In This Life
Page 16
So instead of catching up on some much needed sleep I was at the kitchen table, rubbing my eyes in between tweaking the web page of a Portland-based steakhouse chain I’d done projects for in the past.
Roxie snored underneath the table but she jumped up when I got to my feet. I’d barely made a dent in my task list but the rest would have to wait. I stretched my fingertips toward the ceiling and heard my joints pop.
There were many evenings when I’d sat in this kitchen for hours because my dad had a rule about cleaning your plate before leaving the table. I didn’t like visiting my father. My mother always indulged my picky eating habits, preparing special meals that fit my tastes. It was a different story when I came to Hawk Valley. Chris Ryan was baffled by an eight year old who wouldn’t eat red meat and had no interest in catching fish at the lake up at the mountain cabin. On one of those trips I threw down my pole and told him we should leave the fish alone because they were better off where they were. He turned a cold eye in my direction and warned me to pick up the pole and start catching fish like a normal kid or else I could walk back down the damn mountain.
“Your problem is that your mother spoils you. That girl never did have any sense.”
I always knew my parents didn’t like each other. It must have been rough, trying to raise a child with a person you can’t stand. But my mother never said a bad word about Chris Ryan directly to me. I never told her that he didn’t return the favor.
That was the last time my father and I went fishing together. In an act of defiance I did pick up that pole and I stayed put until I had caught twice as many fish as he did. Then when his back was turned I dumped the ice chest full of dead fish into the muddy lake water.
He didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.
The dog let out a soft whine and I was wrenched out of old memories.
“Need to go out?” I asked and her tail wagged. She was way ahead of me by the time I got to the back door.
I watched her bound into the darkness and wondered what my dad would think about a dog living in his house. He’d always been strongly anti-pet, at least pets that weighed more than a pound, only allowing small rodents that could be caged and had limited life expectancies. The only other time I’d had a dog was at my mother’s house in Phoenix. His name was Captain and he was an energetic border collie who shadowed my every move when I was home. He was killed the same night she was.
Roxie responded to my low whistle and raced back inside. I rewarded her with a pat on the head.
“Good girl.”
The dog flapped her tail and accidentally knocked over a blue porcelain vase that had been perched on a low table. I watched it fall to the hard floor and crack into several pieces, wincing at the noise and then waiting for the inevitable cry from upstairs. When it came the sound was shrill and piercing, loud even for him.
I bolted into action, taking the stairs three at a time to get to Colin’s room. He kept screaming when I picked him up, screamed louder when I held him close, arched his back and shrieked like a banshee when I checked his diaper. Nothing comforted him. His diaper was dry. He didn’t want a bottle. He didn’t want to be held. I even tried putting him in the car seat and driving him around the block but that didn’t quiet him at all so I gave up and brought him back home.
“What’s the matter with my favorite buddy?” I said, trying to sound all goo goo ridiculous like Kathleen did when she talked to him but he only screamed some more.
I tried rocking him in a living room chair but he didn’t want that either. His cries were relentless, strident. The sounded full of pain and they gutted me like no other sound ever had before. I held my brother’s struggling little body close and pressed my lips to his forehead.
Hot. Too hot.
Panic rose instantly. He was sick. That’s why he’d been crying so much, why he couldn’t be consoled. I should have known. I should have thought of it. A parent would have realized sooner.
“It’ll be okay, Colin. You’ll be okay.” My voice was artificial, high and cheerful.
I cradled him in one arm and retrieved my laptop with the other. I searched the words ‘baby fever’. I searched the words ‘sick baby’. I searched the words ‘sick baby fever crying’. The results were so varied they were of little use. Colin might be getting a cold or he might have meningitis. I didn’t know if he’d had any shots. I didn’t know who his doctor was. At some point Kathleen had rattled off that information but it was one of those times when I was tired of listening to her talk and tuned her out.
She’d also given me her phone number but I hadn’t added it to my contact list. My only option was to head upstairs and dig through my laundry to find the pocket where I’d shoved her business card the other day. Luckily her cell number was listed on the bottom. She answered on the second ring.
“He’s sick,” I blurted out a split second after she said hello.
If Kathleen had been sleeping when I called she was awake and alert now. “Nash? Colin’s sick?”
“Yeah. He’s running a fever.”
“How high?”
I paced the floor with the phone in my ear and my crying brother in my arms. “I don’t know. He feels hot and he’s been crying on and off since last night and I thought everything was fine when he fell asleep but he started crying again and when I touched his head I noticed how hot he was.”
It was a jumbled babble of words but Kathleen understood.
“Okay, listen. The first thing you need to do is give him a dose of ibuprofen to get the fever down. Look in the diaper bag in his room. There should be a bottle in there with a dropper that will allow you to dispense the proper dosage directly into his mouth. Now let me ask you, has he been eating?”
I’d made my way to Colin’s room and was already rooting around in the diaper bag. “Yeah, he’s been eating.”
“Peeing? Pooping?”
“Both.”
“Does he seem listless? Lethargic?”
I set the screaming baby down on the changing table. “Does he sound listless?”
“Do you see a rash anywhere?”
I unsnapped his outfit and examined him. “No.” The medicine was in my hand. I scanned the bottle for the dosage and wasted no time filling the dropper before depositing the contents into Colin’s mouth. He scrunched his mouth up and was silent for a second, then resumed screaming.
“Should I take him to the hospital?” I asked.
“Hawk General closed two years ago so the nearest hospital is forty five minutes away. There’s a brand new urgent care facility that just opened up on Cottonwood Road, right off I-95. They probably won’t be busy. I’ll meet you over there.”
I was going to tell Kathleen that she didn’t need to do that. It was late and she had a kid of her own to take care of. But I was relieved she was coming. Kathleen with her take charge, know-it-all attitude was exactly what Colin needed right now.
“Thank you,” I said and snapped Colin back into his outfit.
This time I didn’t forget to bring the diaper bag when I left the house. The urgent care was a ten-minute drive away and there were only two other patients in the waiting room. I was halfway finished with filling out my life story on a clipboard full of papers when Kathleen rushed in. I could admit I was damn glad to see her.
“How is he?” She sat in the yellow plastic chair right beside me and reached for Colin, unbuckling him from his car seat.
Roxie snored underneath the table but she jumped up when I got to my feet. I’d barely made a dent in my task list but the rest would have to wait. I stretched my fingertips toward the ceiling and heard my joints pop.
There were many evenings when I’d sat in this kitchen for hours because my dad had a rule about cleaning your plate before leaving the table. I didn’t like visiting my father. My mother always indulged my picky eating habits, preparing special meals that fit my tastes. It was a different story when I came to Hawk Valley. Chris Ryan was baffled by an eight year old who wouldn’t eat red meat and had no interest in catching fish at the lake up at the mountain cabin. On one of those trips I threw down my pole and told him we should leave the fish alone because they were better off where they were. He turned a cold eye in my direction and warned me to pick up the pole and start catching fish like a normal kid or else I could walk back down the damn mountain.
“Your problem is that your mother spoils you. That girl never did have any sense.”
I always knew my parents didn’t like each other. It must have been rough, trying to raise a child with a person you can’t stand. But my mother never said a bad word about Chris Ryan directly to me. I never told her that he didn’t return the favor.
That was the last time my father and I went fishing together. In an act of defiance I did pick up that pole and I stayed put until I had caught twice as many fish as he did. Then when his back was turned I dumped the ice chest full of dead fish into the muddy lake water.
He didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.
The dog let out a soft whine and I was wrenched out of old memories.
“Need to go out?” I asked and her tail wagged. She was way ahead of me by the time I got to the back door.
I watched her bound into the darkness and wondered what my dad would think about a dog living in his house. He’d always been strongly anti-pet, at least pets that weighed more than a pound, only allowing small rodents that could be caged and had limited life expectancies. The only other time I’d had a dog was at my mother’s house in Phoenix. His name was Captain and he was an energetic border collie who shadowed my every move when I was home. He was killed the same night she was.
Roxie responded to my low whistle and raced back inside. I rewarded her with a pat on the head.
“Good girl.”
The dog flapped her tail and accidentally knocked over a blue porcelain vase that had been perched on a low table. I watched it fall to the hard floor and crack into several pieces, wincing at the noise and then waiting for the inevitable cry from upstairs. When it came the sound was shrill and piercing, loud even for him.
I bolted into action, taking the stairs three at a time to get to Colin’s room. He kept screaming when I picked him up, screamed louder when I held him close, arched his back and shrieked like a banshee when I checked his diaper. Nothing comforted him. His diaper was dry. He didn’t want a bottle. He didn’t want to be held. I even tried putting him in the car seat and driving him around the block but that didn’t quiet him at all so I gave up and brought him back home.
“What’s the matter with my favorite buddy?” I said, trying to sound all goo goo ridiculous like Kathleen did when she talked to him but he only screamed some more.
I tried rocking him in a living room chair but he didn’t want that either. His cries were relentless, strident. The sounded full of pain and they gutted me like no other sound ever had before. I held my brother’s struggling little body close and pressed my lips to his forehead.
Hot. Too hot.
Panic rose instantly. He was sick. That’s why he’d been crying so much, why he couldn’t be consoled. I should have known. I should have thought of it. A parent would have realized sooner.
“It’ll be okay, Colin. You’ll be okay.” My voice was artificial, high and cheerful.
I cradled him in one arm and retrieved my laptop with the other. I searched the words ‘baby fever’. I searched the words ‘sick baby’. I searched the words ‘sick baby fever crying’. The results were so varied they were of little use. Colin might be getting a cold or he might have meningitis. I didn’t know if he’d had any shots. I didn’t know who his doctor was. At some point Kathleen had rattled off that information but it was one of those times when I was tired of listening to her talk and tuned her out.
She’d also given me her phone number but I hadn’t added it to my contact list. My only option was to head upstairs and dig through my laundry to find the pocket where I’d shoved her business card the other day. Luckily her cell number was listed on the bottom. She answered on the second ring.
“He’s sick,” I blurted out a split second after she said hello.
If Kathleen had been sleeping when I called she was awake and alert now. “Nash? Colin’s sick?”
“Yeah. He’s running a fever.”
“How high?”
I paced the floor with the phone in my ear and my crying brother in my arms. “I don’t know. He feels hot and he’s been crying on and off since last night and I thought everything was fine when he fell asleep but he started crying again and when I touched his head I noticed how hot he was.”
It was a jumbled babble of words but Kathleen understood.
“Okay, listen. The first thing you need to do is give him a dose of ibuprofen to get the fever down. Look in the diaper bag in his room. There should be a bottle in there with a dropper that will allow you to dispense the proper dosage directly into his mouth. Now let me ask you, has he been eating?”
I’d made my way to Colin’s room and was already rooting around in the diaper bag. “Yeah, he’s been eating.”
“Peeing? Pooping?”
“Both.”
“Does he seem listless? Lethargic?”
I set the screaming baby down on the changing table. “Does he sound listless?”
“Do you see a rash anywhere?”
I unsnapped his outfit and examined him. “No.” The medicine was in my hand. I scanned the bottle for the dosage and wasted no time filling the dropper before depositing the contents into Colin’s mouth. He scrunched his mouth up and was silent for a second, then resumed screaming.
“Should I take him to the hospital?” I asked.
“Hawk General closed two years ago so the nearest hospital is forty five minutes away. There’s a brand new urgent care facility that just opened up on Cottonwood Road, right off I-95. They probably won’t be busy. I’ll meet you over there.”
I was going to tell Kathleen that she didn’t need to do that. It was late and she had a kid of her own to take care of. But I was relieved she was coming. Kathleen with her take charge, know-it-all attitude was exactly what Colin needed right now.
“Thank you,” I said and snapped Colin back into his outfit.
This time I didn’t forget to bring the diaper bag when I left the house. The urgent care was a ten-minute drive away and there were only two other patients in the waiting room. I was halfway finished with filling out my life story on a clipboard full of papers when Kathleen rushed in. I could admit I was damn glad to see her.
“How is he?” She sat in the yellow plastic chair right beside me and reached for Colin, unbuckling him from his car seat.
