Chapter 38
CHAPTER 38
OWEN
I don’t remember the drive to the hospital. I don’t remember stoplights or exits or double yellow lines flying past us. There aren’t many cars on the road close to four in the morning, which is probably good, because I definitely do not obey the speed limit.
When I pull up to the small county hospital, I park in the first spot I see even though a sign says it’s reserved. I know Wyatt is jogging behind me as I race to the emergency room entrance on my long legs, but I don’t turn to make sure she catches up.
My body is moving as fast as my mind.
I try to keep myself from panicking as a slew of competing thoughts whirls through my mind. It’s absolute pandemonium in there.
But the thought that screams the loudest is You weren’t paying attention .
It would have taken five minutes to grab a stethoscope and listen to Eden’s lungs before we left for Indianapolis. I might have heard fluid or wheezing or some other sign of infection. I could have put her on breathing treatments at home before she go to this point, listless and struggling for air in her mother’s arms.
The echo of another mother’s screams thrums beneath everything.
The nurse at the desk recognizes me and buzzes me through the restricted doors, and I make a beeline to where this small hospital puts pediatric cases. As I race past curtains, I question whether I should have told Hazel to take Eden to Bloomington, which has a much bigger hospital with a pediatric staff. The desperately underfunded county hospital has only one pediatric specialist, and it’s anyone’s guess whether or not they’ll be available. But I wasn’t sure how bad Eden’s breathing had gotten, and I didn’t want Hazel to risk the longer drive.
The last curtain on the left at the end of the ER hallway is closed. I skid to a stop and swipe it open to find Hazel hunched over a pediatric bed, the metal arms raised. Eden is on her back in the middle, already hooked up to oxygen, a pulse ox monitor, and an IV. Libby is in a chair in the corner chewing on her manicure, and on the other side of the bed is?—
“Fatima? What are you doing here?”
She looks up, a white coat thrown over her pink pajamas, a stethoscope around her neck.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in Indianapolis.” Her eyes sweep over me, her brow furrowed. I probably look like I got dressed in a tornado, my hair askew, mascara still smeared around my eyes. I’m wearing pants with no underwear and shoes with no socks, and I think my shirt is buttoned wrong, but I haven’t paused to check.
“Hazel called me, and I told her to bring Eden here.”
“Good,” she says slowly, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. “But why are you here?”
“Because I—” I start, but I don’t have words.
“He drove me,” Wyatt says, walking up and taking my hand in hers. It feels foreign and cold, and even though she’s right beside me, she feels far away. Everything is simultaneously too loud and oddly muffled.
Fatima nods, then she studies me for a beat longer. “Well, Dr. Anderson is sick, so they called me in to do the workup on Eden.”
Dr. Anderson is the pediatric specialist for the county hospital, and while I know he’s a good doctor, I’m glad Fatima was the one at Eden’s bedside until I could get here. I trust Fatima.
But I reach for the chart at the end of the bed anyway.
And Fatima swats my hand away.
“You’re not on duty tonight, Dr. McBride,” she says, then eyes me like this is some kind of test.
“Right, but I’m here now, and I’m her doctor.”
“Not tonight,” she says. “You made sure she got here, and now we’re taking care of her.”
“Cut the shit, Fatima,” I say.
Wyatt’s hand tenses in mine.
“Owen, it’s fine,” Hazel says, her brow furrowed.
That’s when I realize that I’m making everyone in the room uncomfortable. Fuck, this is not how things are supposed to go.
“Dr. Adebayo was just telling us that Eden has RSV,” Hazel says.
Fatima nods. “We’ll admit her for a round of breathing treatments and monitor her fluids and her airway. She doesn’t show signs of pneumonia, so I’m guessing she’s going to feel a whole lot better in the next twenty-four hours with the oxygen support.”
RSV. Fuck. Of course. I missed it because of the croupy cough and because July isn’t normally the season for respiratory viruses. But it happens.
And I missed it.
“Right, okay, that all sounds good,” Wyatt says, her voice tentative. “That’s good news.”
“It is,” Fatima says, turning to Hazel. “I know it’s tough when babies get sick like this because they can’t tell you what they’re feeling. And seeing your child struggle to breathe is terrifying. But you did exactly the right thing, and she’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
All eyes turn to me, and it takes me several seconds to realize I said that out loud.
Fatima narrows her dark eyebrows. “Dr. McBride, can I see you in the hall?”
Fatima smiles at Hazel and says something I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears. Then she pivots on her heel and strides out of the curtained area. I drop Wyatt’s hand and follow her. But she doesn’t stop in the hall. She keeps walking past empty beds until she reaches a closed door. She opens it and gestures for me to go into what turns out to be a supply closet, then follows me in and slams the door behind her.
“What the fuck is going on, Owen?”
Her expression is a mixture of pity and scorn, and I can barely look at her. I can barely understand what’s happening, how I went from being in bed with Wyatt, happier than I’ve ever been in my life, to standing in this cold, dark hospital supply closet feeling like I’ve nearly lost everything.
Eden is fine. I know she is. And yet I can’t seem to get hold of myself. It’s like someone loaded me into a roller coaster car and shoved me down a hill and I’m trying to get out while the thing is still moving.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” But I trail off. I don’t know what it is. I just know that my brain is too loud and my body feels like it’s vibrating too fast. I can’t catch my breath, and I feel like my heart is trying to escape from my chest. Everything is spinning, and it’s cold but I’m sweating?—
“ Owen ,” Fatima says, gripping my upper arms. The venom is gone from her voice. She tugs gently on my sleeves, and suddenly I’m sinking down onto a cardboard box in the corner of the room. “Owen, listen to me. I think you’re having a panic attack. I need you to take a deep breath, okay?”
I try, but it feels ragged in my chest, and I huff the air out quickly.
“Good, try again. Breathe while I count to four, okay?”
She counts, and I breathe. It takes a few tries before I’m able to slow my breathing down, but once I do, Fatima nods.
“Okay, now I need you to name three things you can see,” she says, and when I don’t answer right away, she repeats it.
My eyes dart around the small room, unable to land on anything, but Fatima gives my arms a squeeze, and something inside me slows.
“Uh, paper towels,” I say, scrambling for words. “Bottles of cleaner. Shelving units.”
“Good,” Fatima says. “Now give me three sounds you hear.”
This one requires more effort, but Fatima is patient. “The air conditioner humming,” I say finally. “Someone talking down the hall, probably at the nurses’ station. And, uh, does the pounding of my own heart count?”
“I don’t think the judges will have a problem with that,” Fatima says. “Okay, now I need you to move three parts of your body.”
I wiggle my fingers, which are clenched on my thighs, feeling the gentle release of tension in my forearms. Then I slowly roll my neck, breathing with the motion as something in my shoulders cracks. And finally I reach up and swipe at my cheeks, where a trail of tears is making its way down into the collar of my shirt.
“Okay, good,” Fatima says, letting out a long breath of her own. “Now, I’m going to take care of Eden, and you are going to go home.”
“But—”
“No,” she says, her voice kind but firm. It’s the voice I hired her for. And I need to remind myself that I hired her for her skills too. “You are going home. Are you safe to drive?”
I remember that I drove here with Wyatt. In her truck. And I have a sudden sinking, miserable thought.
I haven’t felt this bad since Dylan Anders. This feels just like Dylan Anders. Eden isn’t dying. Eden is going to be fine. I know that. I repeat it like a mantra. But that doesn’t change my feelings. The feeling of inadequacy. The fear of making a mistake.
I remember the look on Hazel’s face. The fear on Wyatt’s.
Things didn’t go wrong. This time.
I walked out of Wyatt’s house so sure that I had given the right advice about Eden, and I was wrong.
I was wrong, and I nearly hurt the person I care about most.
I was wrong because I was thinking only about her.
I was wrong, and I can’t do this again. I can’t.
Wyatt deserves better. My patients deserve better.
I can’t do this again. Not again .
“I’ll get an Uber,” I tell Fatima as my stomach curdles.