We reached the emergency department sometime around two in the morning, and the fluorescent brightness of the entrance made June look even smaller.
Ethan parked near the doors while I carried her inside. At registration, I gave her date of birth, described the rising fever and explained that the pediatrician had directed us to come immediately.
The triage nurse checked June’s temperature again.
Still dangerously high.
She listened to June’s breathing, measured her oxygen level and asked about feeding, wet diapers, vomiting, rashes and recent illnesses. I answered automatically, switching into the precise language years of emergency medicine had trained into me.
Then we were told to wait.
I knew why.
I had spent enough time on the other side of emergency-room doors to understand triage. A crowded hospital does not operate according to arrival time. Somewhere beyond those doors, another patient might be having a stroke, losing blood or struggling to breathe.
Knowing that intellectually did nothing to make the waiting easier.
June cried against my chest.
Not her sharp cry for food.
Not the irritated fussing she used when she wanted sleep.
This sound was weaker and more desperate. She hurt, and she had no language for pain except the one every parent recognizes instantly.
I stood and rocked her.
Then I sat.
Then I stood again.
I bounced her carefully against my shoulder and murmured the tuneless little melody I had been using since her first week home. Usually it settled her within minutes.
That night it barely reached her.
Ethan paced near the chairs.
At first I assumed movement was simply how he managed fear.
He checked the clock above the reception desk.
Then he checked his phone.
Five minutes later, he checked the clock again.
Eventually he stopped in front of me.
“How long has it been?”
“About forty minutes.”
He exhaled.
“This is insane.”
I looked up at him.
“They’re triaging patients.”
“I know, but she’s four months old with a 104 fever.”
“They know that.”
“Then why aren’t we back there?”
“Because there may be someone currently more unstable than she is.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
For a moment, I appreciated that his frustration seemed centered on June.
Then he looked at the clock again.
“I have to present at nine.”
The sentence landed so strangely that I thought I had misunderstood him.
“What?”
“My presentation.”
“I heard you.”
“I’m supposed to be there at nine.”
June made a broken little whimper and pressed her cheek against my chest.
I looked down at her before answering.
“Ethan, we don’t know what is causing her fever.”
“I know.”
“So we stay until someone examines her.”
“I’m not saying we leave.”
His emphasis on we should have reassured me.
Instead it bothered me.
He sat beside me, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor.
“I’m going to be useless tomorrow.”
I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny in me.
“So will I.”
“I mean for the presentation.”
“I know what you mean.”
He glanced toward me.
There was no cruelty in his face.
That made it worse.
He genuinely believed the problem he was describing deserved space beside the one happening in my arms.
“I’ve been preparing for months,” he said quietly.
“June is sick tonight.”
“I know that, Rachel.”
“Then stop talking about nine in the morning like we have any idea what the next hour looks like.”
His jaw tightened.
He stood.
“I’m exhausted.”
“So am I.”
He seemed not to hear the meaning beneath those words.
Instead he pulled out his phone.
“I need to make a call.”
“To work?”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second.
“I just need to handle something.”
Then he walked toward the far end of the waiting room.
I watched him go, annoyance rising through the fear.
Still, I assumed he was warning a coworker that he might miss the presentation.
That would have been reasonable.
Responsible, even.
I turned my attention back to June.
A woman sitting across from me gave a sympathetic smile. She had a teenage boy beside her holding an ice pack against his wrist.
“Poor little thing,” she murmured.
“Thank you.”
“How old?”
“Four months.”
The woman’s expression softened.
“That’s scary.”
“Yes.”
I kept rocking.
Eventually Ethan returned.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Work.”
His face changed.
Before he could answer, June started crying harder.
I stood and shifted her higher against my shoulder.
“I’m going to ask the desk if they can check her temperature again.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No, I have her.”
He sat down.
That bothered me too.
I carried June to the triage desk, where the nurse reassured me she was still on the list and promised someone would reassess her shortly.
When I returned, Ethan was staring at his phone.
“Any update?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded.
Then something strange happened.
He looked toward the automatic entrance doors.
Not casually.
Expectantly.
A minute later, he looked again.
I followed his gaze.
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“No.”
It came too quickly.
“Ethan.”
He shoved his phone into his pocket.
Before I could question him further, the entrance doors slid open.
Cold night air rushed briefly into the waiting area.
A woman stepped inside wearing a dark coat over what looked like pajamas, her hair hastily pulled back.
I recognized her before she even cleared the doorway.
Sylvia.
For a second my tired mind refused to make sense of the sight.
She lived roughly forty minutes away.
It was after two in the morning.
There had been no reason for her to know where we were unless someone had called her.
Sylvia scanned the waiting room.
Her gaze passed over me.
Passed over June.
Then settled on Ethan.
She crossed the room directly toward her son.
Not her granddaughter.
Her son.
I looked at Ethan.
He did not look surprised to see her.
That was when I understood his phone call had never been about work.
Click Here to continue read next: PART4: My Mother-in-Law Drove Forty Minutes Through the Night, but the Person She Came to Rescue Wasn’t the Sick Baby
The Night My Four-Month-Old’s Fever Hit 104, I Realized the Emergency Was Bigger Than the Number on the Thermometer
Part 3 of 12
