by Lisa Tucker
Matthew said, “Of course,” but the instant Ben was gone, Amelia turned to Matthew and hissed, “You can cut the crap now.”
She sat down on the white chair—her white chair, oddly enough. She’d always sat in that chair at their house, while he sat on one of the other chairs or the couch.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You and your quote-unquote children.”
His voice was all paternal protection—at least as paternal as he could make it. “You can say what you want about me, but please leave Danny and Isabelle out of it.”
“I don’t buy any of this.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Have I mentioned how much I hate you? “I wish you could see that I’ve changed, too.”
Isabelle was finally getting bored. She climbed off the couch and went to the Barbie pile. Danny knelt down with her.
“Could you make me a piece of toast?” Amelia said.
“Sure.” Talk about a psycho. Bitching him out, then expecting him to wait on her. “What would you like on it?” Poison?
“Dry. Two pieces.”
He brought back the toast without any butter or jam. “Here you go.” Take that to your coven. “Want something to drink?”
She shook her head and started wolfing down the toast like she was starving. Apparently, Ben’s cousin’s Thanksgiving dinner hadn’t done the trick. While she ate, she watched the kids playing like she was gathering evidence. Matthew turned up the Bach CD on his stereo, wishing he had an Ativan.
When she was finished with the toast, she put the plate on his (their) coffee table. “I want to talk to Danny now.” She looked at Matthew and sneered. “Is that all right with you, Mr. Mom?”
“Of course. But it’s not up to me. He’s a child, not my slave.”
When she smiled, Matthew suspected he’d just made some kind of mistake. Amelia walked over to them; Isabelle had a piece of rubber bread shoved in her mouth, probably imitating the toast, and Danny was building Legos because Matthew had ordered him to play, too, and not just watch his sister all night. She knelt down next to Danny, and the next thing Matthew knew the two of them were getting up, moving toward the hall.
“What are you doing?”
“You said I could talk to him.”
“But why in the hall?”
“Not in the hall, in Danny’s bedroom. He said he’d show it to me.”
“Fine.” He’d already told Danny what to say if the obviously adult-looking guest bedroom came up. No, it hadn’t been furnished for them yet, but only because they weren’t staying in this apartment much longer. They were planning to move to a house so he and Isabelle would have separate bedrooms and a yard to play in. Of course, before Ben could wonder why Matthew hadn’t moved, the adoption would fall apart. The lawyers would uncover a long-lost aunt or uncle and Matthew would have to let his beloved children go. Poor Matthew, lonely again!
He waited a minute, but when they didn’t return, he turned down the Bach and went over to Isabelle. “Go find Danny.” She toddled off down the same hall and he followed behind her, ever the protective father. When they got to the guest bedroom, they both discovered the door was closed.
“Knock,” he told his sidekick. She complied. The door swung open and Amelia was standing with her arms crossed.
“Sorry. Isabelle wants in, too. You know how kids are.”
“She can come in, but I assume that doesn’t mean you have to come with her?”
“You don’t really have any experience watching a three-year-old. I think I should, just to make sure she’s safe.”
Amelia stood back, but he could tell she was fuming. Just as he was thinking Ha, ha, you scheming bitch, you can’t outsmart me that easily, Isabelle decided to go back the other way, where all the toys were.
“Isabelle,” he said. “I thought you wanted to find Danny?”
“No.” With unusually clear diction. “You did!”
Amelia snorted and shut the door in his face. Naturally, he tried to listen in anyway, but the door was too thick. Damned high-quality materials.
He went back to Isabelle. She had the rubber bread clutched in her fist, and hanging out of her mouth, covered in slobber, was another rubber food, yellow with a darker yellow center, which he assumed was an aging fried egg.
“Go find Danny again.”
“No.”
No? “Come on. He’s hiding. We have to find him.”
“Don’t want to.”
He tried everything, but she wouldn’t budge, and finally he said, “Some ally you turned out to be.” Which made her laugh, god knows why, so he tried again, this time telling her to find Amelia. Back to no, no, and no again.
He waited as long as he could stand to, maybe fifteen minutes, before he went back to the guest room and opened the door. Danny was sitting on the chair; Amelia was on the bed. The kid didn’t look as uncomfortable as Matthew had expected he would, given who he was stuck in there with.
“What do you want?” Amelia barked.
“You seem to have forgotten that this is my house.” He sounded angry. Shit. He forced himself to smile his most innocent, would-never-dream-of-admitting-he-hated-her-interfering-guts smile. “I was just concerned about Danny. He must be getting hungry.” He glanced at Danny as he said this, telegraphing to his new son that he’d better be hungry, now.
“I’m okay,” Danny said. “I got pretty full from the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
“You fed them peanut butter and jelly on Thanksgiving?” Amelia said. “Very classy, Matthew.” She shut the door after ordering him to stay out this time. “If you don’t, I’ll tell Ben you were rude to me.”
He muttered a stream of curses before going back to check on Isabelle, who was fine but unfortunately still in full rebellion. Oh, well, he’d just have to trust Danny to keep his mouth shut. He’d already threatened the kid that if he screwed up tonight, Matthew would screw up and forget to buy his mom a ticket home from Florida. He’d thought of telling Danny that he wouldn’t pay for Changes, either—though he wasn’t paying, at least not directly; Jerome Drossman had been happy to help this “poor unfortunate woman” as a personal favor to Matthew, meaning he would expect even more ass-kissing and an even larger donation next year from AD—but he didn’t do it because the ticket-home threat had already made the kid turn so pale (a paler shade of pale at least). At the time, Matthew had wondered why Danny seemed to just expect that Matthew would do something cruel to him eventually. Why the trash metaphor, for example? What had he ever done to this kid? It couldn’t be only that Danny and his mother considered him “rich.” It was an absurd assessment, anyway, given that they’d seen only this apartment, a place where even the poorest academics felt comfortable. True, the furniture included some antiques, but Danny’s family couldn’t know that since Matthew himself hadn’t known it back when Amelia used to brag about her estate-sale finds. The same was true with the art he’d acquired; it took a trained appraiser to explain why one painting was worth fifty thousand dollars and another was worth five thousand. His electronics were more obviously impressive, but hell, everybody had expensive computers and stereos and televisions these days.
Now, as he watched Isabelle smash a Lego on the rubber bread, he realized that there was no reason whatsoever for Danny’s attitude. Since the night on the bridge, Matthew had been unfailingly decent, if not outright kind. It was the kid’s problem if he couldn’t appreciate that. Too bad he wasn’t more like his sister, who, despite her recent betrayals, had just flashed Matthew one of her best whole-face grins.
Cute as she was, after only a half hour of watching her play, Matthew concluded that taking care of small children had to be one of the biggest unrecognized causes of mental illness. How did people do this all day? It was both excruciatingly boring and alarmingly stressful. Every other minute Isabelle was in some kind of danger: rocking too fast, causing the horse to tumble over; biting off a choke-sized piece of the yellowed egg
(which he had to pry out of her mouth when she refused to spit it out); trying to lick the outlet (why, oh why, would she want to do something that dumb?). He’d just decided that he would rather choke himself to death on that disgusting egg than deal with another minute of this when Danny appeared, panting and pale, as though he’d narrowly escaped torture.
“Oh, thank god,” he said. He looked around the corner. “Where’s Amelia? Kill her by chance?”
“I didn’t do it. She was throwing up, and it just happened.”
Matthew stood up and ran toward the hall. “Amelia?” She didn’t answer. “Amelia?” he repeated, coming into the guest room. “Where is she?” he yelled, but Danny was right behind him.
“In the bathroom. On the floor.”
It was just as Danny said: Amelia was on the floor of the guest bathroom, unconscious. He knelt down and checked the ABCs: airway, breathing, circulation. He turned her face to the side and told Danny to get the pillows off the bed. After Matthew put the pillows under Amelia’s feet, he said, “Tell me exactly what happened. Wait; go get Isabelle, and then tell me.”
Danny was back, holding his sister, who was griping and kicking him. “She threw up a lot, maybe five times while we were in here. I don’t know. She said it had been happening all day. I wanted to go get you, but she said you wouldn’t care. She said you didn’t—”
“When she passed out, was she standing or kneeling?”
“Kneeling. She didn’t fall very far. The back of her head hit the rug.”
“Good boy. That’s what I wanted to know.” He threw two washcloths in the sink and ran cool water. He wrung them out and folded them into squares; one he put on her forehead, and one on the back of her neck.
He estimated that all of this had taken less than a minute. Adding another half minute for Danny to get him, that left thirty seconds before she reached the two-minute danger point for being unconscious. If she didn’t wake up in the next few seconds, he was calling 911.
He repeated her name three times and she opened her eyes. She was obviously confused because she tried to reach for his face. “Matthew?”
“It’s all right. You fainted.”
“Where am I?”
“At my house.” He checked her pulse: it was still slow. Her skin was dry.
She struggled to sit up but her face grew paler than Danny’s.
“Just relax for a minute,” Matthew said. “Wait until the dizziness passes.” He told Danny that he could take Isabelle back into the loft. After they left, he said, “I wish you’d told me you were sick.”
“I’m not sick. It’s just morning sickness, but today it’s been morning, afternoon, and night.”
“Have you been staying hydrated?”
“I’m trying, but I can’t hold down any liquids. That’s why I wanted toast.”
“Forgive the personal question, but have you been peeing on a regular basis?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not since this morning.”
“Do you mind if I look in your mouth?”
Her saliva looked sticky. No question, she was dehydrated. “I think you need to go to the ER for IV fluids. You’ll feel a lot better once they get a bag in you.”
“I’m fine,” she said, but when she still couldn’t lift her head, she said, “I guess you’re right.” Then a sound that was like crying, but there were no tears. She was probably so dry she couldn’t make them.
“It’s not so bad.” He moved the washcloth off her forehead and pushed back her red hair. She still wore it long, ever the serious schoolgirl, and it was a mess now.
“I don’t want to go in an ambulance.”
“Fine, we’ll take my car.”
“But how will I get to it? I can’t even walk.”
“I’ll carry you, of course. Don’t be dumb.”
He knelt down and put one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. The worst part was getting to a standing position. He groaned a little and told her he must be out of shape. Didn’t want her crying again, thinking she was getting fat.
“You’re not out of shape,” she said. “It’s so strange the way you always look the same to me.” She was babbling the way people do after a health scare; he remembered this from medical school. “Everyone else gets older, but you don’t.”
“I sold my soul for the fountain of youth. Got a nice black robe in the bargain.” He was panting as he moved her out of the guest bedroom and into the hall. He called Danny, and the kid was there.
“I have to take her to the hospital. Can you watch Isabelle?”
“You can’t leave them alone,” Amelia said. “They’re too young.”
Shit. “Danny, get Isabelle ready. Also, could you find my wallet and keys and cell phone? They should be on the table by my bed.”
He adjusted Amelia’s weight as they moved into the loft. It was still so difficult to carry her that he was breaking out in a sweat. “I don’t suppose you can lift your arms?”
“I think I can.”
“It would be much easier if you would put them around my neck.”
She did it without saying anything. Danny and Isabelle were at the door. Matthew asked Danny to put the wallet in Matthew’s pants pocket and the keys on the end of his finger, and to hold his sister and the cell phone. “As soon as we get to the car, I’ll call Ben.”
Ten back-wrenching, knee-destroying minutes later, he had the whole bunch settled in his Porsche: Amelia in the passenger seat, the kids in the back, with Isabelle strapped in with the neck belt pushed behind her, since he “forgot” her nonexistent booster seat. He decided to go to HUP because it was so close and Ben was already there, somewhere. Also, Matthew knew a few docs at that ER; he hoped one would be working today and could rush Amelia in.
He called Ben and got voice mail, which was irritating, but he left a message that he was taking Amelia for IV fluids and Ben should meet them in the ER. “We should be there in a few minutes,” he said, and closed the phone.
Danny said, “How will he know what time a few minutes means?”
“Cell phones keep a record of every call, with the time it came in. Ben can add a few minutes to that time.”
“Cool,” Danny said.
“Cool,” Isabelle repeated.
Amelia stayed quiet. He wondered if the trip downstairs had made her sick again. He hoped she didn’t vomit in the car.
The hospital was a mob scene, as usual on a holiday. If the ER was any indication, the world was a much safer place when everyone was at work. One of the docs Matthew knew was doing a shift, and he brought out a wheelchair for Amelia. He said he would get her bagged and out of there as soon as possible. Before they took her away, she insisted on talking to Danny for a moment. When Matthew asked what she wanted, Danny said she just wanted to say good-bye.
After Matthew was settled down with the kids in the waiting room, he called Ben again. Still the voice mail. No point in leaving another message.
Everyone in the waiting area was staring at the loud TV in the corner. The show was some crap about TomKat’s wedding. Matthew said to Danny, “Why are you watching this shit?” Some old lady told him not to curse around his children. He nodded and smiled and told her to mind her own damn business.
The doc who’d taken Amelia in asked Matthew if he could come in with her. “You can leave your kids,” the doc said. “I’ll ask one of the clerks to keep an eye on them.” Matthew couldn’t remember the guy’s name at the moment, and he didn’t have on his name tag. Probably on call and had hurried in without it.
“She keeps asking for you,” the doc said as they walked past the triage station.
Really? “Fine,” he said. “Whatever she wants.”
The IV was in place, but the drip had barely started. She was lying in a bed, behind a wall of curtains, crying that pitiful tearless cry.
He sat down in the chair next to her and picked up her hand. Ever the nice guy. “What’s wrong? The IV looks good. It doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“Why isn’t Ben here?”
She was looking into his eyes, but he shrugged. “His phone is off, remember? He probably turned it off when he walked in the building. It’s hospital policy.”
“If you had a pregnant girlfriend who you knew had been throwing up all day, would you turn off your phone?”
“No, but I’m amoral. Rules don’t mean anything to me.” He grinned. “You can hardly hold other people to my high standards.”
Not to mention that Matthew knew the no-cell policy was bullshit. Medical staff used their cell phones all the time; as long as the phone was kept six feet away from the monitoring equipment, it didn’t cause any problems. Ben would undoubtedly have come to the same conclusion if he’d spent a minute thinking about it, but Matthew wasn’t surprised he hadn’t. Pointless restrictions had never bothered Ben; plus, he was a little too busy with his curing-disease, saving-lives thing.
“If I were having your child,” Amelia said, “you’d be here. You know it’s true. You’re here now. You wouldn’t have left me sick on Thanksgiving.”
Jesus, where did that come from? “All I know is that you’re delusional. It’s normal after fainting, especially as dehydrated as you are.”
“Ben and I had a fight on the plane home from Paris. It was—”
“International flights are stressful. I’m sure he’s already over it. He doesn’t hold grudges.”
“About you.” Her voice was so weak he could barely hear her.
“Ben said I had a vendetta against you based on nothing. He said I never even understood you.”
Go, Ben. “If you’re saying you want to call a truce, consider it called. But you might want to hold off a bit. I have a hunch you’ll change your mind once you get some fluids.”
She waited for a long time before she spoke again. Matthew watched the drip. Hoped the kids weren’t going nuts and driving the other people crazy. Wished Ben would get the hell over here. Tried not to think about how much he hated being in hospitals. Refused to think about all the times he’d sat in a chair like this, holding his mother’s hand while she was dying. Senior year in high school. His stupid decision to be a doctor came from that experience. Every decision he’d made for emotional reasons turned out to be stupid, which was why he didn’t make decisions like that anymore (with the notable exception of the night he had taken E, and obviously that had been beyond stupid).
