t have to work for a while, but inflation and the cost of living are increasing every year. It simply makes common sense for one person to continue working.”
Anna tried to say something, but I abruptly cut her off.
“In addition Petra loves her work at the airport and her work colleagues. I don’t really have any friends here. I think it would be very selfish of me to ask Petra to give up her career and her dreams. That is something I will never do to her.”
“Your Finnish language is not so bad. You could get a job,” Anna said.
“No,” I said with conviction, “There are too many families around the world who keep their children in child care every single workday. I suppose that most families have to do that, but I want to raise our child with a parent. No childcare.”
Anna’s expression changed suddenly. “You are serious. You will stay home, raise the baby, change diapers, cook, clean, and iron the clothes?”
I folded my hands across one another to indicate my refusal to budge from my opinion. It felt like I was talking to Petra. Petra and I had the same ‘discussion’ (or argument) several months ago. Like mother like daughter I suppose.
“I think that men are very selfish. Even in a world where men and women should be treated equally men always think that women should work, clean, and take care of the kids. Anna, Petra’s has a great job. She is being considered for managerial promotion. I want her to obtain that promotion. I am also going to encourage her to finish her university degree, because she did not finish her studies. I’ve had my university master’s degree for years.”
I could see there was cause for doubt in Anna’s eyes, but there was nothing she could say that would sway me from my steadfast belief in Petra and our new baby.
“It will be a difficult transition for me, but I’ve prepared myself for this and I’m ready. Or at least I hope I’m ready.”
“Ok,” Anna relented, “I believe you. Now before you fall down you need to get some sleep. I can drive you home if you want.”
“That would be fine. I want to tell Petra that I am going to get some sleep.”
I walked back into Petra’s hospital room and sat next to her. Anna came in right after me. I held Petra’s hand and kissed her gently.
“I am going to go get some sleep now sweetheart.”
I walked immediately over and picked up the British novel I was reading to her while she was still in coma. I placed it next to her bedside, within easy reach. I placed her travel bag which contained her hairbrush and woman’s essentials on the small table next to her hospital bed.
I sat back down beside her and gave her a gentle hug.
“Get some rest Robert,” she told me smiling, “you’re going to need it.”
I stood up from the chair and was about to walk out the door with Anna, but I looked over at Petra and asked, “When is the last time I told you I loved you?”
“You told me that when my labor pain started,” She replied.
I smiled back at her, “I love you Petra. I love you more than life itself.”
I opened the door to her room and was about to leave with Anna, but before I closed the door I looked back at Petra once again and said, “Your bear is in your bag.”
Anna and I started to make our way to her automobile.
At the same time Petra had reached inside the bag that I left by her hospital bed. In it she found her bear. When she and I were dating back in the Netherlands we went to a small carnival in the city of Almere during the summer. I was lucky and managed to hit a bull’s-eye at a dart game. I won a teddy bear for Petra. Whenever she was home reading or relaxing the bear was always nearby. If we went to bed the bear was on a small chair next to the bed. In a manner of speaking you might say that this bear was Petra’s first child.
Anna started to drive me in her car back to the apartment building where Petra and I lived.
“Don’t you think your apartment is too small for you, Petra, and the baby?” Anna asked me.
“We moved a few months ago into a ground floor apartment in the same building. It’s larger and we have two extra bedrooms next to the master bedroom. One bedroom is the nursery,” I said. “Petra sent you a change of address card to let you know about the move, but we did not hear from you.”
“I was very angry. I probably threw the card into the trash container without looking at it.”
“Are you still angry about our marriage Anna?”
She paused for a few seconds trying to think of what to say, but I already knew what her answer would be.
“Yes, you are still angry with me for marrying your only daughter. I know you are not happy about our age difference. I love Petra and that feeling is something so wonderful that I cannot describe it,” I said with a smile.
“You just had a baby. You know you will be over sixty years old when the child is eighteen”, she interjected.
“I know, but right here and right now that is eighteen years in the future. Life is very short. I intend on living life with Petra and our baby to the fullest every single day.”
I looked at Anna as I rubbed my head to continue to stay awake.
She looked at me with what I hoped was some concern in her facial expression.
“Make sure you get as much sleep as possible tonight. Robert, are you and Petra planning on having another baby?”
I thought about her question for a few moments, but Petra and I had talked about that subject just before we were married.
“Maybe we will only have the one child and that will be it. This pregnancy nearly killed her. If the doctors say there are too many risks we will not have another child. We’ll just have to see how things work out.”
“Parenthood can be difficult, but also very rewarding,” Anna said as we came close to the apartment complex.
“I only hope that Petra and I can raise our daughter as well as you raised Petra. I am the luckiest man on the face of this planet to have her in my life and now a new daughter,” I said as I pointed to a spot close to the apartment complex, “You can drop me off right over there.”
Anna pulled her automobile over next to a street curb. As I exited the car Anna looked at me with a very concerned look in her eyes. It was first time I had ever seen concern in her eyes about me since we’d met.
“Robert, get some sleep.”
“Yes, I am going to bed right now. I’m tired as hell,”
I paused for a moment and looked at Anna after I closed the car door. I smiled while saying very loudly, “Thanks for the ride Grandmother.”
I kept my eyes on Anna to see what she might say. I could see her burst into laughter as she drove away. I waved to her until her car was some distance down the road.
I felt cold, but I knew it was good weather. Obviously the fatigue was making me feel cold. It was time for me to try and get some sleep. I walked to our apartment via the stairwell. I tried to retrieve my apartment keys from my pocket. I dropped them on the hallway floor. I was so tired I couldn’t even hold my keys. I bent down, picked up the keys, and opened the apartment door.
A quick telephone call was made to one of our neighbors who were watching our dog for us during this time. I promised to pick up the dog in a couple of days.
I made my way to the bathroom, but first I made a detour to the nursery we setup for our newborn. It used to be my computer room, but we converted it with a lot of hard work into a nursery. The computer and accessories were moved to the master bedroom.
A few of boxes of diapers were already purchased, stored neatly in a corner of the nursery. In the other corner laid some baby clothes, baby toys, and a stroller as well. I smiled a little bit as I could clearly recollect a memory of Petra with a paintbrush making some last minute touch-ups with some pink paint less than two weeks ago. There was still a small bit of paint smell in the room if you inhaled deeply enough.
Since Petra’s coma had started I promised myself I would keep my emotions under control. Now that I was in the apartment with no one around I cried. I was broken emotionally and exhausted physically. I had almost lost Petra, the woman I loved. She had such a close encounter with death.
I composed myself, dried my tears, and slowly made my way to the bathroom.
I dropped my clothes hurriedly onto the bathroom floor. The warm water flowing around me in the shower brought a little warmth. I was extremely happy to feel clean. Despite how tired I was I made sure to keep the water going less than four minutes. Petra and I conserved water to keep our water bill low. We conserved more money by using tea lights or candles sometimes when we watched television instead of using light bulbs.
In just under four minutes I turned off the water and dried myself. I emptied my pants pockets which contained the apartment keys and loose Euro change. I placed my dirty clothes into the clothes hamper in the bathroom.
I made my way to our bedroom and crawled under the covers. Before I decided to go to sleep I wanted to take myself back in time through my memories to remember with great affection the first time I met Petra.
I passed out on the bed from sheer exhaustion and relived our past in my dreams.