When It All Falls Apart (Book One) (3 page)

“Oh, I’m going to miss her so much.” I cooed looking at her sleeping in her polka-dotted bassinet with her pink puppy resting against her cheek as I got ready to leave for my first day back at work. “She’s just so precious.” I hoped I sounded convincing. The truth was that when she wasn’t screaming she was sleeping and I could only stand around for so long watching somebody else sleep. It was about as enjoyable as watching grass grow.

“She’s going to miss you, too,” David said trying equally hard to sound convincing.

I gave him a quick peck on his lips and then placed a kiss on the top of her head. I grabbed my travel coffee mug and headed out the door. As I closed the door behind me, a huge smile spread across my face. I’d never been so happy to crawl through rush hour traffic. I rolled the windows down and let the cool wind blow against my face, turned the radio up, and sang at the top of my lungs to every song. I could breathe again.

During the first few weeks back at my office, I pretended to be having a really hard time being back because I knew it was what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to feel. I made a point to show my employees pictures of the two of them on my IPhone whenever they came into my office and made sure I announced how hard it was to be away from her at least once a day. The truth was it felt as if the noose that had been tied around my neck had been released. I felt like myself again for the first time since I’d gotten pregnant as I buried myself in the work that had piled up on my desk since I’d been gone. I dived into huge accounts determined to settle them in our favor.

David was thrilled to be staying home with Rori and they easily fell into a routine. He had always been passionate about photography but teaching hadn’t left him much time to enjoy it. Now he could devote himself to his photography and Rori became his prized subject. He took roll after roll of film and never tired of taking pictures of her. During Rori’s first year, there was hardly a time where you didn’t catch him with a diaper bag and a camera slung over his shoulder.

He took her to the park almost every day and enrolled her in all of the mommy and me classes in our area. He was almost always the only dad in classes, but it never bothered him. He saw Robin more than I did because they took the kids to the same music and story time classes at the library every Monday and Wednesday afternoon.

I knew people wondered and questioned why he was the one to stay at home and be the primary caretaker while I was the one to go to work. Even though we lived in Los Angeles, people still looked at a dad staying home with a child as being abnormal even though everyone was politically correct enough not to say it. My own mother was one of the worst.

“It’s got to be so hard for you to go to work every day,” she’d say. “I can’t imagine leaving you kids alone with your father while I went to work. It would just feel so weird.”

But it didn’t feel weird to us. It felt right even if other people didn’t understand it. Once when I was at the park with Rori by myself another mother was bold enough to ask me, “Don’t you feel like he’s doing your job?”

I had come home and cried to David. The woman at the park had said out loud what I knew everyone was thinking when they learned about our situation. He’d assured me again and again that it didn’t matter what other people said about our family. He promised me he was happy in his role and as long as I was happy in my role then we were doing what worked best for our family.

“Who cares what people think? We’re doing what’s right for us,” he said and we hadn’t talked about it again. It wasn’t the last time someone made a rude or insensitive comment about it, but we ignored them together. He had betrayed our agreement during our fight. I was comfortable with other people and strangers thinking I wasn’t a good mother, but I wasn’t okay with my husband thinking it.

I tucked the blankets up under Rori’s chin a final time and tiptoed into the hallway bathroom. I didn’t use the master bathroom because I didn’t want to take the chance of waking David. He was a sensitive sleeper and if he got woke up after he’d fallen asleep, he had a tough time falling back to sleep. I washed my face quickly and brushed my teeth hoping I wouldn’t wake up with a head ache in the morning from the wine. I undressed quietly and headed into our bedroom. I slipped into my pajamas and crawled into bed next to him. He stirred, opened his eyes to look at me, and then rolled over. I stared at his back wondering how long this phase was going to last.

I
was in the middle of writing a report when my cell phone rang. I looked down and saw it was David. I toyed with the idea of letting it go straight to voice mail, but decided to pick up since I hadn’t seen him or Rori since yesterday morning. I’d gone straight to my mom’s night out dinner after work and I’d left early this morning before either of them was awake.

“Hey. I—”

He interrupted me right away without a hello. “Rori threw up. She ate her breakfast and threw up everywhere.”

I could hear the panic in his voice. David’s only phobia was throwing up. Nobody liked to throw up, but David got anxious watching people throw up on TV. Rori had only had the stomach flu once and David’s nerves were so bad during it that he ended up making himself sick.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“How am I doing? I’m good,” he said with an edge in his voice.

“Well, I know how you get. I was just making sure you weren’t freaking out,” I said.

“I’m freaking out, but not because of myself. I’m worried about her. Why is she throwing up now?”

“Hon, she has the stomach flu. Kids get the stomach flu all the time. They’re germ magnets. Didn’t you tell me she was playing with a kid at the park the other day that ended up leaving with the nanny because he was sick?” I asked.

“I did, but he had an asthma attack. Totally different deal.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do. “Do you want me to come home and help? I can help you.”

“No,” he snapped.

I sighed. When had all of our conversations become so strained and difficult? Things used to run smoothly between us and now our interactions were filled with tension. It was becoming more and more normal for us and it scared me. What if we never got back to how we used to be together? “What’s she doing now?”

His voice relaxed a little. “She’s sleeping.”

“That’s good.”

“Sure. I’m just really worried about her.”

“I know you are.” I quickly added, “I am too.”

“Well, I’ll let you go.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do. Love you.”

“You too.”

As soon as I hung up, the phone rang again. This time it was Robin and I let it go straight to voicemail. I was sure she was calling to gossip about dinner last night and let me know what happened with Emma. I would be happy when flu season was over. Our kids were sick from November until March every year. Thankfully, we only had a month left and the runny noses would dry up for good.

I stared at the report I’d been working on since I’d gotten into the office but I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t like David’s underlying resentment towards me. It always seemed to be below the surface despite the smile he put on his face. He hadn’t raised his voice at me again and he was polite towards me, but I sensed him slipping away and felt powerless to do anything about it. It made me second-guess everything I had done for our family. I’d always imagined having a child would bring us closer together and instead it seemed to be ripping us apart. The worst part was that there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. I didn’t know how to fix it.

I busied myself with trying to finish the report. Once I finally got myself focused, I was able to quickly tap it out and move on to the next one. I was in the middle of the second report when the phone rang. It was David again.

“Meet me at Cedars Sinai! Now!”

“What–I don’t–what’s going on?”

“It’s Rori. I can’t wake her up.”

My head swirled, threatening to roll off my neck. “What do you mean? You can’t wake her up?”

“I. CAN’T. WAKE. HER.UP!”

It didn’t make sense. What was he talking about? He couldn’t wake her up?

“Well, is she going to be okay?”

“Dammit, Celeste! I have no idea what the fuck is going on. She threw up two more times and then fell asleep. I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal like she was just sleeping because she was sick. She slept for two hours so I thought maybe I’d try to see if I could get her to drink a sip of water. You know, give her fluids or something. But she wouldn’t wake up. Not at all. She didn’t even move. She still hasn’t moved. Not even when the paramedics got here.” His voice was shaking.

“Okay. Alright. It’s going to be okay. I’m sure it is. I’m on my way. I’ll meet you there.”

I hung up without saying good bye. I grabbed my purse and ran for the elevator. I didn’t bother to talk to anyone or tell them where I was going. I frantically tapped the down button as if the more times I hit it the quicker it would arrive. My stomach was in my throat. Finally, it arrived and I chewed my fingernails as it brought me to the parking garage. Thankfully, the hospital was only a few miles away. I considered putting my hazards on and blowing through every red light, but knew it was too dangerous and we didn’t need both of us to end up in the hospital. I arrived at the hospital and pulled into the emergency room drop off. I jumped out of the car not caring if it was in the wrong spot and got towed.

I sprinted through the door and nearly ran into a tall homeless man stumbling out the doorway. My eyes quickly searched for David and Rori as I ran to the nurse behind the glass cubicle who checked in people as they entered.

“Please, you’ve got to help me. My daughter is sick. She came in by ambulance with my husband. Please, I’ve got to find them. You have to help me.”

“Ma’am, slow down–”

“But please, please, help me,” My heart was pounding in my chest. My throat was so dry I couldn’t swallow.

“Ma’am, I understand. I do. But, I need to know her name. I can’t help you unless I know her name,” she said.

“It’s Aurora. Aurora Reynolds,” I said.

The nurse looked down at her computer and began typing. I quickly sent David a text letting him know I was there. “Found her. She’s in 3C.” She pointed towards one of the hallways on the left leading out of the waiting room. “Follow it around the corner until you get to the T at the end. Make a right and you’ll see the beds.”

I held myself back from running down the hallway and worked on assuring myself that David had to be over reacting. Unlike David, she was a deep sleeper and could be hard to wake up. She was probably sleeping so deeply because she was sick. Hopefully, she was awake by now. By the time I reached the corner, I had calmed my heart and my breathing was starting to return to normal. When I rounded the corner, I ran into a bustling nurses’ station with nurses, doctors, and emergency personnel rushing everywhere. No one was still. Patients were being wheeled in and out. Loud cries and moans were coming from behind one of the blue curtains. I walked up to the desk and interrupted a man in a white coat who was flipping through files.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for my daughter. She’s in 3C.”

He gestured across from us without looking up. I turned around and took a deep breath before pulling the curtain back. Rori looked so small. Her body only covered half the hospital bed. She was lying on her back still dressed in her Dora pajamas from the night before. Her eyes were closed, but she didn’t look like she was sick or in any kind of distress. She simply looked like she was sleeping and would open her eyes to smile up at us at any moment. David stood next to the bed, running his hand through her dark hair over and over again. The air in the room was still as if none of the frantic energy going on outside the curtain was happening. I moved to stand next to David and put my arm around him. He turned to look at me.

He looked horrible. All the color had gone out of his face. His eyes were wide and his hair was haphazardly sticking up from running his hands through it like he did every time he got nervous.

“Has she woken up?” I asked.

“Yes. Thank God. When they put the IV in her. They said it was a good sign,” he said. “She’s opened her eyes and mumbled something since then. She’s kinda acting like she has a fever even though she doesn’t. She hasn’t run a temp all morning. I’ve been checking.”

I leaned over next to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Hi, honey. Mommy’s here,” I said softly. I kissed her again. Her eyes stayed closed. I caressed her arm softly and noticed her other arm was taped up in a splint like it was broken. The needle from her IV went into her arm and there was white tape wound around it with a flat board underneath it. “Why’s her arm like that?”

“I guess they do it to all the little kids. It keeps them from pulling the IV out because they move so much,” David said.

“What’d the doctor say?” I asked.

“No one has even been in here to see her yet. It’s just been nurses. They took a bunch of blood while they were putting her IV in. They’re going to run some tests on her blood. Oh, and if she has to go to the bathroom, we have to have collect her urine.” He pointed to a sealed plastic specimen container on the small white counter next to her bed.

“Did they say when she’ll see a doctor?”

He shook his head. “This is ridiculous. She needs to see a doctor. Like now. We need to know what the hell is going on.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

He jerked his arm away. “Fine? She’s laid out in the emergency room. She’s not fine.”

“Kids get sick all the time. I’m sure she has some nasty flu. Everyone who gets sick this year gets really sick. Even adults. I think it has something to do with the flu shot. I swear. I really do,” I said. He didn’t bother to respond. He just kept staring at her.

“I can’t stand this,” he said. “I’m going to find someone.”

“David, just–”

He wasn’t listening anyway. He was already on the other side of the curtain. My gaze returned to Rori. She was going to be okay. She had to be. I stared at her chest watching it move up and down in a rhythmic motion. It wasn’t long before David returned looking dejected.