by Emilia Finn
She nods and cups his hand. “We’re gonna be late for school.”
“No we’re not.” I shoot up and look Miles up and down. “You still have no shoes on!”
He laughs. “You’re so cranky. It’ll take me two seconds.”
“I’ll take her.” I move around the counter and snatch my keys. When my brain catches up, I toss them down and snatch his. “I should buy a car seat for my car too. That way we don’t have to keep switching.”
“She won’t need it after next year.” Miles sits back at the counter to finish his breakfast, which, in reality, is actually his second or third breakfast. “She can sit with the regular seatbelt after that.”
“Still.” I move behind her and begin finger-combing her hair. “Want me to do plaits, baby?”
“Just up?” She looks over her shoulder. “Just one pony?”
“Sure.”
I begin working her masses of hair higher and higher on her head while I try to keep it neat with no comb and no spray. When I have it as high as I’d like it, I flip the tie from my wrist and secure it with gentle movements.
“Okay, now we’re ready. Where’s your hat?”
“In my bag. I don’t want it yet. You just did my hair.”
I snort. “Alright, but it’s gonna be cold today, so remember that it’s there. If you leave it off all day and play outside at recess, you’ll get a bad earache. They hurt, so…”
“I won’t forget.” She steps forward when I release her hair, and moves into a side hug with her dad. “Will you pick me up, Daddy, since Miss Brooke is dropping me off?”
“Sure, baby.” He hugs her extra tight until her toes lift off the floor. Then he takes a long drink of water before he drops a kiss on the top of her ponytail. “I love you so much, baby. Have an awesome day at school. Learn stuff, then tell us about it this afternoon.”
“Okay.” She pulls away and snags her backpack as she passes by the couch. “I’m ready, Miss Brooke. Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye, princess. Be good, be great.”
I turn on him. “You’ve been hanging with my family too damn much.”
Still, Lyss spins at the door. “Come out swinging.”
She’s one of us. And that fact alone makes me smile all the way out the door, into the car, and on the drive to school.
Mariah Carey’s Christmas song plays on the radio, and as we pass yards with their decorations already out, Lyss’ smile grows wider and wider. She bounces in her seat, and blows fog onto the window because she’s doing her best to get closer.
“Did you write a letter to Santa yet, baby?”
No. The answer is no, because if she did, we’d know what the eff she wants for Christmas.
It’s been the most constant question anyone I’m related to has asked me the past couple of weeks. My dad wants to know. My mom wants to know. My uncles and aunts, my cousins.
My brother especially.
No one knows what she wants, and they assume I’ll somehow get the answer.
“Lyss?”
“I didn’t write a letter,” she says as we round Main Street and cut across toward the school. “I wished upon a star.”
“Oh?” I look in the mirror and try to catch her eyes. “Really?”
“Uh huh. A letter might get lost or take too long. So I wished instead. You said that would work too, as long as I didn’t tell anyone what I wished.”
“Oh… well…” Shit! “That’s true. Wow, you’re so smart. What did you ask for?”
“I can’t tell you!” She’s shocked at my audacity. Stunned. “I can’t tell, Miss Brooke. Because then it won’t work.”
“Well… uh…” Use your creative brain, Brooklyn! “Did you know that Santa has helpers every year? Because there are a lot of children in the world, and that’s a lot of toys and stuff he has to build. So sometimes he asks for help to make sure he doesn’t mess up.”
“Like elves?”
“Uh huh.”
I pull into the school parking lot and cut the engine. As soon as the heat stops, cold pokes at my spine until my shoulders bounce.
I turn in my seat and look into her eyes. “The, uh, the wish system, that’s kind of new. And since all the kids know about it, I bet he’s getting a lot of them coming through his call center.”
“His call center?”
“Uh huh.” And the Oscar goes to… “So Santa has elves helping him at the wish center.”
“I thought it was a call center?”
“Oh, yeah… um, different countries call it different things. You can call it either, but the thing is, those elves are super busy making sure they hear every wish. They write it down, write the child’s name down, the toys they want, all of that stuff. And then they hand the wish to Santa.”
“How do you know all this, Miss Brooke?” Her voice is awed. I’m basically a magical unicorn in her head at this point. “How did you learn?”
“Well, see, I’m one of Santa’s helpers.”
“For real?”
“Uh huh.” I look at my passenger seat, to my purse, and because I’m lying right to a little girl’s face, I busy myself and grab the tube of red lipstick from where it rests by my wallet and the always-present EpiPens I now carry. I take the tube and begin applying it while using the mirror to see.
“So, since the wish system is new, Santa asked for more helpers this year. And since you’re new to my family, I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. So I volunteered, like how some mommies and daddies volunteer to come to your class to talk.”
“Oh, like how Radley’s dad builds houses?”
“Uh huh! He came and talked to your class about how he builds houses.”
“He’s nice. Radley’s dad brought in candy canes. And guess what? I’m allowed to have those!”
“Uh huh.” We’ve gone way off track. “Anyway, so because Miss Brooke volunteered, I get special permission to know your wish. I have to confirm it at the wish center, after all, because what if your wish got lost? It’s my job to make sure everyone’s is heard. And ya know what? I don’t remember seeing your name on the list.”
I apply color to my bottom lip, and use my pinky to make the lines perfectly straight. “Now, I’m a little worried,” I continue. “Because I don’t remember seeing your wish, and I’d hate for you to miss out. So, ya know, if you wanted to tell me…”
“Do you promise it won’t ruin the wish?” She unclips her own belt, a skill she’s learned in the last few weeks, and leans forward to poke her head between the front seats. “Do you swear?”
“Uh huh. I swear. Tell me, and I promise to take the message right to Santa.”
Her eyes widen. “Today?”
“Yup. I would go right after I get you into class.”
“You would see Santa today? Oh my gosh… I can’t believe…” She whistles. “Wow.”
Laughing, I recap my lipstick, and when she puts her hand out, I pass it to her. “Yep. So tell me, baby. What do you want for Christmas?”
“I want a mommy.”
She says it so fucking casually, so easily, that I nearly choke.
“Huh?”
“I want a mommy. But not a regular mommy, I want a special one.”
I turn in my seat and study her. “You have a mommy, baby. And she’s in town. She’s trying really hard to get to know you.”
“But regular mommies don’t have to get to know their kids. They just know.”
“Baby…”
“You know me.” She uncaps my lipstick, looks inside, but doesn’t wind it up. “You knew me straight away. You’re a special mommy.”
“Baby.” I unsnap my belt and turn so far around that I can cup her cheeks. “I love you like a mommy loves her baby. So that’s cool, right? You’ve already got me.”
She nods. “I don’t call Karla ‘Mommy.’ I don’t like it. I don’t wanna call her that.”
“You don’t have to, Lyss. You get to make that choice, because this is your life. It’s all your choice.
Your mom – um, Karla – is trying to get to know you. You can be her friend, and she can be yours. And if you want something more, then you can have that too.”
“Are you going to marry my daddy?”
“Um…” My breath hitches to the same beat as my heart. “Maybe someday. If he asks me to.”
“When you do, can I call you Mommy?”
Inside, I sob for the little girl I want to call mine. I scream and cry and reach out for her. I want to shout yes, you can call me mommy. But I just… I can’t make that call. She has a mom. And she has a dad that really should be a part of this conversation.
“Uh…” I cough. “You can call me anything that makes you happy. I… uh…”
I don’t know how to answer her.
“Alyssa, I love you very, very much. And you make me really happy. Thank you for wanting to make a family with me. Guess what?”
“What?”
“You just made my Christmas wish come true. Because I asked Santa for you.”
“For real?”
I laugh, and in the single second she takes to blink, I reach up and swipe away my happy tears. “Uh huh. I told him how I wanted a daughter. I wanted her to have brown hair.”
Her eyes widen. “I have brown hair!”
“I know,” I exclaim. “I told him how her eyes have to be beautiful like her daddy’s.”
“Me and Daddy have the same eyes.”
I nod. “Yes you do, baby. And they’re so beautiful. Most of all, I said her name has to be Alyssa.”
“No way! That’s my name.”
I don’t even try to hide my tears anymore. “I know. So I gave him my list of the perfect daughter. And look what he gave me.”
“Me?” she whispers. “He made me in his toy shop?”
“Well…” I laugh. “That’s a whole other conversation. But sure. So I already got my present. Isn’t that special?”
She nods, and with a frown, coughs to clear emotion from her throat. “I think it’s cool you already got your present. You must’ve been a good girl this year.”
“I tried really hard to be good, baby. I want to deserve you.”
She coughs again and nods. “I can’t wait to see what Santa does about my wish. I wonder if he’ll show you the ring Daddy bought?”
“Daddy bought a– Lyssa!” I laugh. “You’re not supposed to tell me that.”
“He said Santa would…” She coughs again. “I didn’t mean to ruin it, Miss Brooke.”
“It’s okay.” The bell rings, so I shoot forward and smack a kiss to her sweet lips. “Time for school.”
I turn back to the front so I can climb out of my car and escort Lyss inside, only to scream like my life is ending when Lorna-effing-Davis stands at the hood with her hands on her hips, and an ugly scowl marring her face.
Beside her, Karla stands with her eyes downcast, and her hair hanging in her eyes.
“Come on, baby. We have to go inside.” I turn back to hurry Lyss along, only for my heart to stop as she stares, stares, stares straight through me like she’s seeing a ghost.
“Lyss? Lyss?” I turn on my knees and shake her when she stares. “Alyssa!”
Her mouth moves. A guppy fish. But her words are stuck.
“Alyssa?” I look around the car like the answers are written on the windows. “Baby? What’s wrong?”
She opens her mouth, clutches her throat, and though I know – I know! – she’s trying to scream, nothing comes out.
Then she drops, and I dive between the seats.
“Lyssa? Lyssa!”
I rest my ear on her heart as it races like a hummingbird’s wings. My door flies open, the back door opens. Lorna and Karla, mother and daughter, create three generations of women in one car. And then me, the odd one out, as tears flood my eyes, and I panic.
“Pen?” I look to Karla. “Pen? Pen! Where’s the pen?”
I already know.
I leave my girl in the back, though one hand remains on her chest, and I toss my purse upside down in search of the colored pens.
“Call an ambulance!” I screech. “Lorna! Call an ambulance. Karla! Oh my god.”
I find one of the two pens and toss the orange cap.
“Lorna! Call a fucking ambulance.” I tear at Lyss’ tights, the rainbows, the unicorns, the sparkles, I tear them away and ignore the way Lyss’ lips turn a dark shade of blue.
People in the parking lot slow to watch us, they crowd around as I say in my head blue to the sky, orange to the thigh. I repeat it. I chant it. Then I slam the pen against Lyss’ leg and scream when it feels like I’m stabbing her with Malachai’s dagger and not a life-saving pen.
“Karla! Breathe for her. Please, breathe for her.”
Sirens wail in the distance. Someone has called, but it wasn’t me, it wasn’t Lorna or Karla. And when my tube of lipstick rolls from Lyss’ limp hand and drops to the car floor, I swear my life stops.
I grab the second pen – too much is better than none – and repeat the process. I toss the cap, slam it against Lyss’ other leg, and pray that I’m doing this right. Then I shove a frozen Karla aside and slam my lips against Lyss’. I breathe for her, lift her head back and work as hard as I can in the limited space. I breathe, I puff and pant, but barely a trickle makes it into her lungs.
The squeal of tires screech along the blacktop of the school parking lot, and then I’m physically lifted from the car. Torn out, tossed beside Lorna, as EMTs dive in and take my place. Tears stream, hot and burning over my cheeks as I watch friends – the EMTs are family friends – work on Lyss’ limp body.
“Anaphylaxis,” Luc shouts to his partner as he – Mitch – runs to the opposite side of the car.
Karla is ejected, but instead of coming to me or her mother, she only backs away with her hands in her hair, and pure shock playing over her face. No tears. No crying. No rage. Just… blank shock as she backs up.
“Abnormal pulse,” Luc tells his partner. “Get us more epinephrine, then we’ll try to intubate.”
He tugs Lyss out of the car. She’s as floppy as the doll she carts around. But blue. She’s fucking blue! He races her toward the ambulance he arrived in. A second ambulance screams in beside the first, and when I look up, I find my Aunt Britt watching on in terror. Her eyes come to me, then to Lyss as they toss her onto a stretcher and work to save her life in the parking lot of a fucking school.
I stumble toward the ambulance despite the new medics arriving and trying to push everyone back. I slip through their guard – forever a fighter – and cry over the stretcher as Mitch works hard to shove a piece of tubing into Lyss’ swollen throat.
It’s too tight. It’s too closed.
“Don’t stop trying,” Luc demands. “Don’t you fucking stop. Brooke, move.” He shoves me back, but doesn’t feel bad as I crash into somebody – Aunt Britt – as she catches me and speaks on the phone.
“Get Iowa to the hospital.” Her voice breaks. It cracks as tears stream over her face. “Right now. Send him there.”
“It’s in,” Mitch breathes out a sigh of relief. “Shit, Luc. It’s in. That will have torn her up.”
“Better than dead. Let’s go.” He straps Lyss to the bed, helps Mitch toss the stretcher into the ambulance. Then he turns back. “Next of kin?”
I turn in search of Karla. Lorna throws herself toward Luc, but I shake my head to reject the idea. He watches me, stops the woman from climbing in, and when I catch sight of Karla standing more than fifty feet away with her hands in her hair, Lyss’ words play in my head.
Regular mommies don’t have to get to know their kids. They just know.
“Me.” I dive into the ambulance and take her hand as the doors close.
I have no bag, no ID, no phone. The keys are somewhere inside Miles’ car, and the doors are wide open. But I clutch to Lyss’ hand, and cry all the way to the hospital as the lights and sirens clear our way.
“What did she eat?” Luc asks. He works fast, keeps an eye on Lyss as we m
ove. “Brooke, what did she eat?”
“Nothing! She had breakfast at the house. All of her normal breakfast, no allergens. I had some of Miles’ cereal, and when I kissed her on the forehead, it gave her a reaction.”
He leans over her. Studies her forehead. “Dermatitis.”
“We gave her the steroid cream.”
“This isn’t that.” His breath races as he works around her. Like his adrenaline will help her. “This is anaphylaxis. Peanuts.”
“She didn’t have peanuts! They’re banned now. We don’t have them in the house.”
“The lipstick.” He looks to my face. To my lips. And then to Lyss’. “The fuckin’ lipstick got you.”
“Oh my god. What?” I reach up with a scream, and wipe the red from my lips. “What?”
Miles
End of the World
I sprint through the hospital doors with Bryan and Evie Kincaid on my heels. My best friends. My family. I race to the reception desk, and scare the life out of the woman sitting behind the glass.
“Alyssa Walker! Six years old. Was brought in by ambulance.”
“Are you her next of kin?”
“I’m her father.” I slam my wallet to the counter, show her my ID, though it doesn’t prove anything except that we share a last name. “I need to see her.”
“Just give me a moment to call ba—”
“I want to see her!”
“Bryan.” A woman I don’t know except by sight, long, wavy hair and forest green eyes, stops by a set of security doors and lifts her chin.
She wears navy blue scrubs, a half a dozen pens in her breast pocket, and an official hospital ID, so when Evie and Bry run to her, I follow.
She looks to me, and extends a hand. “I’m Kari. Follow me, and I’ll show you to where she is.”
“What the hell happened?” I almost run to keep up, to keep them moving. “What happened?”
“Your little girl was accidentally exposed to peanuts – trace amounts – and her body reacted the way you knew it would. Her throat closed up, she couldn’t breathe. Brooke gave her both pens, tried to resuscitate her.”
“Tried? Tried!”
“Brooke did her best until medics arrived. They removed her, they took over, and then they brought your daughter right here. Our staff had difficulty applying a tube for intubation, considering her size, plus the swelling in her throat.” She cards us through a set of security doors. “They got it in and saved her life, but her throat will hurt for a week or two after this. Lots of sorbet for breakfast coming up.”