Do You Take This Child?

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Four hours of crying can take a lot out of you,” he quipped, only because he wanted to keep Sheila’s spirits up. They hurried through the electronic doors.

  Sheila’s eyes never left her daughter’s face. “So can not eating.”

  Just within the doors was a large, glass-partitioned waiting area. She’d never been through this side of the hospital doors before, Sheila thought as the warmth of bodies housed in close proximity enveloped her. She felt vulnerable and just as frightened as so many of the people who walked through here.

  More, because she knew what was happening. And what could happen as a result. Rebecca was dehydrating. At her slight weight, it wouldn’t take much for the situation to become critical.

  The woman at the registration desk barely looked up, sensing their presence. “Have a seat, please,” she instructed. “We’re a little full up.”

  For the first time in her life, Sheila pulled rank. Maybe it wasn’t right, but she didn’t care about right. She cared about her daughter’s life.

  “I’m Dr. Sheila Pollack.” The woman behind the desk looked up immediately. Sheila didn’t recognize her. “I’m on staff at this hospital. Is either Dr. Williams or Dr. Mattox on call, please?” Her throat felt as if it was closing over. “I have a very sick infant here. She’s my daughter.”

  She knew she should have thought to call one of the pediatricians first, but she couldn’t seem to think coherently. It was as if everything in her head had been tossed up in the air in a bizarre imitation of fifty-two pickup.

  As soon as Sheila mentioned the doctors by name, the woman quickly worked her way down the roster of physicians on duty that hung behind her. Neither doctor’s name appeared on the board.

  She reached for the telephone, dialing as she spoke. “I don’t know, but I can find out.” The woman saw an intern emerging through the double doors behind her. “Simon,” she called to the young man. “Take Dr. Pollack and her baby in back, please.”

  Slade and Sheila followed behind the intern. “All kids get sick,” Slade told her.

  Sheila couldn’t help wondering if he was saying the words to comfort her or himself. In either case, it only seemed to be succeeding marginally.

  “It’s just a natural process,” Slade continued as the intern led them to one of the free beds.

  Rebecca’s fever was climbing. He could feel heat radiating from her tiny body. Slade couldn’t remember when he had ever felt so lost and out of his element.

  The intern looked at the bed ruefully, and then at the baby in Slade’s arms. “I think you’d better hold her until we can get a crib down here.” There were bars on the side of the bed that could be raised, but they didn’t go up all the way. The baby could easily tumble out. “I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. “Be back in a few minutes.” He disappeared behind the curtain before either of them could say anything.

  Slade gently slid the palm of his hand along Rebecca’s head, just barely coming in contact with her hair. He didn’t want to disturb her. Worn-out, Rebecca had temporarily fallen asleep.

  “She’d probably going to have to spend the night,” Slade murmured to Sheila.

  He didn’t like thinking of Rebecca being here, with so many other sick people. This was his little girl. No matter what he said to Sheila, he felt she shouldn’t have to be dealing with anything like this. But Rebecca needed nutrition to survive, and if she wasn’t holding it down, she was going to have to take it intravenously.

  “I know.” She looked up at Slade. Gratitude for his support was in her eyes. She laid her hand on his arm. “So am I.”

  Slade placed his hand over hers. They still had a lot to iron out, a lot to discuss. But now wasn’t the time. Now was only for Rebecca.

  “So are we,” he corrected her.

  She swallowed and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “There’s nothing to thank me for. She’s my daughter, too.”

  The intern returned a few minutes later without the crib. He looked hopeful as he peered in behind the curtain. “Good news, Dr. Pollack. We haven’t located a crib yet, and I’m afraid that Dr. Mattox is out of town—”

  “And the good news would be?” Slade pressed impatiently.

  “They’ve called Dr. Williams and he’s on his way in right now.”

  Ben Williams. He was a good man, Sheila thought. He’d been a pediatrician for more than twenty years. He was Rebecca’s doctor. Logically, Sheila knew that her baby would be in good hands.

  But there was still that awful, shaky feeling inside, the one that wouldn’t release her. Sheila nodded her thanks to the intern and he disappeared again.

  Alone within the small confines of the curtained area, Sheila raised her eyes to Slade. To her husband. Everything else was forgotten.

  “Oh, God, Slade,” she whispered, afraid to speak any louder, afraid her voice would break, “if anything happens to her—”

  “It won’t.” His eyes held her. “You have to believe that.”

  Sheila blew out a breath as she nodded. She believed. There was nothing else she could do.

  “You know,” she began slowly, needing to clear the air. “I thought that maybe you weren’t going to come back.”

  “I had to. You had the rest of my things.” He looked at her, his voice growing serious. “And my heart.”

  “Slade, about the argument—”

  He had wanted to get it out in the open. Now, it didn’t really matter. “Forget it. It’s in the past.”

  “No, I can’t forget it,” she insisted. Her voice was low, but there was no missing the emotion in it. “I have to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “There was someone else. Before you,” she added. She hated remembering, but she owed him this. “It happened while I was a resident back east. He was the chief resident at the hospital where I was doing my work—” She paused, her eyes on her baby. Her sweet, precious baby.

  This was harder for her than he thought. She was going through enough as it was. “You don’t have to tell me now.”

  “Yes, I do. I want you to understand.” She stared at the white curtain, seeing the past. “I fell in love with him. Trusted him. And he lied to me. Lied to me about his wife and daughter. Or actually,” she amended, “he just forgot to mention them to anyone. His wife called one day while I was in his apartment, asking when he was coming home.” She looked at Slade. “I answered the phone.”

  Just as she had when his mother called, he thought. The pieces all fell together. “So when you found out that I lied to you about my father—”

  “I thought it was Edward all over again.” But Slade wasn’t Edward. They were a world apart. She knew that now. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

  “Under the circumstances, that’s understandable.” He looked at her. “Am I forgiven?”

  She almost laughed at his expression. “You are if I am.”

  He smiled. “Done.” He looked at his daughter. “She’s going to be fine, Sheila. I promise. And I don’t break promises.”

  Sheila merely nodded.

  It was another thirty minutes before they saw Dr. Williams. Sheila thought she was going to crawl out of her skin, waiting. The doctor arrived, dressed in a tuxedo and looking none too happy about being called away from the closing-night party for the cast and backers of the play he’d been attending. The party was being held at a posh hotel across the street from the Performing Arts Center.

  The blustery expression on his face softened considerably when he saw that it was Sheila who had summoned him.

  “Hey, I just saw this little lady last week. She was fine then.” His hamlike hand seemed to encompass Rebecca’s entire head as he laid a palm to her forehead. He frowned. “How long has she been like this?”

  Sheila quickly recited the symptoms and when she had noted their occurrence as the pediatrician checked Rebecca out. Awakened, the baby began crying again. Slade thought he had never heard such a mournful sound.

  “I think she has the flu t
hat’s going around,” Sheila concluded. “Besides her temperature, she hasn’t held down anything for the last twelve hours.”

  “It’s the flu, all right.” Taking off his stethoscope, he draped it over his neck. It looked out of place with his tuxedo. “We’re going to have to keep her until she licks this, Sheila.”

  Sheila nodded. “How long will that be?”

  He shrugged. “A day, several. Maybe a week. There’s not much we can do at this stage except lower her temperature and feed her fluids. Good thing you brought her in when you did.”

  Dr. Williams’s sympathetic look took them both in. “Don’t worry, Sheila, your daughter’ll be fine. I’ll stay until they have her in a room.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Dr. Williams called the intern over and gave him instructions for Rebecca’s admission.

  “Did we get you at a bad time?” Slade nodded at Williams’s tuxedo.

  “What? Oh.” He looked down at his clothes. “No, you saved me from a banquet and gaining an extra five pounds I don’t need.”

  Sheila saw the quizzical look in the doctor’s eyes as he looked at Slade. In her anxiety, she’d completely forgotten to introduce the two men. “Ben, this is my husband, Slade Garrett.”

  The doctor took Slade’s hand in his, shaking it heartily. The grin folded into the craggy wrinkles around his mouth and eyes.

  “Oh, yes, the delivery room nuptials.” He looked at Sheila. “That’s going to make the rounds for a long time, Sheila.”

  “And here I was hoping to be remembered for my expertise,” she murmured.

  Dr. Williams finished writing his instructions on Rebecca’s chart. “This way is far more colorful,” he assured her. He flipped the chart closed, then hung it off the side of the bed where the orderly would find it when he took care of the transfer. “She’ll be on the pediatric floor.” He looked from one to the other. “There’s nothing more you can do tonight. Why don’t the two of you go home and I’ll have the nurse call you if there’s any change?”

  She wasn’t going to be ushered out. “I can’t sleep, Ben. I’ll just pull up a chair beside the crib.”

  Dr. Williams looked to Slade for reinforcement. “Can’t you talk any sense into your wife?”

  Slade placed a hand on Sheila’s shoulder. Neither one of them was going anywhere. “No, I was going to ask her where I could find another chair.”

  Dr. Williams sighed. It was pointless to argue. “All right, you might as well bring her upstairs. We’ll see about getting her a crib—and some chairs—now.” He called over an orderly to strip the bed even though Rebecca hadn’t made use of it.

  He led the way out of the emergency room to the back elevators. “So,” he began conversationally, addressing Slade, “rumor has it that you’re a foreign correspondent.”

  “I am.” Or was, he amended.

  “What do you think of the situation in...?” The doctor’s voice droned on.

  Slade tried to keep his mind on the conversation and not the shadow hovering over the infant in his arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dr. Williams had remained longer than he promised. He’d waited with Sheila and Slade until the preliminary test results were in to confirm his diagnosis. His initial diagnosis had been right. Rebecca had fallen victim to the latest strain of flu making the rounds. Her dehydration level hadn’t become low enough to be critical, but they had needed to bring her in.

  “It looks a lot worse than it is,” Dr. Williams assured them, directing his words to both. Sheila might be a professional, but he knew it was different when it was her child lying in a hospital bed. He had three children and seven grandchildren of his own and he knew how frightening the feeling could be.

  “I hope so, because it looks pretty damn scary.” Slade leaned in over the metal bars of the crib. His daughter, her tiny arms immobilized to keep her from pulling out the tubing, was tethered to two different intravenous lines.

  It was a sight to remind him just how fragile life really was.

  “We’re feeding her,” Williams said. The explanation was needless, but somehow, still reassuring to hear. “This will keep her from dehydrating until she can retain liquids on her own.”

  Sheila nodded, knowing that everything that could be done, was being done. It still didn’t help quell the uneasy feeling. She felt tears gathering in her eyes.

  “She looks so helpless, so tiny.” What if Rebecca didn’t have the strength to fight the virus off? What if—? She couldn’t complete the thought, not even in her own mind.

  “Are you sure you want to stay here?” the doctor asked gently. “There’s really nothing you can do.”

  He didn’t have to say that to make her realize her own helplessness. She already knew.

  “I can watch her,” Sheila replied thickly. With the tip of her finger, she stroked her daughter’s hand. “I can let her know that someone is here.”

  Dr. Williams nodded. He understood the need. “I’ll be by in the morning to check on her.”

  Slade glanced up to see the man leave. “We’ll be here.”

  Sheila and Slade stood side by side at the crib, looking down at the life they had created together. A life tethered to this world, it seemed, purely by IVs.

  “I’ve never felt so powerless in my whole life,” Slade whispered to Sheila, his eyes on the baby.

  Impotence ate away at him. He couldn’t help Rebecca, couldn’t help Sheila bear up to this. He knew what she was thinking without asking. The same thought that was occurring to him. He’d seen too many babies die to take anything for granted. And Rebecca was burning up.

  The emotion in his voice moved her. For the first time that evening, Sheila really looked at him. Exhaustion was etched deeply into his face. She reached for Slade’s hand.

  “Why don’t you go home?” she coaxed. “You look dead on your feet.”

  “I’m okay.” A ghost of a smile played on his lips. “That’s why they call it the red-eye. Because of what you look like after the flight.” He dragged a hand through his hair.

  Some of her concern shifted. She hadn’t stopped to think of how all this was affecting him. “When did you sleep last?”

  He laughed softly. For a moment, he couldn’t remember. “In another lifetime, I think.”

  Sheila shook her head. He needed rest. “Go home, Slade. I can stay here.”

  She wasn’t getting rid of him that easily. This was his child as well as hers. She didn’t have a monopoly on love, or concern.

  “I know you can. So can I.” Slade glanced at the coffee-colored vinyl chair the orderly had brought in. “I’ve slept on worse.”

  Sheila didn’t doubt it for a minute. Not after some of the stories he’d shared with her. Though she was worried about him, as well, she couldn’t deny that she was glad for his company. Glad to have someone to face this with. “Thanks.”

  She meant that, he thought. As if it was a favor he was doing. As if the fate of their baby wasn’t as supremely important to him as it was to her. He sighed. She’d learn. He had a lifetime to teach her, and she’d learn.

  Slade threaded his arm around her and drew Sheila a little closer. He kissed the top of her head. It was a purely affectionate gesture. Not one steeped in passion or desire, just affection.

  It touched her more than she could say.

  “Don’t mention it,” he murmured into her hair. “She’s half mine, you know.”

  Sheila nodded, swallowing a lump that had suddenly materialized. She buried her face in his chest. “Which half do you want?”

  “The top half. Until she learns to talk back.” Holding Sheila even closer, he looked down at the baby in the crib. Humor left without a trace. “Seems incredible that something so small could have such a half nelson hold on your life so quickly.”

  Her soft laugh wafted along his shirt. He could feel it warming the center of his chest. Sheila turned her head to look at the baby. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  With a
sigh, Sheila stepped away and looked around the room. It was intended to accommodate three beds. One of them had been moved out to another room to make space for Rebecca’s crib. The other two beds were empty. That gave them privacy.

  She wanted to yell, to throw things, to rail at this invisible villain that caused her daughter’s pain. She struggled to get her emotions under control.

  Bone tired, Slade felt too restless to lie down. He recognized the feeling and knew it was useless to try to get any sleep yet. He had to wait until this steely tension relaxed its hold on him.

  He felt his pocket for change. “Where’s the nearest vending machine in this place?”

  It took her a second to remember. She knew the hospital like the back of her hand, and yet she’d drawn a blank when he asked. “In the basement by the cafeteria.” He began to walk toward the door. “But the nurses keep a stocked refrigerator on each floor just behind the nurses’ station. What do you want?”

  He looked at her. To take my little girl and my wife home.

  “The usual. Coffee, black and thick.” The way he figured it, he was up for the duration. He might as well resign himself to it.

  There was always a pot of coffee going. She nodded. “They can accommodate you. Just tell them you’re my husband.”

  A smile curved his mouth. It was the first time Sheila had called him that directly. He wondered if she realized that. They’d had their first major argument and survived that, he thought. The rest would be easy. As long as Rebecca was all right.

  “Will do,” he answered. “Does that entitle me to a sandwich, too?”

  The hour was late. Sometimes the supply dwindled. And the cafeteria kitchen had been closed for hours. “If they have one. You’re hungry?’

  No, he wasn’t. There was a hole where his stomach should have been. “I was thinking of you. When did you eat last?”

  Her eyes met his. “In another lifetime,” she echoed his phrase.

  He’d guessed right. She wasn’t looking too well herself. “That’s what I thought. You need to keep your strength up.” He saw her opening her mouth in protest. He expected nothing less. “You don’t want to come down with this thing, too, do you?”