PART 1 — DEAL WITH IT
It started at about nine with a temperature.
By midnight Wilda was at a hundred and four and nothing I did brought it down, and when I rang the on-call service the second time the doctor did not hesitate.
“Take her in now.”
So at two in the morning I was under the lights at Renshaw Memorial in a plastic chair with my four-month-old against my chest, waiting to be seen.
Auden paced. He looked at his watch about every four minutes.
Eventually he said, “This is insane.”
“What is?”
“I’ve got the biggest presentation of my career at nine.”
I looked at him for a second.
“Auden. She’s at a hundred and four.”
“I know that.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“We’ve been here forever.”
“We’re waiting for a doctor.”
He blew out a breath. “I’m wrecked.”
And there was something in how he said it that made it sound like the situation was something I had arranged.
I nearly laughed. I had not had four hours in a row since the December.
But I did not say any of that. A triage nurse took Wilda through for obs a few minutes later and I sat there with an empty car seat and a muslin over my shoulder.
Then Auden got his phone out and went down to the far end of that waiting room.
I assumed he was ringing his manager about the morning.
Forty minutes later the automatic doors went and Brenna Follett came in.
She had driven thirty-eight minutes in the middle of the night.
She did not come to me. She did not ask about Wilda. She did not ask where Wilda was.
She went straight to her son, picked his coat up off the chair, and put it into his hands.
“Let’s go.”
I said, “Sorry?”
“I’m taking him back to mine. He can get three hours before work.”
“Brenna. We’re in an emergency room.”
“I’m aware.”
“Your granddaughter has a temperature of a hundred and four.”
“And my son is exhausted.”
“So am I.”
And she gave me a look I had seen about eleven times in three years and had never let myself finish the sentence about.
“That’s not the same.”
“How is it not the same?”
“You’re the mother.”
I said, “And he’s her father.”
Her jaw went.
“He has an extremely important presentation tomorrow.”
“And his daughter has a hundred and four tonight.”
And then her voice came up and she said it to a waiting room with about twenty people in it:
“He never signed up for this much stress. You’re the mother. Deal with it.”
Everything stopped.
The monitors carried on. The television carried on with the sound off. Somebody coughed by the vending machine.
And about fifteen adults in that room stopped pretending they were not listening.
I looked at my husband.
All he had to say was Mum, that’s enough. Or I’m staying with my daughter. Or don’t talk to her like that.
He stood beside his mother with his coat in both hands and said nothing at all.
Not one word.
And that silence did more to me than anything that woman shouted, because in about four seconds I stopped having any questions about where I stood.
I stood up. I put the muslin in the bag.
Auden said, “What are you doing?”
I got my phone out.
Brenna folded her arms. “Oh, what now?”
I looked at him and said, “Your mother told me to deal with it. So I’m dealing with it.”
And I rang somebody.
Not my mother. Not my sister. Not a friend.
I turned away and gave my name and said where I was and that my daughter was four months old and had a temperature of a hundred and four, and that my husband was preparing to leave with his mother before she had been seen.
Auden came toward me and said my name and I put my hand up and he stopped.
I said yes twice and no once and then I ended it.
He said, “Who was that?”
I put the phone in my bag. “You wanted me to handle it on my own.”
Brenna started to say something and I looked at her.
“So that’s what I’m doing.”
Thirty-eight minutes later those doors opened again.
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