The Last Letter(56)

I wrapped my arms around my stomach and looked at Maisie. She was still flushed with fever, but they had it down to a little over a hundred, and she was hooked up to an IV for hydration. “Sepsis? Wouldn’t I have known?”

The doctor reached over, grasping my shoulder lightly until I looked at him. “You wouldn’t have. She’s very lucky that she spiked that fever and you got her here so quickly.”

I glanced over at Beckett, who stood next to Maisie’s bed, leaned against the wall with one hand on her bed frame like he’d slay any dragons that dared to come close. I wasn’t lucky to get her here; I’d been lucky that Beckett had been driving. That he’d been with me when the fever spiked.

I’d never have been able to shave a half hour off that drive time like he did.

“Sepsis. So, the infection is in her blood.” I tried to recall everything I’d read over the last seven months, feeling like I’d just been thrown into the final exam for a class I hadn’t been aware I was taking. Her blood pressure was low, I knew that from the monitors, and her breathing had been a little labored coming in. Second stage. “Her organs?”

He got that look on his face. The one doctors got when they didn’t want to deliver bad news.

“Her organs?” I repeated, raising my voice. “She’s six weeks post-op, and the doctors spent twelve hours saving her kidney, so could you please tell me if that was all in vain?”

“We need to see how she reacts to the antibiotics.” His voice dropped into the soothe-the-mother-of-the-sick-patient tone.

Alarms as loud as church bells went off in my head, and my stomach dropped. “How worried do I need to be?”

“Very.”

He didn’t blink, didn’t soften his expression or his tone.

And that terrified me even more.

The next hour was a blur.

We were transferred to ICU, where we were admitted. They wristbanded me with Maisie’s information, and I nodded when they asked about Beckett, already digging through my binder for her history and insurance information.

Seeing as we were frequent-flyers at the affiliated cancer center, they had everything on file, so I could put the binder down. Until they started the IV antibiotics, then I picked it back up and started scrawling notes.

“Do we remove the line?” I asked the doctor, scanning his name tag. Dr. Peterson. Beckett moved to my side, quiet but solid.

The doctor scanned through his iPad before answering. “We need to weigh the pros and cons there. In the majority of cases, the line itself isn’t the danger, and if we remove it, you’re looking at the complications from inserting another one.”

“It goes straight to her heart.”

“Yes. But we’ve started aggressive antibiotics, and we’re monitoring her, especially her liquid input and output.”

“Kidney function,” I assumed.

He nodded. “We need to give the drugs a chance. If there’s no improvement, we’ll need to remove the line.”

“So for now we wait.”

“We wait.”

I nodded, muttered thanks, or something, and took the chair next to Maisie’s bed. Wait. Just wait. That was all I could do.

As usual, I was powerless, and my six-year-old daughter was fighting for her life. How was any of this fair? Why couldn’t it be me in that bed? With the IVs and the lines and the monitors? Why her?

“How about I grab us some coffee?” Beckett offered, halting my downward spiral.

“That would be great. Thank you.” I gave him a weak, forced smile, and he headed in search of caffeine.

The steady drip of her IV was my companion, the monitors letting out a comforting beep with each of her heartbeats. Her pressure was dangerously low, and I was quickly addicted to watching the screen as new measurements came in.

Wait. That was the course of action. Wait.

My phone rang, startling me, and I swiped it open to answer quickly when I saw Dr. Hughes’s name pop up as the contact.

“Dr. Hughes?” I answered.

“Hey, Ella. I got a call that Maisie was admitted in Montrose; how are you doing?” Her voice was a welcome breath of familiarity.

“Did they fill you in?”

“They did. I’m actually on my way in right now.”

“You’re here in Montrose? I thought you were in Denver for another week or so.” I flipped through the binder to find my calendar of when Dr. Hughes was scheduled.

“It’s Memorial Day weekend, so I came to spend the weekend with my parents.”

My relief at having her here was second only to my guilt. “I wouldn’t want you to give up your weekend.”

“Nonsense. I’ll be there in about a half hour. Besides, it gives me an excuse to get out of listening to my mom’s opinion on bridesmaid dresses. You’re doing me a favor, I promise.”

“You’re getting married?” How did I not know that?

“Six months to go,” she said, her smile shining through her voice. “I’ll be there soon, just hang tight.”

We hung up as Beckett walked in with a familiar white and green cup.

“You are a god among men,” I said, taking the cup and holding it between my hands, hoping some of the heat would transfer to my skin, would wake up my nerves. Numb seemed to be my default state lately.