Another Chance Book I of III

Book III-Chapter 85, Justice Rain Down From Heaven Part 2

Justice, Rain Down From Heaven

Ray Burgess's POV

Ray sat in the room that had been temporarily created for his wife after labor. She had come through it with flying colors and had brought into the world a beautiful baby girl. With her tawny hair and fair skin she was the image of her mother. Ray's eyes became clouded with tears, but they were happy ones. His daughter that they had named Anna Elizabeth was perfect, her mother Jeanette, was doing well although she had some blood pressure problems that surfaced in the last month of her pregnancy. They were watching this closely as with the events that had occurred, it could have been caused by the stress. It could also be permanent requiring medication, but since she was breast feeding the doctors had decided not to medicate her unless absolutely necessary as she would have to stop breastfeeding if they did. For now, Jeanette was doing well and was right where she needed to be. She could walk up the hall to her son's bed in intensive care and be comforted by his progress, albeit slow and still take care of her new baby and be monitored herself by her physicians. After feeding Anna, Jeanette had gone to take a shower under the watchful eye of one of the medical techs. Little Anna had curled her fingers around her dad's much bigger smallest one and was making sucking sounds in her sleep. He had to smile at her tranquility in the midst of all they were dealing with. In that moment, Ray realized that he could not return to the military life he had known for the last 15 years. Leaving his wife to manage four children, one an infant and another with months of recovery and therapy ahead of him was simply impossible while she was fighting a new high blood pressure diagnosis. He decided that he would ask for a hardship transfer back to the states and knew in his heart he would leave the military after this current hitch, rather than being the lifer that he had intended. His family needed him too much. He had not allowed himself to think about the fact that the person who had created all of this hardship had not been identified. Instead he prayed that justice would be done and left it in the hands of his Maker as he had too much to handle on his plate already. Jeanette came back to the room looking like the young girl he had married 7 years ago. Her newly shampooed curly hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. He smiled as he looked at her. How beautiful she was and how brave. He had really lucked out in his choice of a wife. She got settled back in her bed and reached out for Jeanette wanting to hold her. He handed her their new bundle of joy and kissed his wife on the forehead. " I'll be right back" he said as he headed down to the intensive care unit to check on his oldest son. " He's doing good this morning Ray", Jeanette said. She had stopped by after her shower to check on him. "His color looks better", she added as Ray left the room. Ray would make a phone call to his Stateside division leadership after checking on Ray Jr. He needed to get the hardship request done as soon as possible. He needed to come home for good. Looking at his watch he saw it was 6:30 AM. He would have to wait for 1 and 1/2 hours to make that call.

Michael the Archangels POV

Michael had sat by Nick Jr.'s bed through the night. At 5:00 AM, he sensed he was still in REM sleep and began to whisper to him creating images in his mind. While sleeping Nick Jr. saw Ray Burgess Jr. laying in bed with his head wrapped in a huge amount of gauge bandages; some blood had seeped through in some places. He saw all of the different tubes and hoses coming from his body. He saw an anguished man and woman standing by his bed both with tears in their eyes. The man had on a military uniform of some kind and the woman had on a robe. Somehow he knew that she had just given birth to another child. He heard in his mind 2 other little children, one of which was crying. "Where's mommy? I want my mommy", the crying child said. The other, who was 4 years old was whimpering more quietly. A female adult, their aunt picked the crying 2 year old child up. "Remember, mommy just had a baby sister for you and is still in the hospital and daddy is there too seeing about Ray Jr. Daddy will be home soon", Aunt Joanne said. The 2 year old then started saying "I want my daddy", but his crying began to lessen.