Because (Seven Year Itch #4)(6)

Maybe we shouldn’t have married so early. Getting pregnant at eighteen and eloping seemed like a good idea at the time. I swore he was the love of my life, and that no other man could ever possibly give me the kind of passion Brandon does. It only took me a few months of pregnancy to see just how much growing up my husband had to do. He wasn’t around much for doctor appointment or pivotal firsts, like feeling our daughter move. His priorities revolve around his friends. Nothing has changed since then. Nothing.

Seven years.

Seven years of ignored phone calls.

Seven years of being his last priority.

Seven years of waiting for him to come around and see how much we need him to put us before his own social life.

I keep waiting, but it seems like it’s never going to happen.

It doesn’t help that in the time we’ve been married I’ve heard enough opinions from other people to last a lifetime.

“Give him time.” How much time is needed? Were they talking about weeks? Months? Years? A lifetime of being miserable?

“Men mature later than women.” I have every reason to believe it never happens, at least not for my husband.

“He will come around.” Maybe in the next century, when I’m dead in the ground with a lifetime of regret and despair. Surely, I can agree to disagree.

“Maybe you’re smothering him.” Asking my husband to pitch in with family decisions, chores, and priorities is not smothering him, not in my book. Maybe my friends and family are smothering me with their ridiculous opinions. In the meantime, I’m drowning in depression. I’ve let myself go, mostly because I’m too damn upset to do anything. It’s a struggle to get out of bed, especially when the spot next to me is almost always empty.

Arriving at the Emergency is a relief. I haven’t gotten ahold of Brandon, and I don’t have time to sit around and keep trying. I type in a quick text before shoving my phone in my purse and rushing to get my daughter inside.

When medical workers see me carrying a seven year old, one that should be capable of walking in herself, they know something was terribly wrong. A triage nurse hurries to my side. “What happened?”

“Her fever was over one-hundred and four. She’s vomiting, and has a rash on her stomach. She’s lethargic and…” I can’t keep talking. I’m breaking down, gripping to her body in order to keep from dropping her. “Please. She needs to see a doctor.”

She takes us through the back and puts us in a room while calling for another nurse to help her prep Aberdeen. Once they have her in a bed, they lift her pajama top over her head and started taking her vitals.

“When did she last have medication?”

“She hasn’t. She kept vomiting and I didn’t get the chance.”

“We’re going to get her temperature managed first, and then we’ll draw blood to figure out what’s going on.” She says to me before checking Aberdeen’s eyes with a small light. “Her pupils are dilated. Can you get the doctor?”

“Is she going to be okay?” It was hard to ask with my voice cracking.

“We’re going to figure out what’s causing this, ma’am. She’s in good hands, I assure you.”

A man comes in the room followed by the other nurse that had been helping from before. She gets to work on an IV and inserts the medication directly into her veins. At the same time the doctor and triage nurse are looking Aberdeen over. By this point she’s out of it, appearing to be asleep, even though I worried she’s unconscious. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“How long have these symptoms been occurring?”

I wipe my tears as I speak. “Maybe an hour. She was fine earlier.”

“Besides the fever, vomiting and rash, can you think of any other symptoms?” He asks.

I shake my head. “She’s lethargic. She seems like it’s hard to communicate.”

“We’re running some blood work and working on getting her fever under control. We should see improvement soon, and by that time we’ll hopefully have it figured out why she’s fallen ill. It’s probably viral, but we’ll make sure we have the proper diagnosis.”

He leaves the room with the nurse he came in with, calling out the names of certain tests he wants panels for, while I remain watching the triage nurse attach a drip to Aberdeen’s IV. “What’s that for?”

“Fluids. We need to keep her hydrated, especially if she’s vomiting. Do you know if she’s had loose bowels?”

I shake my head. “Not that I know of. She was fine all day.”

The nurse hands me a little bowl shaped like a banana. “In case she needs to throw up keep this handy. If she has to go to the bathroom, hit the call button. I’ll want to try to get a sample, but it’s okay if we can’t.” She pulls out her thermometer and after putting a new cover on the end, sticks it in my daughter’s ear. “Good. We’re at one-o-three point six. It’s coming down slowly. Don’t be surprised if she wakes up. It’s normal.”

“Is there some kind of wicked virus going around?”

“There is always something, but we’re going to make sure that’s all it is. Rest assured, she’s going to recover.”

It wasn’t until she leaves the room that I pull out my phone again. Just as I start to hit the button to call Brandon I hear the doctor and nurse talking outside the door. “We need to take precautions in case it’s meningitis. Tell the lab to page me with the results. I don’t want to wait on this one.”