He had Maisie in his arms, against his chest, wrapped in her blanket. I placed my hand on her forehead and choked back every swear word that came to mind. This wasn’t good. We’d been so lucky with her complications—the nausea, vomiting, hair loss, weight loss, it was all pretty standard, small stuff. But this was unknown.
“Maisie, love, I need you to open your eyes and take some medicine, okay?” I coaxed, running my free hand along her cheek.
Her eyes fluttered open, glassy from fever. “I’m hot.”
“I know. Can you take this?” I showed her the cup.
She nodded, the movement small and weak. Beckett shifted his hold, helping her upright, and I put the small cup to her heart-shaped mouth. Such perfect little lips. She’d never had so much as a cavity or a broken bone before her diagnosis, and now she didn’t bat an eye at medication.
She swallowed and jolted, her stomach muscles heaving.
“Baby, you have to keep it down, okay? Please?” I begged like it was her choice. Her jaw dropped, and she started to heave again.
“Outside,” Beckett ordered, and went, leaving me to follow after him.
He carried her down the stairs and outside onto the porch, barely pausing when he had to open the door. The man didn’t even give me a chance to get there first.
I stopped at the office, grabbing Maisie’s binder from my desk and running out after them.
“That’s better, right? Feel that air? Nice and cool. Take little breaths, Maisie. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That’s right. Just like that.” His voice was so soothing and calm, directly contrasting the rigid set of his jaw.
Maisie arched her neck, like she was seeking out the cool night air, and her breathing slowed as her belly calmed. She had to keep down the medicine, had to give us time to get to the ER.
“Better?” I asked, taking her little hand.
“A little.”
“Good.” I’d take a little. A little was better than throwing up the meds.
“Oh my God, Ella, what can I do?” Hailey ran out onto the porch as she tied her bathrobe, Colt just behind her in his bare feet.
“Can you keep Colt? Please? We have to get her to the ER.”
“Absolutely. Where are you going to take her? The medical center is closed.”
“Where’s the nearest ER?” Beckett asked.
“Montrose is the only one open at this time of night”—I checked my phone—“or morning, rather. It’s three a.m.”
“That’s an hour and a half,” Hailey said quietly, like her tone mattered, or could change the distance.
“Not the way I drive,” Beckett responded, already striding toward his truck.
“I’ll be right back!” Hailey shouted, running into the house.
“Mom?” Colt appeared at my side, Havoc at his.
“Hey.” I dropped down to his level. “You did great, Colt. You did exactly right.”
“It should be me.”
“What?”
“I should be sick, not Maisie. It’s not fair. It should be me.” His eyes were just as glassy as Maisie’s, but because of unshed tears.
“Oh, Colt. No.” My stomach lurched at the thought of going through this with him, too.
“But it’s because she came to my game, right? It’s my fault. I’m stronger than she is. It should be me. Why isn’t it me?”
I yanked him forward into my arms, nearly crushing him against my chest as I hugged him. “This is not because of you. Anything that brought on a fever like this would have taken way longer. Do you understand? This is not your fault. You’re the reason we can get her to the doctor. You’re the hero in this, bud.”
He nodded against my neck, and I felt tiny streams of wetness right before he sniffled. I rubbed his back until I heard the engine flare to life behind me, and then I pulled Colt back so I could look at him.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” he said, wiping away the traces of his tears. He straightened his little spine, looking so small and yet so old.
“I’m sorry that I have to leave you, but I gotta go, bud.”
“I know,” he said with a nod. “Please help her.”
“I will.” I kissed the promise against his forehead. “I love you, Colton.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“She’s in the back seat,” Beckett said from right behind me.
“Here,” Hailey said, running back onto the porch with a box and thrusting it into my arms. “Ice, water bottles, washcloths, Motrin, your shoes, cell phone charger, purse, some other stuff.”
“Thank you,” I said, hugging her with one arm. “I’ll keep you updated.” I raced from the porch and climbed into the back of Beckett’s truck, immediately surrounded by the smell of clean leather and Beckett. “Can you sit up?” I asked Maisie, who was in the process of unbuckling her seat belt.
“No.”
“Okay, come here.” I sat her in the middle seat, clicked the seat belt over her, and then had her lie across my lap.
Highway safety approved? No. But cancer was already doing its best to kill my kid, so I was just going to have some faith that we weren’t going to add a car accident to my recent list of tragedies.
I glanced out the window to see Beckett hunched down to Colt’s level. He pulled him in tight for a hug, engulfing Colt’s tiny frame in his massive arms. A quick word to Havoc and he was headed in my direction.
He passed through the glow of the headlights and then opened the driver’s door, climbing in and shutting it in one smooth move.
“You girls okay?” He adjusted the rearview mirror to see us instead of the road as he pulled through the circular driveway.
“We’re steady,” I told him, unable to think of another word to describe it. Was I okay? Was Maisie? No. But this was what it was, and I was solid.
“Okay.” He turned onto Solitude’s main drive. Everything was so quiet this time of morning. Where I was normally consumed with the noise of the kids, the radio, my own thoughts, all there was now was the sound of Beckett’s tires on the blacktop. Smooth and steady.
With Maisie’s head on my lap, I reached into the box at my feet, pulling out a washcloth and a cold bottle of water that had obviously just come from the fridge. “Think you can keep any of this down?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
Beckett’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror as we reached the Solitude gate. “Any objection to me breaking a few speed laws?” he asked as he turned onto the road.
“None.” His foot hit the gas, and the truck took off. “Do you know the roads—?”
“Ella, do you trust me?” he interrupted.
Seeing as I was currently holding my sick daughter in the back of his truck as he drove us into the night, I would have thought the answer was obvious. Duh. That’s exactly what he was getting at. “I trust you.”
“Just take care of Maisie and let me get you there.”
I nodded and got to work, pouring water on the washcloth and wiping her down.
Beckett had this, and I had Maisie.
…
“Margaret’s PICC line is infected, and she’s showing signs of sepsis,” the doctor told us six hours later.
I immediately balked, coming to stand at the foot of my daughter’s bed, where she was fast asleep. “No way. I keep that thing clean as…well, possible.” My brain would have fired back a wittier response if I hadn’t been going on about two hours of sleep. “I swab it, keep it wrapped, air it, everything that every doctor instructed.”
The middle-aged ER doc gave me an understanding nod. “I’m sure you do. We didn’t see any external sign of infection, which happens when it doesn’t originate in the skin. Don’t beat yourself up. This happens. But we need to treat her immediately. That means moving her to the ICU and starting antibiotics.”
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.