Chapter Seven
Emily
Time slows to a standstill.
He looks from his gun, to me, and then to his baby, who is shaking fitfully and looking the color of old mushrooms.
“You want me to trust you with my gun and the little guy’s life?”
I nod, stand tall, while he ponders the question at a glacial pace, as my heart beats faster and faster and the baby’s breathing gets harder and harder. Time is running out.
“It’s a big ask, Emily,” he says.
“You can keep thinking about it while I take care of your kid, because I’m through waiting for you to decide,” I say. My heart aches for the little one, and I stride around Nick and kneel at the baby’s side. First, I place two fingers on the spot between the elbow and the shoulder and feel for a pulse. It’s elevated, and his skin feels hot, clammy, and I put my lips to his forehead to test his temperature. It’s up, too. His eyes are watering and a brilliant red rash sits around his pudgy tummy.
I take out my phone and pull up a name from my contacts list.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Nick says behind me.
“Saving your kid’s life. Shoot me later if you want, but let me do this first,” I say, hoping he won’t take me literally. I want to save the baby, but I don’t want to get shot. Those tough words — and I have no idea where they come from, somewhere deep inside me, maybe, that I’ve never accessed before — come out steady, even though my legs are shaking and my heart feels like it’s playing the xylophone with my ribs.
The phone rings, rings, and then a familiar voice picks up. I put it on speakerphone. “Emily, it’s late. What’s going on? Are you OK?”
“Hey Maggie, sorry to call you so late, but I’m having a bit of an emergency and I need your help.”
“An emergency? Are you OK? Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I say. Nick has wandered into my field of view and he’s violently gesturing ‘no’ with both his free hand and the gun. “You don’t need to come to me. I just need your help with something really important.”
“Em, I appreciate your work ethic, but if this is about your paper, it really can wait until another time.”
“It’s not about my paper. It’s about a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yeah, there’s a baby here, and I think it’s dying.”
“Then you need to call the paramedics and get that baby to the hospital.”
Nick looms in my vision, and I shoo him away. Yeah, big guy, I get it — no outsiders.
“Can’t do that, Maggie. It’s complicated. I need you to help me.”
“I’m not a doctor, Emily.”
“But you were a nurse practitioner before you became a pharmacist, right?” I say. I know the answer to the question, just as I know the answers to a lot of questions about Maggie, like how her favorite snacks are Fritos, or how she takes her coffee, or how her first marriage ended because her husband cheated on her with her best friend’s brother. And I know how, as capable and skilled as Maggie is, she’s also incredibly cautious, and I don’t have time for that right now — Maggie needs a push. A big one. “Maggie, you can either help me or you can accept the fact that this baby is going to die, and it’s going to be at least partly your fault.”
“Emily!”
I shake my head. “Sorry, Mags, but that’s the truth. Will you help me or not?”
“I’ll help. Tell me the baby’s symptoms.”
“Elevated heart rate, mild fever, gray complexion, growing rash…”
“Where is the rash? How big is it?”
I pause, check the baby. “It’s at the base of the tummy. I can’t tell you the full extent. The diaper is in the way.”
“Remove the diaper. I need to know the full scope of the rash.”
I grab the diaper, then frown. It’s duct-taped on. What the hell? “Just a second. It’s going to take a lot of work. It’s stuck on.”
“It’s stuck on? Emily, what the heck is happening there?”
“Someone duct taped it on. With a ton of duct tape,” I say, then give Nick a look. What the hell, man?
“It kept slipping off, and I left the damn pins at your fucking drug store,” Nick hisses, quiet enough that I can barely hear him. “Besides, duct tape is a tool, and it’s meant to accomplish a purpose: keeping things in place.”
“Emily, I hear whispering. A man’s voice. Is that the father? Is there someone helping you?” Maggie says. “If they’re duct taping the baby, we may have bigger problems than just an allergic reaction.”
As Maggie talks, I work my fingers at the duct tape, trying to remove the diaper. There’s so much of it, though, I doubt I’ll ever get it open.
“We have bigger problems, Maggie. I can’t get the diaper off.”
Suddenly, Nick extends his free hand toward me, and I see that he’s holding a knife. “Use this.”
I glare at him. “I will not take a knife to your baby.”
Maggie raises her voice over the phone. “Emily, I trust you not to let anyone stab that baby.”
“I didn’t tell her to stab it,” Nick snaps. “I told her to use a perfectly reasonable tool — a knife — to cut the diaper off, since she seems to be incapable of removing the diaper unaided.”
“What kind of father are you, sir?” Maggie says, loud enough that she might as well be on speakerphone.
“I’m doing the best that I can,” he retorts. “Lay the fuck off, or the diaper won’t be the only thing I use a knife on tonight.”
“Are you threatening to kill me? All because I questioned the fact that you’re duct taping your baby like a bank hostage?”
“If you do your job and help Charlie, it just stays a threat. If you keep bitching me out, then that threat becomes a promise.”
“Did you just call me a bitch, you fucking asshole?”
“If the stethoscope fits.”
Red colors my sight and I stand up, cock my hand back, and then slap Nick across the face. He falls into stunned silence. Then I bring my phone close to my mouth, close enough that Maggie can hear that I’m utterly serious. “Both of you need to stop fighting or else this baby is going to die. Get over yourselves, shut up, and behave!” Then I take the ludicrously large knife, and working carefully, cut the diaper off little Charlie. “Maggie, the rash extends from the baby’s lower tummy to about an inch down his thigh on each side.”
“Has the baby eaten anything recently? Been exposed to insects or any environmental factors that might cause such a reaction? Has it taken any medicine?”
Nick’s eyes widen, and he nods. “I gave him a dose of Wellturin. That cough medicine I bought earlier.”
Maggie’s voice comes sharply over the phone. “Did you say ‘Wellturin’? Then it is definitely an allergic reaction. It’s a known side-effect for a tiny subset of people. Emily, do you have access to an EpiPen?”
I look at Nick, and he shakes his head no. Of course. He might have more knives and guns than I can count, along with a host of other ‘useful’ tools, but when it comes to something lifesaving, count him out. Then I look toward the kitchen, where Emily is still gagged and bound to the chair. Her eyes are wide.
And she’s nodding her head.
I rush over to the kitchen, my phone still pressed against my ear. Maggie's voice is a distant murmur now as my heartbeat thunders in my ears. Emily's eyes are fixed on mine, filled with urgency and fear. I kneel beside her.
“Stay strong, Soph, I’m going to rip the tape off and take your gag out, OK?”
She nods.
Maggie says, “You gagged your friend and you’ve duct taped a baby? Emily, what is going on there?”
There’s no time for answers, only for ripping. In one fierce pull, I tear the duct tape off Sophie’s face and rip the towel out of her mouth.
She howls. But not in a pained way. “Oh my god, that hurt so fucking much, I love it. I think I’m wet right now.”
“Where’s the EpiPen?”
“In my bra. Left boob.”
“Why?”
“Because death by fava bean is the lamest way to die, ever. Do you really have time to question this, Em? Stop talking, grab my boob, and save that baby’s life.”
I do as she says, and then run to the baby’s side with the EpiPen in my hand and the phone still pinned against my ear.
“Maggie, I have the EpiPen. What now?”
“Sanitize the injection site and administer the shot, same as you’ve seen me do a million times before. Relax, Emily, you have what you need. The hardest part is over.”
I take a deep breath and focus on the tiny, fragile body of Charlie. His eyes are closed tight, his cheeks flushed with the allergens surging through his system. My hands are shaking as I sanitize his thigh with a splash of whiskey, which isn’t ideal, but it’s all we’ve got. Then I take a swig to steady myself — it’s high proof, which is good for sanitizing the injection site, but burns my throat like crazy.
“Hold him still,” I instruct Nick, whose face has paled considerably.
Nick nods and gently holds down Charlie’s little arms and legs. For once, he looks genuinely scared — and maybe realizing the depth of responsibility he holds as a father.
With swift precision, I plunge the EpiPen into Charlie’s thigh. The baby stirs a little but doesn’t cry out. As I count to ten, Maggie’s voice comes soothingly through the phone.
“Good job, Emily. Now pull it out slowly.” I do as she says, my every move deliberate and careful. “It will take just a few minutes to see improvement.”
I glance up at Nick. His eyes meet mine, filled with conflicting emotions — relief, fear, guilt, suspicion.
“What’s next?” he asks quietly.
“Watch him, and if you do not see improvement within a few minutes, you need to get him to a hospital,” Maggie says firmly over the line. “Wellturin is not supposed to cause life-threatening medical incidents, as long as properly treated with epinephrine, but that’s assuming you’re operating under ideal conditions, and not in some scenario involving duct tape, hostages, and knives.”
Sensing that Maggie might not be done with arguing with Nick — not that I disagree with her — I quickly say, “Thanks, Maggie, I’ll see you later,” and then hang up. I glare at him intently. He might still hold the gun and he might still be a giant, threatening mountain of muscle and danger, but I just saved his baby’s life, which I feel puts us on at least equal footing. “Go untie my friend. Now.”
“He doesn’t need to do that, if I’m being honest. This is kind of hot,” Sophie calls out.
“Sophie, shut up. He’s untying you and that’s that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nick says.
“Yeah.”
“Say I do. What happens then?”
I cross my arms, which is hard to do, because what I really want to do is hold Charlie and make sure he’s OK, but as tough as it is, this is more important. “I just saved your son’s life. Which means you and I are going to have a talk, and you’re going to give me all the answers I want.”
Nick tilts his head sideways and then raises his gun and points it right at my head. The silence is cut by the menacing sound of the hammer being cocked.
“What makes you so sure I won’t just blow your head off right now?”