After Hours (InterMix)(103)

“But it’s not looking like any bug we’ve been seeing.”

“Maybe a different doctor should look at him,” Amber said.

She smiled tightly at my sister’s tone. “Dr. Chandra is one of our most experienced pediatricians.”

“Does he have kids, this doctor?” Amber demanded.

“Dr. Chandra is a mother, yes,” the nurse assured her. “And we’ve got specialists consulting from other departments as well.”

This revelation seemed to calm my sister somewhat, and I added, “I’m sure Jack’s getting the best care possible.”

Amber took a moment to breathe, cheeks puffing, eyes shut. I rubbed her back.

Having ascertained that the more shrill of the two of us must be Jack’s mom, the nurse told Amber, “I’d like to take you to a private room and ask you some questions, to help the doctors narrow down the potential causes, okay?”

“I’ve been answering questions! The same ones, over and over and over!”

“Yes, but this flu is tricky, and we need all the details we can get.”

“Can I see Jack?”

“Not yet. His room’s still too chaotic. But you can help by answering these questions, and hopefully we’ll know what’s going on real soon.”

I patted Amber’s arm. “Go on.”

“What if I don’t know the answers?” she asked me over her shoulder, following the nurse, just like she might have panicked over a looming test as I dropped her at the middle school on a hundred bygone morning walks. I told her what I would have then.

“Just do your best.”

A couple of women in the waiting room watched me as I took my seat. One smiled weakly, seeming to say, Hang in there. The other looked away when our eyes met, hiding in her paperback.

Whatever new questions the nurse had to ask Amber, they must’ve been numerous—she was gone for ages. I prayed she’d be back before Marco got here. The last thing I needed was to deal with his bluster, without Amber there to cling to him, placate him, snap him into big, tough man-mode.

I glanced up at the clock as I finished skimming a magazine, and it was past eleven. My stomach growled and I ate Amber’s M&M’s. I saved the blue ones for last, just as Jack would, and I cried a little when they were gone.

My shins hurt. My chest ached. My eyes stung and I felt scared and useless. Like a fraud. I’d come here to be the strong one, but I felt anything but strong. I felt more alone than I could remember, trapped in this too-bright room between cheerful nurses and frightened parents. I rubbed the floor with the toe of my sneaker, to see if a fleck there was actual glitter or just some mica in the tile.

A shadow killed the sparkle, and a pair of black shoes stopped before me. Shit. Marco.

And I looked up, and there was Kelly.





Chapter Sixteen


I was too hollowed out, too wrung of emotion to process Kelly’s presence. My heart felt hard and small, rattling around my chest like a stone.

“Hi,” I said, and reached for the Kleenex box on Amber’s chair to blow my nose.

Without a word, Kelly took my snotty tissue and the ones Amber had left and shuttled them to the nearest trash can. Taking her spot, he held the tissue box on his thigh, rubbing his thumbs over its corners. It looked tiny in his hands, and I wanted to crawl onto his lap and go to sleep inside the box, safe on that soft, miniature mattress.

I looked in his eyes. The waiting room bulbs were bright, bleaching his irises to the color of rain clouds. He looks so exactly his age, I thought idly. No gray in his short hair, but lines beside his eyes and mouth, across his forehead. I wondered how he’d got those lines, when he so rarely smiled or frowned. Though when he did, he made the gestures count.

I pursed my lips, unsure what to offer aside from another, “Hi.”

“Can I ask what’s happening, or are you too upset?”

I cleared my throat. “They don’t know yet. Some complication with his flu, it sounds like. Or some flu they’ve never seen? I’m not sure. His fever’s high. Like, really high. It came down some, but not much . . .”

Kelly slipped his arm behind my back, squeezing my far shoulder.

My chin and lips trembled and a tear made its escape. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I live ten minutes away. What kind of a shit would I be if I didn’t?”

I gulped a sob. “The kind of shit who calls himself Jack’s father?”