“Right,” I said. “That would be the real emergency.”
“You don’t get it.”
He glared at me.
“Don’t start.”
I almost laughed.
Our four-month-old had a 104-degree fever, and apparently I was starting something.
His jaw tightened.
“That would be the real emergency.”
Then he pulled out his phone.
“I’m going to make a call.”
“To who?”
He walked away without answering.
I turned my attention back to Nora.
“I’m going to make a call.”
Twenty minutes later, the automatic doors opened.
Sylvia walked in.
Ethan’s mother was wearing a wool coat over what looked like pajamas.
Her gray-blond hair was tied back, and she had clearly gotten dressed in a hurry.
For one stupid second, relief washed through me.
Sylvia walked in.
I thought Ethan had called her because he was scared.
I thought maybe she had come to sit with us.
Then she walked right past me.
She didn’t even look at Nora.
That was when the little bit of relief I’d felt disappeared.
I thought maybe she had come to sit with us.
Whatever Ethan had called his mother here to do, it wasn’t to help Nora.
Sylvia grabbed Ethan’s coat from the chair beside me and shoved it toward him.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll take you home with me.”
I stared at them.
Ethan didn’t look surprised.
And suddenly his phone call made sense.
“I’ll take you home with me.”
Sylvia continued, “You can sleep in your old room for a
few hours, shower, and go straight to work.”
I felt like the whole waiting room had tilted.
“Sylvia. What are you doing?”
She turned toward me.
“I’m helping my son.”
“We’re waiting for a doctor.”
“I’m helping my son.”
“I can see that, but he has an important meeting in the morning and needs his rest.”
I looked at Ethan.
He looked at the floor.
That hurt more than anything Sylvia was saying.
“I’m exhausted too,” I said.
Sylvia’s face changed.
That hurt more than anything Sylvia was saying.
