Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
OWEN
July 15
“Hey, Owen, can you listen to this cough?”
I’m standing in Wyatt’s living room, waiting while she finishes throwing things in a suitcase for Grace’s birthday party in Indianapolis. We’re only staying one night, but when I peeked into her room, it looked like a bomb had exploded inside a laundry basket, covering the room in soft, cozy shrapnel. I made the mistake of asking her how long she’d be, and the look she gave me made me back away slowly.
Now I’m waiting for her in the living room.
Hazel is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Eden perched on her hip. The baby’s cheeks are rosy, her nosy runny, but the mucus clear.
“What cough?” I ask, and then Eden does me the favor of demonstrating. It’s a classic, unmistakable barky cough that I hear over and over in the winter.
“Sounds like croup,” I say. “Does she have a fever?”
Hazel shakes her head.
“She eating and drinking okay?
“She’s fine. It’s just the cough.” Eden lets another fit rip, and Hazel cringes. “It sounds so awful.”
I nod. “It really does. But if she’s in good spirits, she’s eating and drinking, and she doesn’t have a fever, the only thing to do is manage the cough as best you can. You can turn the shower on as hot as it goes and stand in the steam. It’ll help open her airways. Just keep her upright.”
Eden coughs again.
“You sure, Doc? Sounds pretty bad,” Libby says, padding into the room in slippers, wincing.
“If she gets a fever, manage it with Tylenol or ibuprofen. If anything changes you can call me,” I tell them. “She might have a rough time sleeping tonight, but she should be fine.”
Wyatt finally emerges, dragging a rolling suitcase with the corner of something sparkly sticking out the side, the zipper not fully zipped.
“Good night, my little Typhoid Mary,” Wyatt says, chucking Eden under the chin and planting a kiss on the top of her head. Eden gives her auntie a smile, then launches into another coughing fit.
“I’m off to the shower,” Hazel sighs, hoisting Eden higher on her hip.
“I’ll make sure we have Tylenol,” Libby says.
“Call me if anything changes, okay?” I call after Hazel.
“Will do!”
“I thought Fatima was on call tonight,” Wyatt says. “What with you being an hour away, drinking champagne with me.”
“She is, but this is the kind of service you get when your sister is boning your pediatrician,” I tell Wyatt with a kiss.
“Boning? Is that what this is?” Wyatt laughs.
“Tonight? I fucking hope so.” I pull my keys from my pocket and twirl the keychain on my finger. “You ready to go?”
Wyatt smiles, then bats her eyes at me like a cartoon character. “Can I drive? Please? Pretty please?”
I sigh. “At some point we’re going to have to discuss your need for control behind the wheel,” I say.
“I give you control at other times,” she says with a devilish grin and waggle of her eyebrows.
“Damn right,” I growl, slapping her ass. “If I get a tape deck installed in my truck, will you let me drive?”
“The Debbie tapes won’t sound right without the lo-fi disaster that is my twenty-five-year-old sound system,” she says. “You won’t get the true depth of his affection or the misery of his heartbreak.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “Your logic is far from sound.”
“My logic doesn’t need to be sound because my ass is round like a peach,” she says with a wink, and that’s logic that stands.