Neighborly(64)

We’re an emergency. I call Doug. “You need to meet us at the ER,” I say. I’m crying again.

“I’ll be there soon,” Doug answers. “Don’t panic, OK? She’ll be fine. Kids get sick.”

I’d swear Sadie’s getting hotter by the second, and not just her forehead. It’s her whole body. I find myself talking loudly to keep her awake, like they do in movies when someone has a concussion. “Don’t fall asleep!” I sing out through my tears.

She’s not going to die. Kids get sick, that’s all. Very few of them die.

I strap Sadie into her car seat. She is still frighteningly inactive. “Get mad,” I instruct her. “Just really let me have it.” Her eyes are uncomprehending. They flicker shut.

When we reach a stop sign, I push back the canopy of the car seat. She stares up at me. I’ve never before seen eyes that are truly glassy, like a doll’s.

In front of the ER, there’s a circular drive, and I leave the car parked there. I don’t care if it’s ticketed or towed; I need to get Sadie inside ASAP.

I’m panting, holding Sadie against me, feeling her terrible heat. There’s a line in front of the check-in window and a ton of people sitting around with their children, but everyone parts for me. “It’s a baby,” says one little girl excitedly.

The woman behind the window is in scrubs, and I say that our doctor called ahead. She didn’t get any call, but she immediately lets me into a fluorescent-lit room with a gurney in the center, wreathed by machines on standby. I must look that frantic, or Sadie looks that dire, or that’s the protocol with a baby this small. She’s just so small.

Suddenly, everything is moving very fast. Once Sadie’s temperature is taken, the hospital personnel seem to multiply. I think I hear “105.6,” and I assume that’s her temperature, the reason why Sadie is surrounded and I’m shunted aside. They need access to her veins, to her blood. Tests. They’re going to run tests. And cultures. They need to figure out what’s made Sadie so sick so fast.

That’s what a nurse has just explained to me. I nod convulsively. “Can I get you a chair?” she asks. “Can I get you tissues?” There’s liquid all over my face. I don’t know if it’s from my eyes or my nose. Sadie is in just her diaper, and she’s no longer inert. She’s screaming. I step in closer and see her head rolling from side to side. She’s looking for me.

“I’m here,” I say, surging forward, into a gap behind the gurney, near the beeping machines.

The nurse pursues me. She’s pretty, Indian, with a soothing accent. Her scrubs have some sort of cartoon character on them that I don’t recognize. “You can touch her. You can give her the pacifier.” She hands it to me.

“Sadie doesn’t like this kind.” I stare down at my baby girl helplessly. Wires snake through her nose, providing oxygen. Her head lolls; her screams continue. She wasn’t looking for me after all. She needs someone who can make all this stop. That’s not me.

“This will help,” the nurse says. She hands me small plastic tubes and shows me how to open them. “Sugar water. Squeeze it into her mouth.”

I do, and Sadie calms for a few seconds. She’s able to see me through her tears. I stroke her hair. She’s still so hot.

“We’ve given her Tylenol,” the nurse says, as if she could hear my thoughts. Or did I speak out loud? I suppose they’d be anyone’s thoughts with a baby in this situation. She must see this all the time. She sees worse. “She’ll start to respond soon.”

What if she doesn’t?

“We’ve also started antibiotics,” the nurse continues. “They’re taking cultures, some of which won’t come back until tomorrow. It might turn out to be viral. But we can’t take any chances, so we start the antibiotics immediately. Just in case it’s a bacterial infection.”

“Why are there so many people?” I choke out. “Is that normal?”

“They’re taking good care of her. The doctor will talk to you soon.”

The doctor—an older woman wearing a lab coat over a blouse and slacks—is on the phone in the corner. I assume she’s talking about Sadie.

“Give me a hint,” I say. “Please.”

The nurse casts a glance around. Everyone else is occupied by Sadie’s tiny body and even tinier veins. She whispers, “Her blood pressure was unstable at first.” She points to one of the monitors. I can’t look.

“What does that mean?” I whisper back.

“They don’t know yet. But she won’t be going home for a little while.”

I burst into noisy tears. “She has to stay here?”

The nurse nods. I lean down and sing into Sadie’s ear. I stroke her hair madly. I squirt more sugar into her mouth, and it runs out the corners. She chases it with her tongue. Her eyes droop. I think the crying has exhausted her. I don’t know what to hope for, crying or no crying. Which will mean she’s getting better?

The doctor hangs up the phone. She appears at my side and leads me away. She introduces herself, and I forget her name immediately. “. . . so she’ll be in the PICU overnight, at least . . .”

“The PICU?” I say through a fog.

“The pediatric intensive care unit.”