"Love in the Great Pine Woods" by Gratiana Lovelace (2015-2016) (Completed)

Ch. 22 (PG-13, S, D): Healing Olivia

"Love in the Great Pine Woods", Ch. 22 (PG-13, S, D): Healing Olivia, February 15, 2016 by Gratiana Lovelace (Post #874)

[From time to time, I will illustrate my story characters with: Richard Armitage as Sam Wakeforest, Marcia Gay Harden as Sam's older sister Tessa Wakeforest Shoop Delaney, and Emily Deschanel as Tessa's sister-in-law Olivia Delaney Wakeforest, Viola Davis as Pauletta Perkins, Cicely Tyson as Nellie Newton, Anna Sophia Robb as Alice Trent, Kevin Spacey as Roger Delaney, Sam Heughan as Todd Wakeforest, Idris Elba as Dominic Perkins and others as noted.]

Authors Content Note: "Love in the Great Pine Woods" is a mature love story with dramatic themes of love and relationships. It will mostly be at the PG and PG-13 movie levels. Specific chapters or passages may have a further rating of: L for language, D for dramatic emotions, and S for sensual themes. And I will rate the chapters accordingly. If you are unable or unwilling to attend a movie with the ratings that I provide for a chapter, then please do not read that chapter. This is my disclaimer. And as is my habit, I will summarize the previous chapter's events at the beginning of the next chapter.

Authors Recap from the Previous Chapter: Sam knows that Olivia will need all of his love and tenderness to guide his wife Olivia to healing her body and her spirit. And today's Memorial Service for Nellie has given him some greater insight into Olivia's emotional scars with hearing for the first time about Olivia's deceased little brother and about her parents' illnesses and deaths in more detail. So now the real healing of Olivia Delaney Wakeforest begins—but she will need a healing of both her body and of her spirit. And it will be Olivia's husband Sam who will help guide her to a more contented and calm state—as she will help him become more understanding and reflective about her needs and his own.

"Love in the Great Pine Woods", Ch. 22 (PG-13, S, D): Healing Olivia

With Nellie's memorial service providing some closure for everyone on the Sunday afternoon of January 17, 1956, Sam still notices a lingering despair hanging over Olivia. Her first two weeks back at home to convalesce and do her physical therapy have been grueling. And having to go on indefinite leave as a Wakeforest County Orphanage teacher, has further diminished Olivia's already low spirits. But Sam begins to wonder why Olivia has such panicked reactions—or even more troubling, subdued reactions--to anything negative occurring.

He now knows about the loss of her little brother Chester to illness when the boy was three years old—and the ensuing grief that overwhelmed Olivia's and Roger's mother—and the grief that their father felt when his wife contracted cancer ten years later. But Sam believes that there is yet another piece of the puzzle that is missing with regard to why his wife Olivia had been so withdrawn and fearful for most of her life. So Sam resolves to seek more information about what might have caused Olivia's fragile emotional state—in order to be a soothing influence for her. And Sam will learn some answers that will guide him to understand Olivia and her fears more.

It is now Saturday February 6, 1956, four weeks since Olivia was released from the hospital—five weeks after her injury and the surgery to repair it. Sam has been a loving and dutiful husband helping Olivia with her exercises as they continue to live temporarily at Delaney Manor. And due to her continuing pain, Olivia's physical therapy always occurs after she takes her pain meds, in the hope that she can limber and stretch her legs more comfortably. Her therapy sessions are brief—just 15 minutes—but now occur four times a day, timed with each pain medication.

With Sam lying at Olivia's feet on their bed, he puts his hands up for her sock covered feet to push against them to strengthen her healing left leg and to keep her other leg from atrophying from disuse. Of course, her uninjured right leg is quite a bit stronger--while her injured and healing left leg is still only at half strength. And although Olivia is now allowed to hobble to the bathroom on crutches with assistance—rather than being carried to the bathroom and back by Sam—her domain is still rather small, confined to Delaney Manor mostly to their bedroom and except for now almost nightly trips downstairs to join the family for dinner, which Olivia enjoys. And Olivia does have a weekly doctor's visit now that they have dispensed with the live in nurse since their fear of surgical complications like more infections or clotting have abated.