11. Thea
ELEVEN
THEA
The smoke alarm went off.
I grabbed the dish towel and fanned it under the detector while the garlic — my third attempt this week — blackened in the pan.
The oil spat. The kitchen filled with a haze that smelled like burnt ambition. Lena, propped in her bouncer on the counter, watched the chaos with wide blue eyes.
"It's fine," I told her. "This is part of the process."
She blew a bubble in response.
Mrs. Parrish appeared in the kitchen doorway. She stood there for a moment, taking in the scene — the smoking pan, the blackened garlic, and the open window I'd cracked to clear the haze. Her face didn't change.
She walked to the cabinet beside the stove, pulled out the fire extinguisher, and set it on the counter within arm's reach.
"Just in case," she said.
"I had it under control."
She looked at the pan. "I can see that."
I scraped the garlic into the trash and started over. My grandmother's Masala recipe was stored in my head. I didn't have the cards with me; they were still in the shoebox on my kitchen counter back home.
"Ms. Calloway." Mrs. Parrish was at my elbow. "Why don't I take over from here? You go sit with the baby."
I sighed. She was right. It was best to give up now before I burned down Declan’s apartment.
I wiped my hands on the dish towel and surrendered the stove.
Mrs. Parrish moved in. I watched as she assessed the damage, adjusted the heat, and somehow salvaged what was left of my mise en place without a single word of complaint.
When she was done by the stove, she picked up her notebook and turned to me.
"Groceries are delivered on Wednesdays," she said, turning a page. "I leave a list on the counter Monday evening. If you need anything specific, add it before Tuesday night. Dry cleaning is picked up and returned on Thursdays. And Tuesdays are my day off."
"Understood."
I typed it all into the notes app on my phone and then felt slightly absurd for needing a schedule to exist in someone else's apartment.
My phone lit up on the counter. A missed call from my mother. A text from Nina.
Nina
Call Mom. She says you're ignoring her.
Thea
I'm not ignoring her. I'm busy.
Nina
She's upset about something Ray did. Just give her ten minutes.
Ten minutes. It was never ten minutes. That was forty-five minutes of Ray said this and Ray did that. I shoved the phone into my pocket, lifted Lena up, and left Mrs. Parrish in the kitchen.
Margot called at noon. I picked up on the first ring. "How's domestic life?"
I shrugged. "I'm surviving."
I heard papers shuffling on her end. "Listen, I need to talk to you about the budget.
The housing program is covered. His grant handled that.
But operating costs are another story — salaries, rent in the office.
The insurance renewal is next month." She paused.
"We're short, Thea. Not a little short. Really short. "
I closed my eyes and picked Lena up. She cooed lightly. She felt warm against my skin. "I'll come in this week. We’ll figure something out."
"Please. The Garcia case is moving, and the Whitfield grant needs your signature. I can't do the funder calls alone because they all want to talk to you."
"I know. I'll come in. I promise."
"Good. Maybe you should ask your billionaire for…you know, since you're basically living with him now. Slip it into conversation over breakfast like — "
"Margot."
"Oh, come on. I'm just saying you are our best hope…and access."
"I'm hanging up now."
"You could ask nicely! You're very persuasive when you —- "
I hung up. I turned my attention to Lena. “Hi, pretty girl,” I gushed. I pressed my lips to her forehead and immediately frowned. She was warm…no. More than warm. She was running a fever. Her eyes were drooping.
I shifted her in my arms so I could study her. Her cheeks were flushed, a deep-red color, uneven, spreading down her neck. Something was terribly wrong.
I carried her to the nursery and laid her on the changing table. She whimpered when I set her down. I pulled the thermometer from the drawer and held it under her arm, as Dr. Kaplan had shown Declan, counting the seconds.
101.4.
My hands were still. My mind was not. I undressed her — gently pulled the onesie off, left her in the diaper.
The air in the nursery was cool, and her skin prickled with it, but the flush didn't fade.
I picked her up. She pressed her face into my neck.
She was burning through the thin cotton of my shirt.
I called the medical concierge number Declan gave me. A woman answered on the second ring.
"Vanguard executive health services. How can I help you?"
"My name is Thea Calloway. I'm calling on behalf of Declan Hale's daughter. She's approximately four months old, and she has a fever of 101.4."
"One moment. I'm connecting you to Dr. Kaplan."
Hold music. Fifteen seconds. Then a male voice came through. "Ms. Calloway, tell me what you're seeing."
"Fever of 101.4, taken under the arm. Flushed skin. Rapid breathing. She's been fussy for the last hour, and she feels hot to the touch."
"Any rash? Vomiting? Change in diaper output?"
"No rash. No vomiting. She had a wet diaper an hour ago. What do I do?"
"At her age, any fever over 100.4 means the emergency room. Don't wait to see if it comes down on its own. Take her now."
"Oh…alright." I hung up and called Declan.
"What's wrong?"
"Lena has a fever. I called Dr. Kaplan, and he thinks I should take her to the ER. I’m heading there now."
"Thomas will be downstairs in two minutes. I'm leaving the office right now. He’ll take you to our private hospital."
The line went dead. I quickly dressed her, grabbed the diaper bag and rushed out of the apartment with Lena firmly against my chest. My heart was in my throat. I couldn’t understand why…how this was even happening.
Was it my fault? Was it the smoke? The garlic? All of the terrible cooking I’d been doing all week?
I shook my head and hurried out of the apartment building. Thomas was already at the curb. Door open. Engine running. I climbed in and buckled Lena's car seat with shaky hands.
Thomas drove quickly. And in under thirty minutes, we were parked in front of Lenox Hill. I walked in carrying Lena against my chest. She was whimpering lightly.
A nurse with a clipboard looked up at the intake desk.
"Baby's name?"
"Lena."
"Last name?"
"Hale. Her father is on his way. He'll have the insurance information."
The nurse wrote it down. "Baby's age?"
"Approximately four months."
"Symptoms?"
"Fever of 101.4 under the arm. Uh…flushed skin…she, um…her breathing keeps coming quickly. And, um…I didn’t notice or think anything of it earlier, but she didn't finish her bottle."
"Allergies?"
I opened my mouth and closed it. "I don't know."
"Vaccination history?"
"I don't… Her father will have the medical file. He's coming."
The nurse looked at me. "Relationship to the child?"
"I'm her…" The word was stuck in my throat. "I'm her caretaker."
She wrote it down. "Follow me."
We walked into a small room. There was a bed with paper stretched over it, a monitor on a rolling stand, and a chair in the corner. I sat on the bed with Lena. Minutes later, a voice travelled through the room.
“How is she?”
I looked up to find Declan in the doorway. He crossed the room in three quick strides. He was still in his suit, but his tie was loosened. His hair was pushed back from his forehead like he'd been running his hand through it the entire drive.
"She's tired. The fever's making her sleepy." I shifted her so he could see her face. "She hasn't cried since we got here."
He sat down next to us on the bed. His hand found Lena's head — gentle, the pads of his fingers against her scalp. She was so small under his hand.
"Is that good or bad?"
I shook my head. "I don't know."
The doctor came in. A woman, mid-forties, with a stethoscope around her neck. She examined Lena on the bed — her ears, throat, chest, abdomen. Lena whimpered but didn't scream.
"She's up to date on vaccinations," Declan read from his phone. "No known allergies yet. Birth weight was six pounds, eight ounces. There were no complications at delivery."
The doctor nodded. "It's very likely a viral infection. Common at this age. Not dangerous in itself, but by month four, we want to rule out anything bacterial. We'll run a CBC and a urinalysis. I'd like to monitor her temperature for a few hours."
"How many hours?" Declan asked.
"Three to four. If the fever trends down and the labs are clean, you'll go home tonight."
She nodded and left. The curtain swished closed. Declan sat back down beside me. His knee pressed against mine on the narrow bed, and neither of us moved.
The hours passed slowly. They ran the tests. A nurse drew blood from Lena's heel, and the cry she made was high and sharp. Declan's hand gripped the bed rail, and his knuckles went white. I put my hand over his and didn't think about it until it was already there.
We didn't talk much. He got up once and came back with a bottle of water from the vending machine. He held it out.
"Here."
I took it. "Thank you."
It was the first time I'd thanked him for anything since I moved in a week ago. He noticed. I could tell by the way his eyes stayed on my face a beat longer than necessary. He didn't comment. He sat back down.
The nurse came in to check Lena's vitals. "Mom, we're going to need you to lay her down for a moment so I can check her temperature again."
I opened my mouth. I'm not her mother. The words were right there, lined up, and ready to go.
"Of course," Declan responded before I could. He looked at the nurse. "Whatever you need."
I blinked at him. He was watching the nurse adjust the thermometer. He didn't look at me. He didn't correct her.
He didn't say anything like she's the temporary arrangement or she's the caretaker or she's a woman I hired to hold my baby because my baby won't let anyone else.
I laid Lena down. The nurse checked her temperature. The baby fussed. I picked her back up. My hands were shaking slightly. I didn't know if it was the exhaustion or the fever or the fact that a man I barely knew just let a stranger call me his daughter's mother without blinking.
I thought about it all night. But no matter how I tossed it over, I couldn’t come up with any answers. And Declan and I didn’t speak. He watched Lena sleep. We both did.
By the time morning came, I could see the dark circles under his eyes.
The doctor came back with the results on a tablet.
"Labs are clean. No bacterial infection.
It's viral, as we expected. The fever's already trending down.
She's at 99.8 now." She looked at Lena, who was asleep on my chest with the pulse oximeter still clipped to her toe.
"She can go home. Rest, fluids, monitor the temperature. If it goes above 101 again, come back."
We walked out of the hospital into the morning.
The air was cool and clean after the recycled atmosphere inside, and I took a breath that went all the way to the bottom of my lungs.
Lena was in her carrier, asleep, her lips parted, her color already better — the flush fading, her skin returning to its normal pale.
"We should eat," Declan said.
"I'm fine."
"Calloway, you haven't eaten since yesterday. I haven't eaten since yesterday. We spent hours in a hospital. We're eating."
I was too tired to argue. He led us to a diner half a block from the hospital. We slid into a booth by the window. I set Lena's carrier on the seat beside me. Declan sat across from me. He looked as wrecked as I felt.
The waitress came. He ordered coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast. I ordered the same.
The coffee arrived. I wrapped my hands around the mug and let the warmth seep into my fingers. The diner was quiet — a few early risers, a man at the counter reading a newspaper, and the cook visible through the window to the kitchen.
"Can I ask you something?" Declan said.
I looked at him over the mug.
"The adoption. How did that happen? How did you end up in that file?"
I set the coffee down. "I wanted a child. It’s really that simple.”
He was quiet for a moment. The eggs arrived. The waitress refilled the coffee without being asked.
"Kira left me," he said. He picked up his fork and pushed the eggs around the plate. "Lena’s birth mother… I didn’t know she was pregnant. I only found out after Lena was born. I still haven’t been able to reach her.
" He set the fork down. "It's strange, isn't it?
You almost adopted my daughter before I knew she existed. "
"It's something."
"It's insane is what it is." The crooked smile appeared. "The universe has a very aggressive sense of humor."
I smiled back. He was right.
It was utterly insane. There was also the history we had. We never spoke about it. But sometimes, when he came back from work and I was feeding Lena in the kitchen, I’d catch him looking. His blue eyes would lower, start from my feet and stop at my lips.
Just as he was doing right now.