Chapter 40
Cormac
Idozed off after getting a text from Scarlett that she and Regan were at an Upper West Side dessert place called Whisk and Window. A peek at the tracker I put in her driver’s car confirms it.
Darragh mentioned he and Ana were going out of town this weekend to meet a Bratva enforcer in Chicago.
“Soph, what’s wrong?” I hate answering that way, but I would also hate to answer all cheery and then make her think she’s blindsiding me.
“J.P. is sick,” she says, panic in her voice.
“Sick, how?” Getting out of bed, I notice the empty side next to mine. Fuck. “Why are you calling me, munchkin? Where is your nanny?”
I rush into my closet and get dressed with the phone on speaker.
“Girdie isn’t here. Maya is in the bathroom with him.”
Maya? Who the fuck is Maya? But if Darragh left his children with her, I’m sure she’s been vetted.
“What’s happening, Sophie?”
“Maya told me he’s fine, but he’s screaming, Uncle Cormac,” she chokes up.
Screaming?
Having worked in pediatrics, I know the high-pitched wail of a child. There are a plethora of simple things it could be, but that kind of screaming could also mean something is very wrong. And when it’s your own child, it’s hard not to think the worst.
“Soph, it’s going to be okay,” I say calmly despite my rising panic. “I need you to put Maya on the phone, right now.”
“Okay,” she says, sounding like she’s been crying.
After a few seconds, I hear Sophie talk to someone.
“I called my uncle, Maya. He’s a doctor like Daddy.”
“Dr. O’Rourke?” she calls to me in a Spanish accent. “I’m sorry to bother you. The boy, your nephew, has a fever. It’s high. I’m trying a cool bath.”
I think of the fever he had a few months ago. Kids that age get sick on and off all the time, especially if they have an older sibling in school. It’s a good thing. It builds a healthy immune system.
When it’s not scaring the fuck out of the parents.
The boy. She didn’t refer to him as my son. Maybe she doesn’t know. That’s not important now.
This woman sounds competent, but a one-year-old with a high fever is scary. Unless you’re old-school Irish like my mother, who told her first five sons to walk off knife wounds when they worked for my father.
“Is he nonresponsive?” I ask, my heart pounding.
“He’s breathing, trying to cry, but only on and off. His eyes, they’re… They’re…”
Rolling in the back of his head.
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter, getting my shoes on. I shake my head, hating what I’m about to do. “Put Sophie back on the phone.”
“Uncle Cormac!” Sophie’s voice is wobbly. “Please help us.”
“Soph. Take a breath. I need you. J.P. needs you. You’re going to end this call, and you are going to call 911.
Got it? Nine-one-one.” I know Darragh went through this drill with her, like they had a drill for their safe room in Seattle.
“Soph, tell the person who answers that your one-year-old brother has a very high fever and he is convulsing.”
“Okay,” she cries. “Please come, Uncle Cormac. Please.”
“I’ll meet you at the hospital, Soph. Do not wait for me. Call them right now.”
“Okay. Hurry.”
The line goes silent, and it’s the most helpless I’ve ever felt.
There’s no point in calling Ana or Darragh in Chicago.
They’ll freak out being so far away. There’s also nothing any of my brothers in Astoria can do either.
Dispatchers hear one-year-old, fever, and convulsing, and skip the follow-up questions.
I finish getting dressed and rush out the door. Not taking the extra time to get my car out of the garage, I hail a cab.
“My son is in a hospital in Queens,” is all I say, and this guy goes light speed for the bridge to that borough. “I’ll get you the name in a minute.”
I use a police scanner app to monitor the 9-1-1 call going to Darragh and Ana’s Tudor mansion. When I find out which hospital they are taking James Patrick to, I give the driver the address. With a free moment to think, I shoot a text to Scarlett that I had an emergency.
When I get to the hospital, I’m relieved not to see my son in the waiting room. Rarely does an admin leave a sick, wailing toddler to rot for hours.
“Hi,” I say to the receptionist, sharp and focused. “James Patrick O’Rourke. One year old. He was just brought in with his nanny.”
The woman looks up at me, eyes narrowing a bit. “Are you the father?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Your name?”
I close my eyes. My name isn’t on the birth certificate. “Cormac O’Rourke. I show my identification, which includes my medical license and my teaching ID for Hamilton.”
J.P. was born in Seattle, but I’m banking that neither Sophie nor the nanny was able to give this clerk his social security number to look him up and see that I’m not the father on record. That Darragh is.
“Oh geez, Dr. O’Rourke, I’m so sorry.” She hits a buzzer, and the door opens. “Go on through to Bay 4.”
“Thank you.”
I rush in and eye the signs for the bays. I turn the corner and see Sophie sitting in a chair, clutching a stuffed flamingo to her chest, trying not to look scared. My brave girl.
The moment she sees me, she stands up and runs into my arms. “Uncle Cormac.”
“I’m here.” I pick her up and hug her. “Where’s Maya and J.P.?”
“Dr. O’Rourke!” A stout, capable-looking woman steps outside the bay.
“Maya?” When she nods, I put my niece down. “Please bring Sophie into the waiting room. I got this.”
“Yes, sir.” She doesn’t argue.
“Will he be okay?” Sophie asks, crying.
“Yeah, munchkin.” I kiss her on the forehead. “I promise.”
Behind the curtain, J.P. is cradled against a nurse’s shoulder, fussing weakly, cheeks flushed a furious pink. His dark blonde curls are plastered damp against his forehead. His little fists keep rubbing at his eyes.
“I’m his…father,” I say, claiming him, like that will make them work harder for him. “Dr. Cormac O’Rourke. Pediatrics, and I’m a professor at Hamilton Medical College. I was on an emergency. The babysitter called 911 at my instructions.”
The nurse gives the kind of soft smile they reserve for scared parents. “We’ve given him ibuprofen for the fever and diazepam to help stop the shaking. He’s responding well to both. His temp is coming down.”
My knees nearly buckle in relief.
“Can I hold him?” My voice drops low.
“Of course,” she says, handing him over.
“Come here, big guy.”
J.P. melts against my chest like he knows me.
His tiny hand fists my shirt as he lets out a small, broken cry, “Mama.”
I give a soft laugh. Moms always get top billing.
“He’s a little dehydrated,” the nurse continues. “We’re running labs and viral panels. Could be the start of an ear infection or a respiratory virus.”
“Any meningismus? Neck stiffness?” I ask automatically.
“No concerning signs at the moment,” she says. “If labs look clean and his fever stays controlled, he can go home in a couple of hours.”
Home. Not my home. My wife doesn’t know I have a son.
She’ll get back to the condo tonight, and I won’t be there.
Holding my son, I feel the phone vibrating in my pocket, and I think about the excuse I’ll make for not being there.
But before I make a decision, a woman in maroon scrubs steps in holding a tablet.
“Good evening. I’m Dr. Sanchez. I’d like to take a quick look at his ears and lungs,” the resident says, uncurling the stethoscope from around her neck.
“Dr. O’Rourke.” I nod and shift J.P. on my hip, protective and wired. “Go ahead. Just tell me what you’re doing before you do it. Sorry, I was a pediatric resident for many years. Kind of a control freak.”
“Understood.” She listens to his chest first. “The lungs are a little tight but clear.” She uses an otoscope to check his ears.
J.P. whines at the intrusion of the cold tool but doesn’t fight.
“Right ear looks inflamed. That could’ve triggered the fever jump.
Someone will be in shortly to set up an I.V. , and I’ll call for a crib.”
I kiss the top of his warm head and feel him settle, his hiccupping breaths finally slowing. My heart only hammers harder.
“You gave me a scare, little man,” I whisper against his curls.
He looks up at me, his chubby fingers pat my cheek, like he’s the one comforting me.
When the resident steps away to order antibiotics, I sink into a chair in the exam room and slowly start to cry, using my son’s onesie to wipe my eyes.
Maya arrives to check on us a few minutes later with Sophie in tow. “Sorry, sir. She wants to see her little brother.”
“No problem.” I pat the seat next to me. “Come here, Soph.”
“Is he okay?” She scoots close and leans into my arm.
“He sure is.”
“I was so scared,” she whispers.
“You were sick like this when you were his age,” I tell her, not sure if Darragh ever told her the story.
“I was?” She looks up.
“It’s common. Your dad called me before 911, just like you, can you believe that?”
She shrugs. “Daddy says you always know what to do.”
The fact that he still thinks that is astonishing. And that while we’d spent years treating kids, the minute it’s your own, all your training goes out the window.
“I can stay, Dr. O’Rourke,” Maya says. “Now that his fever is coming down. You don’t have to—”
“No. I’ve got him.” I shake my head. “Take Sophie home, please.”
“I want to stay,” she whines.
“I know. But you need sleep.” I kiss her forehead again. “It’s okay. I’ve got this.”
“Okay, Uncle Cormac,” she drones. “I love you.”
No matter how many times she says that to me, it busts a seam in my heart. “Love you, too, munchkin.”
They leave, and I just sit with my son on my chest. Hating myself that I’m glad Darragh and Ana are out of town, and that I got to be here for this. This is one more complete stitch in my second chance.
I rock J.P. softly until his eyelids droop. He’s fever-drunk and on meds, but it’s coming down. My pulse finally starts retreating from the cliff’s edge.
He’s okay.
Every mistake I made feels washed away under the weight of this tiny, sick boy on the mend, asleep against my chest.
“You’re all right now,” I murmur. “Dada’s here.”
A nurse shows up to put in his I.V., which I hold him through.
Soon after, a staffer wheels in a crib, and the nurse suggests I let him lie on his side.
Nodding, I agree and put him down. The monitor ticks softly as fluids drip down the I.V.
line and into his tiny arm. His breathing is steady now. No more tremors. No more terror.
With him settled comfortably, I step outside the room to call Darragh.
He answers on the first ring, sounding groggy and alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t freak. I’m at the hospital with J.P. He’s fine. But his fever spiked.”
“Jesus,” my brother blurts.
“He’s stable. His fever is coming down. They’re keeping him for fluids and observation. Viral panel pending. Right ear infection.”
Darragh exhales loud enough that I hear it. “Good. Good. Ana and I will get back to Astoria immediately. We’ll have the jet wheels-up in an hour.”
My spine stiffens. “No need. I’ve got it.”
“Cormac…” Darragh drawls. “She’s his mother. She’ll want to hold him.”
“I get it,” I grumble. “I’m his father, I wanted this moment, too.”
“Hang on, it’s 3 a.m. there. Where’s your wife, who doesn’t even know you have a son?”
“Not sure,” I say, feeling wrapped in years of grief and mistakes.
“She was out with a friend. I don’t keep her a prisoner.
I dropped a text that I had an emergency.
She knows I treat the Quinlans here and there.
She’s in that third-year finals haze.” I take a breath.
“I’ll tell her about J.P. when her tests are done and her head is clear. ”
“Sounds like you really do care about her,” Darragh says. “I hear it in your voice, Cormac. You don’t think I can still read you?”
“I do.” And I want to keep her, but that’s another conversation. “This isn’t about me or her right now. Right now, this is about…our son.”
He exhales. “Thank God you were there for him. I won’t forget it.”
“Did you think I’d blow it off?”
“No, never,” he says right away. “I have to wake up my wife and tell her. Brace yourself, you might get a call from her.”
“I’m here. I’ll make her feel better, I promise.”
“Thank you, Cormac.” His words unknot inside my chest.
“I can handle this,” I say again, closing my eyes. “Maya brought Sophie home, and when he’s ready, I’ll bring J.P. home, too.”
“They won’t release him to you,” Darragh says. “Maya had an authorization signed by me.”
“I kind of lied and said he’s mine.” I clear my throat. “They didn’t catch the different first name.”
“This proves we can’t keep up this charade of telling everyone he’s my son. You got lucky.” Darragh is shuffling around now.
“You’re right.” I push a hand through my hair. “You two travel home safely. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“We’ll be home as soon as we can, and we’ll talk more about it then.” Darragh hesitates. “And Cormac… I love you, brother.”
The call ends before I say it back.
I look at J.P. through crib slats. “And I love you.”