But I can say that you’re doing a great job. Yes, you missed the play, but Maisie needed you. There will be times as Colt grows up that he’ll need you, and you’ll miss something for Maisie. I think that’s just part of having two kids. You do the best you can by both and hope it all equals out in the end. The guilt means you’re a great mom, but you also have to let yourself off the hook sometimes. This is one of those times.
What you’re going through is a nightmare. You have to give yourself a little space to stumble, because you’re right—you’re not one of those two-parent households. So that means you have to take extra care of yourself because you’re the only one they’ve got.
Do me a favor and just hold on. Your brother is headed home as soon as he can. You won’t be alone for long, I promise. He mentioned that Colt wanted a tree house, and while I’m visiting, I’ll help him with it. Maybe it’s not much, but it will give him a spot just his own, and give you the peace of mind that he’s got something special.
I wish I had better advice, but I know you don’t need it, just an ear, and you’ve got mine whenever you want it.
~ Chaos
…
“105.3.” I read the numbers on the thermometer again, just in case I got it wrong the first time. Maisie was burning up. “I have to get her to the hospital.”
“We have to get her to the hospital,” Beckett corrected me from the doorway to the bathroom. “Get the Tylenol, wet rags, whatever you need, and let’s go. Colt, do me a favor and wake Hailey?”
I heard the familiar scamper of Colt’s feet down the stairs as I ripped apart the medicine cabinet looking for Tylenol. What could have caused this? The soccer game. It had to have been. But no one was near her, and her levels were great at her last appointment. What could she have caught in that short time?
I found the bubblegum pink bottle of fever reducer and poured the exact amount she needed into the tiny measuring cup.
“Ella,” Beckett called my name from the hallway, and I stumbled out of the bathroom, medicine ready.
He had Maisie in his arms, against his chest, wrapped in her blanket. I placed my hand on her forehead and choked back every swear word that came to mind. This wasn’t good. We’d been so lucky with her complications—the nausea, vomiting, hair loss, weight loss, it was all pretty standard, small stuff. But this was unknown.
“Maisie, love, I need you to open your eyes and take some medicine, okay?” I coaxed, running my free hand along her cheek.
Her eyes fluttered open, glassy from fever. “I’m hot.”
“I know. Can you take this?” I showed her the cup.
She nodded, the movement small and weak. Beckett shifted his hold, helping her upright, and I put the small cup to her heart-shaped mouth. Such perfect little lips. She’d never had so much as a cavity or a broken bone before her diagnosis, and now she didn’t bat an eye at medication.
She swallowed and jolted, her stomach muscles heaving.
“Baby, you have to keep it down, okay? Please?” I begged like it was her choice. Her jaw dropped, and she started to heave again.
“Outside,” Beckett ordered, and went, leaving me to follow after him.
He carried her down the stairs and outside onto the porch, barely pausing when he had to open the door. The man didn’t even give me a chance to get there first.
I stopped at the office, grabbing Maisie’s binder from my desk and running out after them.
“That’s better, right? Feel that air? Nice and cool. Take little breaths, Maisie. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That’s right. Just like that.” His voice was so soothing and calm, directly contrasting the rigid set of his jaw.
Maisie arched her neck, like she was seeking out the cool night air, and her breathing slowed as her belly calmed. She had to keep down the medicine, had to give us time to get to the ER.
“Better?” I asked, taking her little hand.
“A little.”
“Good.” I’d take a little. A little was better than throwing up the meds.
“Oh my God, Ella, what can I do?” Hailey ran out onto the porch as she tied her bathrobe, Colt just behind her in his bare feet.
“Can you keep Colt? Please? We have to get her to the ER.”
“Absolutely. Where are you going to take her? The medical center is closed.”
“Where’s the nearest ER?” Beckett asked.
“Montrose is the only one open at this time of night”—I checked my phone—“or morning, rather. It’s three a.m.”
“That’s an hour and a half,” Hailey said quietly, like her tone mattered, or could change the distance.
“Not the way I drive,” Beckett responded, already striding toward his truck.
“I’ll be right back!” Hailey shouted, running into the house.
“Mom?” Colt appeared at my side, Havoc at his.
“Hey.” I dropped down to his level. “You did great, Colt. You did exactly right.”
“It should be me.”
“What?”
“I should be sick, not Maisie. It’s not fair. It should be me.” His eyes were just as glassy as Maisie’s, but because of unshed tears.
“Oh, Colt. No.” My stomach lurched at the thought of going through this with him, too.
“But it’s because she came to my game, right? It’s my fault. I’m stronger than she is. It should be me. Why isn’t it me?”
I yanked him forward into my arms, nearly crushing him against my chest as I hugged him. “This is not because of you. Anything that brought on a fever like this would have taken way longer. Do you understand? This is not your fault. You’re the reason we can get her to the doctor. You’re the hero in this, bud.”
He nodded against my neck, and I felt tiny streams of wetness right before he sniffled. I rubbed his back until I heard the engine flare to life behind me, and then I pulled Colt back so I could look at him.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” he said, wiping away the traces of his tears. He straightened his little spine, looking so small and yet so old.
“I’m sorry that I have to leave you, but I gotta go, bud.”
“I know,” he said with a nod. “Please help her.”
“I will.” I kissed the promise against his forehead. “I love you, Colton.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“She’s in the back seat,” Beckett said from right behind me.
“Here,” Hailey said, running back onto the porch with a box and thrusting it into my arms. “Ice, water bottles, washcloths, Motrin, your shoes, cell phone charger, purse, some other stuff.”
“Thank you,” I said, hugging her with one arm. “I’ll keep you updated.” I raced from the porch and climbed into the back of Beckett’s truck, immediately surrounded by the smell of clean leather and Beckett. “Can you sit up?” I asked Maisie, who was in the process of unbuckling her seat belt.
“No.”
“Okay, come here.” I sat her in the middle seat, clicked the seat belt over her, and then had her lie across my lap.
Highway safety approved? No. But cancer was already doing its best to kill my kid, so I was just going to have some faith that we weren’t going to add a car accident to my recent list of tragedies.
I glanced out the window to see Beckett hunched down to Colt’s level. He pulled him in tight for a hug, engulfing Colt’s tiny frame in his massive arms. A quick word to Havoc and he was headed in my direction.
He passed through the glow of the headlights and then opened the driver’s door, climbing in and shutting it in one smooth move.
“You girls okay?” He adjusted the rearview mirror to see us instead of the road as he pulled through the circular driveway.
“We’re steady,” I told him, unable to think of another word to describe it. Was I okay? Was Maisie?
No. But this was what it was, and I was solid.
“Okay.” He turned onto Solitude’s main drive. Everything was so quiet this time of morning. Where I was normally consumed with the noise of the kids, the radio, my own thoughts, all there was now was the sound of Beckett’s tires on the blacktop. Smooth and steady.
With Maisie’s head on my lap, I reached into the box at my feet, pulling out a washcloth and a cold bottle of water that had obviously just come from the fridge. “Think you can keep any of this down?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
Beckett’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror as we reached the Solitude gate. “Any objection to me breaking a few speed laws?” he asked as he turned onto the road.
“None.” His foot hit the gas, and the truck took off. “Do you know the roads—?”
“Ella, do you trust me?” he interrupted.
Seeing as I was currently holding my sick daughter in the back of his truck as he drove us into the night, I would have thought the answer was obvious. Duh. That’s exactly what he was getting at. “I trust you.”
“Just take care of Maisie and let me get you there.”
I nodded and got to work, pouring water on the washcloth and wiping her down.
Beckett had this, and I had Maisie.
…
“Margaret’s PICC line is infected, and she’s showing signs of sepsis,” the doctor told us six hours later.
I immediately balked, coming to stand at the foot of my daughter’s bed, where she was fast asleep. “No way. I keep that thing clean as…well, possible.” My brain would have fired back a wittier response if I hadn’t been going on about two hours of sleep. “I swab it, keep it wrapped, air it, everything that every doctor instructed.”
The middle-aged ER doc gave me an understanding nod. “I’m sure you do. We didn’t see any external sign of infection, which happens when it doesn’t originate in the skin. Don’t beat yourself up. This happens. But we need to treat her immediately. That means moving her to the ICU and starting antibiotics.”
I wrapped my arms around my stomach and looked at Maisie. She was still flushed with fever, but they had it down to a little over a hundred, and she was hooked up to an IV for hydration. “Sepsis? Wouldn’t I have known?”
The doctor reached over, grasping my shoulder lightly until I looked at him. “You wouldn’t have. She’s very lucky that she spiked that fever and you got her here so quickly.”
I glanced over at Beckett, who stood next to Maisie’s bed, leaned against the wall with one hand on her bed frame like he’d slay any dragons that dared to come close. I wasn’t lucky to get her here; I’d been lucky that Beckett had been driving. That he’d been with me when the fever spiked.
I’d never have been able to shave a half hour off that drive time like he did.
“Sepsis. So, the infection is in her blood.” I tried to recall everything I’d read over the last seven months, feeling like I’d just been thrown into the final exam for a class I hadn’t been aware I was taking. Her blood pressure was low, I knew that from the monitors, and her breathing had been a little labored coming in. Second stage. “Her organs?”
He got that look on his face. The one doctors got when they didn’t want to deliver bad news.
“Her organs?” I repeated, raising my voice. “She’s six weeks post-op, and the doctors spent twelve hours saving her kidney, so could you please tell me if that was all in vain?”
“We need to see how she reacts to the antibiotics.” His voice dropped into the soothe-the-mother-of-the-sick-patient tone.
Alarms as loud as church bells went off in my head, and my stomach dropped. “How worried do I need to be?”
“Very.”
He didn’t blink, didn’t soften his expression or his tone.
And that terrified me even more.
The next hour was a blur.
We were transferred to ICU, where we were admitted. They wristbanded me with Maisie’s information, and I nodded when they asked about Beckett, already digging through my binder for her history and insurance information.
Seeing as we were frequent-flyers at the affiliated cancer center, they had everything on file, so I could put the binder down. Until they started the IV antibiotics, then I picked it back up and started scrawling notes.
“Do we remove the line?” I asked the doctor, scanning his name tag. Dr. Peterson. Beckett moved to my side, quiet but solid.
The doctor scanned through his iPad before answering. “We need to weigh the pros and cons there. In the majority of cases, the line itself isn’t the danger, and if we remove it, you’re looking at the complications from inserting another one.”
“It goes straight to her heart.”
“Yes. But we’ve started aggressive antibiotics, and we’re monitoring her, especially her liquid input and output.”
“Kidney function,” I assumed.
He nodded. “We need to give the drugs a chance. If there’s no improvement, we’ll need to remove the line.”
“So for now we wait.”
“We wait.”
I nodded, muttered thanks, or something, and took the chair next to Maisie’s bed. Wait. Just wait. That was all I could do.
As usual, I was powerless, and my six-year-old daughter was fighting for her life. How was any of this fair? Why couldn’t it be me in that bed? With the IVs and the lines and the monitors? Why her?
“How about I grab us some coffee?” Beckett offered, halting my downward spiral.
“That would be great. Thank you.” I gave him a weak, forced smile, and he headed in search of caffeine.
The steady drip of her IV was my companion, the monitors letting out a comforting beep with each of her heartbeats. Her pressure was dangerously low, and I was quickly addicted to watching the screen as new measurements came in.
Wait. That was the course of action. Wait.
My phone rang, startling me, and I swiped it open to answer quickly when I saw Dr. Hughes’s name pop up as the contact.
“Dr. Hughes?” I answered.
“Hey, Ella. I got a call that Maisie was admitted in Montrose; how are you doing?” Her voice was a welcome breath of familiarity.
“Did they fill you in?”
“They did. I’m actually on my way in right now.”
“You’re here in Montrose? I thought you were in Denver for another week or so.” I flipped through the binder to find my calendar of when Dr. Hughes was scheduled.
“It’s Memorial Day weekend, so I came to spend the weekend with my parents.”
My relief at having her here was second only to my guilt. “I wouldn’t want you to give up your weekend.”
“Nonsense. I’ll be there in about a half hour. Besides, it gives me an excuse to get out of listening to my mom’s opinion on bridesmaid dresses. You’re doing me a favor, I promise.”
“You’re getting married?” How did I not know that?
“Six months to go,” she said, her smile shining through her voice. “I’ll be there soon, just hang tight.”
We hung up as Beckett walked in with a familiar white and green cup.
“You are a god among men,” I said, taking the cup and holding it between my hands, hoping some of the heat would transfer to my skin, would wake up my nerves. Numb seemed to be my default state lately.
“I’ll bring you coffee more often,” he promised, pulling up a matching chair to sit next to me. “How’s she doing?”
“No change. I’m not sure what I’m expecting. Instant results? Her to pop up and be magically healed from an infection I never saw? How did I not see it?”
“Because you’re not a walking blood test? You’ve got to be a little easier on yourself, Ella. If the doc said there was no way to see this coming, then you need to believe him. Beat yourself up about your choice of base
ball teams, or the fact that you’re about two thousand miles overdue for an oil change, but not this.”
“What’s wrong with the Rockies?”
He shrugged. “Nothing if you like losing.”
“Hey, they’re the hometown team, and I’m not a fair-weather fan.”
“That’s what I love about you,” he said with a smile as he watched Maisie. “Your unwavering loyalty, even to a team that clearly sucks.”
“Just because you’re a Mets fan…” I motioned to the baseball cap he had on.
“Guilty as charged.” He looked at me and winked, and it became instantly clear: he’d distracted me from guilt-tripping myself.
I shook my head and sighed, grateful for the coffee and the split second I’d had to clear my head from going down the path of self-loathing that wouldn’t do Maisie any good.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.” His hand covered mine where it rested on my lap.
“This is bad.”
“Yes.” His simple acknowledgment meant more than any well-meaning platitude. With Beckett, I didn’t have to put on the brave face or smile when someone told me that they were sure Maisie would be okay when they really knew nothing of the sort. I could be horribly, bluntly honest with this man.
“I don’t want to bury my daughter.” I watched the rise and fall of her chest under the patterned hospital gown. “I don’t know how to plan for something like that, or even consider it. I don’t know how to look at Colt and tell him that his best friend…” My throat closed, denying the rest of my words the release they so desperately needed. I’d kept them inside for so long that they felt more powerful, like I’d fed the monster by keeping it hidden away.
Beckett squeezed my hand. Everything about him dwarfed me, including those long, strong fingers that held mine with such strength and care.
“From the moment they told me her odds, I refused to plan for that. Because planning for it felt like admitting defeat, like I’d already given up on her. So I didn’t. I simply refused to believe that could even be an option. And then…”
The Last Letter Page 17