Changes Chapter 1
The first few weeks after Bob came home from hospital were strange ones for the up and coming business manager and his wife Fran.
Bob had always been a winner, and Fran felt for him as she saw him struggling. Nothing dramatic, but little things. Shoelaces, belt buckles, even using the computer keyboard. Bob, once the model of high energy efficiency, was off his game.
The accident hadn’t left many physical marks on Bob. He had a still-weeping scar on his cheekbone and forehead, together with a pile of bandages from the hospital for Fran to change, and he’d recovered from a few bruises and a broken finger. It was the mental injuries which would regulate the speed of his full recovery, the doctors had told Fran as Bob finished his last physical therapy session as Fran waited to take him home.
Fran had felt sorry for Bob then, too. The months in hospital had diminished his once considerable strength, and Fran watched how Bob had to strain to move weights which Fran thought she could handle with ease. He needs time, the sympathetic staff had told Fran. The head theatre nurse had been especially supportive. Bob had been her last patient before she retired, and Caz had even offered to live in for a while to help Bob along. She’d had experience in patient recovery from trauma, and paediatrics before that. And she was a mom of four children, three daughters and a son, so she was clearly patient.
‘He will travel down his road, with your help, slowly,’ Caz had assured Fran. 'But with proper care, I think the pair of you will find the contentment of your old life. Maybe not quite the same, but loving and fulfilling for both of you nonetheless.
Fran had been glad of Caz’s kind words, but had refused the older lady’s generous offer, in favour of her visiting daily, to start with anyway. Fran felt that she and Bob should have some time alone, and in any case, she didn’t want to appear as if she couldn’t cope. Caz had waved them off from the hospital, and Fran had been touched to see Caz’s slightly plump form still watching the car as Fran turned off the hospital road.
Bob had slept much of the way home, and hadn’t been inclined to say much earlier. Fran was just glad to have him back. She helped Bob out of the car and into the sprawling house. He was sleepy, and mumbled about the hospital, Caz, coming home, and how much he loved Fran. Fran smiled as Bob’s mumbling so subsided, and he was almost asleep when she kissed him goodnight, and went back down the stairs to watch a little late night TV and have another coffee. She wanted Bob to sleep as soundly as he could for at least a couple of hours, and she wasn’t sure she could keep her hands off him anyway.
It was almost midnight when Fran went quietly to bed. Bob groaned a little as Fran got into the bed, and turned to face her, then seeming to settle back into sleep. Fran had just leant over her bedside table to turn off the light, when Bob mumbled something about Caz.
‘What, Bob? What about Caz?’ she asked him as he lay with his eyes shut.
Some time passed, then Bob put one hand to his face and rubbed his nose.
‘Diaper,’ said Bob, then relaxed his face and seemed to be going to sleep again.
Fran gave Bob a little push to the shoulder.
‘What, Bob? Diaper?? What diaper?’ she asked, quite shocked.
‘Caz, di….’ Fran shook Bob this time.
‘Caz?’ she asked, hoisting herself on one shoulder and speaking straight into Bob’s semi-unconscious face.
‘Did Caz put you in a diaper?’ Fran asked, giving Bob another little shake.
Bob became a fraction more animated. He spoke slowly and softly, then drifted off again.
‘Caz. Accident, diaper,’
Fran shook Bob enough that he opened his eyes, and looked a little blankly at her.
‘Accident?’ asked Fran.
All she could think of was The Accident. That’s what he was in hospital for. What did that mean?
‘What accident, Bob? Your accident?’ Fran asked, becoming exasperated at the slow release of information from Bob.
‘Bed,’ said Bob, closing his eyes again. ‘Wet bed.’
‘Oh!’ said Fran, feeling relieved. ‘You just had an accident in bed. I thought you meant…’
Fran didn’t know what she meant. But a wet bed was hardly an issue. She knew that Bob had been slow to toilet train, and had had a relapse of his bedwetting habit at 10, then another relapse at the embarrassing age of 18. Bob was 26 when they married. Fran knew Bob’s secret history before they married. He had wet her bed twice while they were just going out. The first time he’d blamed lack of sleep and alcohol, and wouldn’t talk about it, but the second time he’d been well rested and hadn’t had so much as a beer for days. That night, Bob had tearfully told Fran about being held back in kindergarten for a year because he was still n diapers, and of being diapered every night until he was eight years old. Then he’d had his relapse a couple of years later, and the next at 18. He’d spent two years trying to stay out of girls’ beds for a change, but had finally stopped wetting and resumed his old ways. Now he was admitting wetting again.
Fran’s heart went out to her husband. It must have been frightening to think ‘it’ was back again. The doctors hadn’t mentioned it, nor the nurses, so Fran assumed it had been a one-off, probably a while ago. Poor Bob, she thought. She put her hand gently on Bob’s fine blonde hair and whispered she loved him before turning over to go to sleep.
Caz visited the next morning. Fran had got Bob up and bathed - he wasn’t too confident of standing alone in a slippery shower at present - then they’d had breakfast together. Bob talked about his favourite items in the rehabilitation sessions. Bob needed some improvement in manual dexterity, and there were several quite interesting mechanisms the patients used, although Fran felt they weren’t quite as interesting as Bob made out. She’d seen the ones Bob was talking about. They were fairly simple devices; the sort of things kids might enjoy, but she knew that Bob had to ease back into the complex world of modern life. If he enjoyed using the manual dexterity devices, she would certainly encourage it. Caz was of the same mind, and after she had arrived following breakfast, she had suggested that rather than leaf idly through magazines which Caz doubted Bob was actually reading properly, he should try a bit of therapy with a few superannuated bits and pieces she’d brought from the hospital. Soon, Bob was set up on the floor in the living room, with some of his favourite ‘man dex’ items.
Fran felt odd watching Bob on the big rug. He was quite absorbed in the simple task of moving a circular wand across a convoluted piece of wire without touching it and setting off a little buzzer. It wasn’t hard - the ring on the wand was quite large and Bob was moving it slowly. But it held his interest. Then he spent a long time putting together a wooden dinosaur. There had been a bit left over, and Fran had squatted next to Bob showing him where had had made a mistake and where the spare piece fitted.
Bob was quiet at lunch, too. He talked about the dinosaur a lot, then told Caz how happy he was that she was there. He seemed to have forgotten about things before the accident. Even his mentions of the hospital were brief, and had a kind of distant quality about them. Fran was still happy. He was back, and if he’s living more in the moment at present, thought Fran, all the better for his recovery, probably.
Bob ended up spending most of the day on the floor with his therapy tools. He sat up with Fran and Caz for dinner, but had begun to look sleepy by the end of the meal, at about 7pm. Perhaps he was tired before that, because he spilled a spoonful of his favourite stew down his front, and wasn’t very happy as Fran soaked and scrubbed the front of his shirt. She didn’t think it was worth his changing if he were heading for bed soon, so he ended the meal in a wet shirt. He nearly spilled another mouthful, but was saved further scrubbing by Caz, who leaned over and caught Bob’s hand and the spoon just in time. She had then guided the spoon into Bob’s mouth, and Fran was intrigued by the way he relaxed and just let her do it. Caz glanced at Fran with a quick smile as she fed him the last few spoonfuls of stew. Fran was not sure what to think. Bob was obviously tired, but the sight of her husband apparently happily being fed like a child stayed in Fran’s mind as she got him not bed. It was quite warm, and Fran had helped Bob into just a t-shirt before she began to help Bob get his unsteady legs into the bed.
‘Wait! I have to say good night to Caz!’ said Bob suddenly, wobbling his legs back to the floor and getting to the door before Fran had realised what he was doing.
‘Bob!’ she said. ‘At least put some…’
She let him go.
‘underpants on,’ she concluded quietly as she heard Bob make his way down the stairs. She supposed Caz had seen plenty of Bob’s naked body, and wouldn’t be too shocked to see his boy bits dangling in plain view below his t-shirt. Fran did wonder that Bob was so oblivious to his appearance. She supposed that months of nurses dealing with his bare flesh had conditioned him to not caring to an extent.
The stairs would be good exercise, Caz had told her, although she had said he might need help if he as tired or just having a ‘bad day’.
Fran wasn’t sure she liked the sound of ‘bad days’ but she felt sure there wouldn’t be too many. She could hear Bob chattering to Caz, then say goodnight to her, followed by some muffled sounds that must have been a hug. In due course Bob arrived back in the bedroom. His t-shirt was even shorter than Fran had thought. He was bare naked from the base of his rounded tummy down, and his penis wagged this way and that as Bob told Fran some yarn about Caz. It was a disjointed tale, whatever it was about, and Fran busied herself getting Bob comfortably in bed while he prattled on. Fran sat on the bed, and listened while the pauses in Bob’s story became longer and longer, and he finally drifted off to sleep.
Fran had expected to have some deep and meaningful conversations with Bob since he was now home, but he didn’t seem too inclined, so Fran didn’t push it.
Having settled Bob, Fran went back downstairs and watched a movie before climbing into bed with her sleeping husband.
To be continued.