Our Finest Hour (The Time #1)(12)

I take a deep breath. “Mommy needs you to roll onto your back, OK? I need to compare your arms to one another. Can you do that for me?”

She releases a fresh round of tears as she nods. With my hands on her back and bottom, I gently position her onto her back. She screams and grabs her left arm with her right hand. Adult hands crowd my vision, my dad's and the coach’s, each automatically reaching out to help. I push their hands aside, my eyes finding the spot Claire has grabbed. Her elbow.

I don’t have to look at her right elbow to know that her left elbow is already bigger than it should be. I meet my dad’s eyes.

“The hospital's just a few blocks away. I’ll go get the car.” He jogs away.

I look back to Claire. She’s quiet now, her cries soft, but that’s going to end as soon as I pick her up. My insides twist, seeing my daughter in such pain and knowing that in order to get her help, I’m going to have to make it worse.

“I’m going to pick you up and take you to the hospital. Mommy loves you so much, and I’m going to make everything better.”

Claire’s gaze is frightened, but wide and trusting.

I’m gentle when I touch her. Gentle when I place one arm under her knees and another under her back. She whimpers the second I shift her. Using her right hand she keeps her left arm locked in place by her side and cries quietly.

With Claire secured to my front, I move through the crowd of concerned parents and children, delivering half-hearted promises to email them when we know the extent of the injury. I nod to the coach as we pass. He gives me a tight smile.

“Good luck,” he calls out. He jogs back to the center of the field, waving at the other little girls on the team to follow him.

Claire wails with every other step I take. “It hurts,” she says through her tears. Somewhere in the back of my mind I appreciate the childlike ability to communicate pain. There is no holding back, no biting of the tongue.

“I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry. I wish I had a magic wand so I could take away your pain. You’re going to see a doctor, and he’ll make you all better.”

My dad waits on the curb, as close as he can be without driving onto the field. He jumps from the driver’s seat and pulls open the back door. I slide in and keep Claire on my lap. She’s keening, her grip still on her left arm. My dad’s gaze flashes to her car seat, pausing there for a moment, then comes to rest on me.

I thought about it too, but there’s no way to get her in there and buckled. I can’t risk moving her elbow any more than I already have. “Just drive carefully.” I close my eyes and rest my head against the headrest. “It’s only half a mile.” It makes me feel better to say this out loud. Nearly seventy percent of car accidents occur within ten miles of a person’s home. Going in the direction of the hospital puts us roughly thirteen miles away from our house. Statistically, this is an acceptable risk.

Apparently my dad trusts me, because he runs back to the driver’s seat and throws the car in drive.

Everything is going to be OK. It’s probably a break. It’s not as if something truly horrific happened. She’s safe, she’s not going anywhere.

When I open my eyes, Claire’s eyes are on my face. Her lower lip quivers. I’m pushing all my love and good thoughts onto her, into those dark eyes that take me back to one hour nearly five years ago. Who knew sixty minutes of time spent with Isaac would produce the one thing I’d been missing my whole life?

Claire is my salvation. My saving grace. She came along and unknowingly gave me all the love I’d missed from my own mother. She gave me the opportunity to be in a mother/daughter relationship, even if I only know what it’s like to be the mother.

My dad sends frequent, worried glances back at us in the rearview mirror. If we were driving any farther, I’d tell him to pay closer attention, but we’re nearly there now.

I’m so lucky to have him. He’s an incredible grandpa and an even better dad.

What would Isaac have done differently on that soccer field? I turn away from the thought. Claire has me, and I did my best.



The hour-long wait in the emergency room feels like three. Claire stays on my lap and doesn’t move. I haven’t moved either, not since I adjusted myself without thinking and she cried. Since then both my feet have fallen asleep. Now they’re numb.

I’ve never been to the emergency room. I’ve never broken or sprained anything. A cavity has never burrowed into one of my teeth, and not because Dad was vigilant about my oral care. Like most things, he assumed I had that covered.

So maybe my lack of experience waiting is why I’m fuming now. When we’re finally taken back, we wait longer. The nurse comes back, I explain what happened, she takes Claire’s vitals without jostling her, then she leaves. We wait again. It feels interminable.

“How much longer before she gets some kind of pain medicine?” My question sails into the space and rustles the curtains hanging all around us. Distress, irritation, indignation, they all saturate my voice.

Dad has no answer.

With my free hand, I rub my eyes. Claire is cradled in my other arm, her lower half lying across my own. She’s quiet but alert. It’s only eleven in the morning. This day has already been forever. It might as well be eleven at night.

“I’m pissed too.” My dad sends me an ironic smile over Claire’s prone form. “Think we’re alike?”