Chapter 5
“I don’t care how many people were here before me. My son is really sick. He hasn’t even opened his eyes since we got here,” Linda said, glaring at the receptionist. She touched Joseph’s forehead. “What exactly needs to happen before he’s ‘critical?’ Does he need to stop breathing?”
The receptionist stood and returned Linda’s stare. Linda started to turn away, thinking that maybe the best move was to drive to another hospital. Then the receptionist lifted an index finger, signaling for Linda to wait.
The panic in Linda’s chest dissolved as the receptionist slid out from behind her desk and reappeared a moment later, pushing through a door into the waiting area. Linda hurried toward her with Joseph.
“I could get in big trouble for this,” the receptionist said, holding her hands toward Joseph. “I’ll look at him, but if anyone asks, I never touched him. You hear me?”
“No problem,” Linda said, handing Joseph over. “Are you a nurse?”
“Not anymore,” the receptionist said, holding Joseph against her chest. “Thirty-two years of cleaning up after doctors who think they’re God was enough for me.”
Linda watched the woman’s face tighten as she touched Joseph’s forehead. Then she opened Joseph’s right eye, pulled a penlight out of her pocket and clicked it on, flashing it into his pupil. She did the same to his left. Linda could see Joseph’s pupils contract with the flashes of light. Joseph pawed at the light and whined. The receptionist shined it down his throat.
“That’s okay, that’s okay baby,” she said, clicking off her penlight. She tucked him in against her chest and cooed. He was asleep in seconds. She passed him to Linda.
“Well, there’s not much I can tell you,” she said, wiping her hands on her hips. “He’s lethargic and feverish, but that could be anything. Could be a virus. Might be an infection. You’re just going to have to wait. We’ve got broken bones, concussions, people that poisoned themselves. I even have a thirty-four-year-old with chicken pox. You know what that does to an adult?”
The receptionist’s gaze slid down to Joseph. She cocked her head and pulled down the collar of Joseph’s coat, exposing a scabby red spot on his left collarbone. She touched it. “Does he have chickenpox?” she asked.
Linda looked at the spot. Last week he’d had chicken pox and a slight fever. Nothing really bad. Most of the spots had gone away, except for six or seven. Those stuck around. They’d scabbed over and had gotten puffy and red.
“He did, but it went away,” she said.
The receptionist held Linda’s stare for a moment, and then looked at Joseph. “Sometimes kids get bad infections from chickenpox.” She looked over the waiting room, eyes scanning the rows of people, seeming to take a running tally of their ailments. Nodding, she touched the toe of Joseph’s shoe. “I’m going to try to bump him up on the list.”
She turned her back on Linda and pushed through the door that led out of the waiting area.
Linda followed on the woman’s heels, slipping through the door before it closed. The receptionist walked to her desk and reached for the phone. Then she saw Linda. She put down the phone and pointed at her.
“You can’t be in here. Go in the waiting area. I’ll call you when a doctor is available.” She lifted the phone to her ear, watching as Linda backed toward the door. As Linda pushed the door open, the receptionist raised her voice loud enough for everyone in the waiting area to hear. “And please tell your husband to bring your insurance card. By law, we’re not required to provide treatment for persons without insurance unless it’s life-threatening. You should’ve gone to your primary care doctor or the community health clinic.”
Every bit of worry about Joseph burned away in a flash of anger as Linda turned toward the receptionist and said, “Don’t worry about it—you’ll get your money. Just do your job and get a doctor for my son.”
Face reddening, the receptionist’s mouth opened and then clamped shut. Linda stared her down before walking into the waiting area.
Back in her seat by the window, Linda watched a paramedic load an empty gurney into the back of his van. The paramedic, a young guy, met her gaze, closed the back doors on the van, and then winked at her. He got in the van, smiled, and pulled away. She smiled back at him. He had the world by the tail. That was how Danny used to be—a good looking guy who bounced when he walked, happy and flirty and needing nothing at all to set off one of those big thousand-watt smiles that made a person feel like they were the only person in the world. Danny had been all that and more. She watched the brake lights on the van glow as it reached the edge of the parking lot. A puff of exhaust came out of the van’s tailpipe as the paramedic pulled into traffic, probably whistling to himself.
Linda turned her gaze from the window. She rubbed her eyes. Yeah, Danny had been just like that. Until they got married.
Joseph moaned and fussed in his sleep. She watched his jaws move, like he was sucking on his bottle. She smiled, remembering when he was born. A bawling, pink bundle that made her heart swell. Her smile faded. That had been the start of their trouble. The minute Joseph was born, that was when Danny had started acting different. With no job, all he could do was worry about how he was going to pay the bills and take college classes to give them some kind of future. He did nothing but worry, study and scratch for a dollar twenty-four hours a day. The birth of Joseph had turned Danny into a man who had zero time for her.
She looked at Joseph and touched his cheek. He waved his hands at her touch, sucking furiously on nothing for a moment before going still. Yep, little Joseph had turned Danny into a different person. He’d transformed from a smiling, happy-go-lucky guy into an anxiety-ridden ball of responsibility that never had time for fun anymore. He’d turned into a zombie who just worked and worried.
She pulled Joseph to her chest. Her thoughts about Danny weren’t fair. She knew it was her anger over their problems getting the best of her. And it wasn’t just Joseph who made everything go bad either. The pressures of caring for a new baby could only take some of the blame. If there was anything to blame, it was Swan Plumbing moving their factory out of the country. That’s when Danny and about four-hundred other guys were thrown into the unemployment line. That’s when things went belly-up for a lot of people.
Hard as it was, she let her memories come flooding back, filling her with the sights, sounds and shock of that moment when Danny came home and said, “Swan let everyone go. They’re moving the plant.”
A cold sweat broke out on her palms and face. She wiped her hands on her jeans as she relived that moment, seeing Danny standing in front of her in his dirty jeans, looking as close to crying as she’d ever seen him. But he’d been the one to buck her up, hadn’t he? Went right out and picked up enough side work fixing cars and working construction projects in the neighborhood to keep things running. Not running on all cylinders but running just the same. He never complained. Just did what he had to do to bring money in the door. And he did a decent job of it, all things considered. She never had to worry if there was going to be food on the table. But when Joseph was born, well, that was different. Three mouths to feed changed the game and it changed Danny too. But she had to give it to him, once again, he hadn’t buckled. He’d just kept at it, finding and taking that crap night job at the convenience store and even adding on college classes during the day. He did everything he could. He never gave in.
Turning away from the window, she lowered her face toward Joseph and kissed the top of his head. The long curls of his brown hair were soft against her lips as she whispered, “Don’t worry Joseph. Daddy won’t let anything happen to us.”
Her throat tightened as she finger-combed Joseph’s hair, hoping she hadn’t taken out her frustration on Danny too much over the last few months. It just happened sometimes. Like when he’d come home late from school last week and asked what was for dinner. Pulling a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter out of the fridge and handing it to him wasn’t very nice. But cleaning, cooking, and taking care of an infant all day without any adult contact was exhausting. It warped the best of her intentions.
She traced her index finger across Joseph’s cheek. Danny hadn’t changed—their life had changed. He was just rolling with it the best he could. Suddenly she wished he was next to her. That she could turn to him and tell him she loved him no matter what. That he could count on her. That they’d find a way out of this to a better life. If he was here right now, she’d tell him they could make their life anything they wanted, as long as they did it together.
She sighed and patted Joseph’s leg, saying, “Daddy will be here soon.” She sniffed and nodded. “Nothing will keep him away. He loves us more than anything.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “And I love him just as much.”