The Only Best Place (28 page)

Chills. Fever.

Treat the fever.

I slipped him to his side and gave him a Tylenol suppository, then noticed how his legs were drawn up. That puzzled me as
the whisper in my mind amplified.

Mother panic clawed at my nurse persona. I couldn't separate them. My little boy lay on the table, deathly ill.

Where was that lab tech?

I glanced at the clock again and made a snap decision. I couldn't wait another second. I wrapped a tourniquet around his other
arm, tightened it, and once again slipped a needle into my son's soft skin so I could draw blood. A faint gasp from Wilma
pierced my concentration but I couldn't lose focus. Every second counted to my fevered brain. Once the vials were full, I
carefully set them onto the crash cart.

“What's wrong with him, Leslie?” Dan asked, weariness and concern edging his voice. “Why did you take his blood?”

I looked across the bed at him and eked out a reassuring smile as I pulled off the latex gloves. “The lab will need to run
some tests.”

I looked down at Nicholas and ran my finger down his soft cheek. He held his head funny. The whisper gained volume. I was about
to extend his knee to check my suspicions as Dr. John swept into the cubicle. Dan's eyes narrowed when he saw John and I thought,
Please, no time for this, Dan. No time.

“What do we have here?” Dr. John asked.

“High fever. Did up the blood work.” I listed symptoms, turning my son's pain into something clinical. Detached. Simply another
patient.

Just as I spoke, a tech came into the room.

I angled my chin toward the crash cart. “You drew blood already?” She frowned and Dr. John picked up on that.

“That's not part of standing orders,” he said as he checked the chart.

“I couldn't wait,” I replied, keeping my focus on my son. “I think this is serious.”

“I know you may have done things differently in Seattle, but here we follow policy and procedure.” Dr. John snapped on a pair
of gloves and waited a moment, as if to let his words sink in. I realized what he was doing and I felt another flicker of
panic, followed by anger. We had so often been warned about doctor-nurse relationships. I understood the full implications
of it now.

“We don't have time for this,” I said. “I'm suspecting meningitis.”

Too late I realized what I had done. I had not only criticized Dr. John in front of other people, I had also stepped way out
of the bounds of my job and delivered a premature diagnosis.

“I think you might be overreacting,” he said quietly, his voice telling me more than either Dan or Wilma could pick up. He
reached for the otoscope and checked Nicholas's ears himself.

I bit my lip and imagined myself grabbing the front of his lab coat and giving him a shake. Why was he dawdling? Every moment
counted.

Keep your mouth shut, Leslie. Don't say anything.

“His ears are red. He might have an ear infection,” Dr. John said, ignoring me and giving Dan a patronizing smile.

I couldn't stay quiet. I threw away any shred of pride I had and looked him directly in the eye, pleading with him. “Please,
John. This is my son. I know he has more than an ear infection.”

Dr. John frowned again. “Is this going to be a problem, Leslie?”

“I think we should do a lumbar puncture.”

Dr. John's eyes narrowed. “Last time I checked, that was my call to make, Leslie.”

I had already gently rebuffed advances from him that I knew I had unwittingly encouraged. Now I had chosen to go toe-to-toe
with him. If he wanted, he could fire me on the spot, could reduce my hours, could make my life here at the hospital miserable.
But I was now nurse
and
mother.

“I know my son. He has never thrown up. He has an elevated heart rate. Nicholas is not teething, doesn't have an ear infection,
and doesn't simply have a cold.”

Down,girl. Keep your voice down. You're exhibiting classic signs of an hysterical parent who wants the entire health-care system
to fix her child.

But it was my son who lay on the table, not my pride or my job. And I knew how quickly we had to act.

Then, with a sigh as if to show he was still in charge, he turned back to Nicholas and lifted his head.

It barely moved.
Nuchal rigidity,
I thought as my heart skittered like slippery shoes on ice.

Then Nicholas screamed, took a breath, and vomited all over the doctor.

“We'll need to do a lumbar puncture,” Dr. John said. “If positive, we'll have to call an air ambulance.”

“Lumbar. That's the back, isn't it?” Dan asked, panic in his voice. I didn't like to hear that. I wanted Dan the way he always
was. Calm and in control.

“We need to drain some spinal fluid to confirm the diagnosis of meningitis.” I could barely speak the words as I reached for
the LP kit. This was my little boy they were going to do this procedure to. My chubby little Nicholas. Dan's wild gaze snagged
mine, and I tried to give him a reassuring smile even though I knew, more than he did, what the potential complications for
Nicholas were.

The next few moments were a flurry of busyness as I unwrapped the LP kit and laid it out, the lab tech returned to collect
the fluid, and Dr. John prepped the site. A wave of fear pressed relentlessly against the thin wall of resolve I had erected.
I couldn't let it get in. Couldn't let it wash over me.

Dr. John inserted the needle into his spine and as the fluid came out, the wave grew. Cloudy.

Dr. John called to Arlene to order in the air ambulance, ordered intravenous antibiotics. My hands weren't shaking as much
as before, but even so I found myself concentrating fiercely on my job and then, while we waited, writing everything carefully
down on the chart as if writing down the pre cise time and exact measurements would make all the difference for my son.

Son.

I looked down at Nicholas with his one arm strapped against the bar, his leg immobilized, the IV cannula sticking out like
an obscenity.

As a father has compassion on his children…
The Bible passage slowly filtered past the flickers of fear, eased them away. God loved Nicholas. I had to cling to that.

Finally, as if just now remembering that she was here, I looked at Wilma. She stood at the bedside, her eyes firmly on Nicholas,
her fingers resting lightly on his leg. His grandmother.

“So, what now?” Dan asked, panic edging his voice.

“We wait for the air ambulance.”

“That's it? That's all we can do?”

I nodded.

Waiting was an agony for parents, and even for nurses. As long as we had a task, as long as we were intervening, we felt as
if we were pulling the person toward life. I needed a job to do. Something so I could feel like I was keeping my son alive.
Keeping him healthy.

“If it's okay with you, I'd like to pray,” Wilma said quietly.

I glanced at Dan looking down at our son, his hand clutching Nicholas's. Dan nodded slowly and closed his eyes.

I guessed praying was doing something, so I closed my eyes.

“Dear Lord, we know that You are a Father and that You loved Your Son,” Wilma said, her voice surprisingly calm. “We know
how deep Your love is, that You know if even a hair falls from our head. Lord, we plead with You for this child. Be with the
doctors who will take care of him. The nurses…” Her voice wavered, which almost made me lose it. She loved my son as
well, I thought. And she loved God. She was a worthy intercessor.

Wilma cleared her throat and continued. “Keep him in Your care, Lord, we pray. Keep him healthy. Let us enjoy him again. Amen.”

I took a long slow breath, my eyes on Nicholas. He still looked flushed, still lay deathly still.

Nothing had changed, no bright lights accompanied by stirring music, angels singing. No miracle. Yet I felt a whisper of peace
sifting around the edge of my fear. Nicholas had family around him, interceding.

Then Nicholas stiffened and vomit spewed out of his tiny mouth. And the peace exploded violently out of the moment.

N
o answer at all?” My sweat-slicked hand clutched the headset of the phone in the parents' room of the hospital.

Where are you,Terra? I need you.

“I'm sorry, ma'am.” The disembodied voice gave standard-issue condolences. I whispered an equally fake thanks and dropped
the phone into the cradle.

I had dragged myself here after spending most of last night standing guard over my son, keeping death at bay. I fell asleep
on the couch and had just woken up. My first thought was a desperate need to connect with my sister. But nothing. Had she
moved already?

“Hey, there.”

I jumped, then felt a hand on my shoulder. Dan crouched down beside me.

“Hey, yourself.” I wiped my tired eyes.

Images of last night scurried through my mind. The flashing lights of the helicopter, and then it was gone into the air, taking
our son away. Then the mad dash to Helena in the night and the long vigil by Nicholas's bed in the pediatric ICU.

Dan had left toward morning while I stayed behind. Finally, one of the ward nurses practically pushed me to the parents' room. The
last thing I remembered was wondering if I could sleep while my son lay in critical condition in Pediatric Intensive Care.

“Have you seen Nicholas?”

“I just checked on him. He's sleeping.” To my disappointment, Dan didn't come and sit beside me. Anneke had slipped in and
found the toys. I called her name, and she got to her feet and slowly walked over.

I must look a wreck,
I thought, pushing at my hair, which now nested around my face. I quickly finger-combed it, then held out my arms to my little
girl. When she finally came, I pulled her into my arms, clinging tightly. Then I pulled away and looked her over, almost hungrily.

If it wasn't so pathetic, I would laugh.

She looked like a little refugee. She wore her favorite polka-dotted skirt—the one that was far too large for her—a plaid
coat over a stained T-shirt, and rubber boots. Her hair was pulled into some semblance of a ponytail, and I saw a smear of
jam on one corner of her mouth and dirt under her fingernails.

I cleaned the jam with a dab of Magic Mommy Spit but was helpless about the rest of her new look.

She had obviously dressed herself and Dan obviously didn't care.

Obviously, because his ensemble was hardly
GQ
material. Oblong oil stains decorated his pants, and his shirt had a darker spot on the chest where a pocket had once been
and had since been ripped off.

If my family looked like this after two days away from me, I couldn't imagine what my house looked like.
Dan
and
neat
were not two words that dovetailed.

“How are you doing?” Dan sat beside me but kept his distance.

“I'm tired.” I wanted him to hold me and let his strength wash over me, but I didn't know how to behave, what to say. Before
this emergency we had been walking carefully around each other, my actions with Dr. John, the words I had spilled out filling
a space between us that kept us apart.

Dan touched my shoulder lightly, then withdrew. He pressed his hands against his knees and got up. Paced the room. Turned
to me, his truck keys in his hand. He wasn't going to go already, was he?

“Dan, what's—”

“Leslie, I need—”

I waved my hand at him the same time he told me to go ahead. An uncomfortable pause followed. He spun his truck keys around
his hand.

“I'm trying to find the right way to say this.” He stopped, his keys still jangling in his hands, a nervous habit of his I
hadn't seen in a long time.

He sighed, then dropped the keys into his pocket. “You know,
sorry
isn't a big enough word for this,” he said softly. “But I don't know what other one to use.” He stopped, giving me a careful
smile.

I needed him now. The past thirty-six hours had revealed my rant against his mother for the petty thing it was. With Dr. John,
I had stumbled into the very trap that had ensnared Dan back in Seattle. Down the hall our son clung to life. Everything else
was swept away as inconsequential.

“I'm going to use it,” I said quietly. “I'm sorry for what I did. I want you to know that that thing with Dr. Brouwer never
went any farther than what Gloria saw, but I was wrong to even encourage that.” I rubbed my forehead, wishing I could ease
away the pain tentacled around my head. I needed him now.

Dan slipped his arm around me, then pulled me gently close. “Leslie, don't, please. I did the same thing. We've never talked
about it. I didn't want to, and I know you didn't want details. But I finally understand exactly what I put you through.”
He sighed, and laid his head on mine. “I'm sorry for what I said about your mother. That wasn't right.”

A knot of unbearable pain that had pressed on my heart slowly released its hold as Dan spoke, as he touched me. And with the
release came the reality of what I had said.

“Well, we may as well keep going,” I said, leaning into him. “I was wrong about your family. Wrong to resent their involvement.”
I thought of Wilma praying earnestly for Nicholas. She loved him, too.

Dan laid his finger against my lips. “I don't want us to fight. I don't want us to be strangers. Our boy is sick, and I want
us to be together. Supporting each other. In spite of what I did, I love you. I always will.” He stopped, his voice breaking.
“I love Anneke and Nicholas. And you all need to be the most important people in my life. Not my mother or my sisters or the
farm or the rest of my family.”

My throat thickened, and I couldn't stop the quiver of my lip. But as I reached for him, he held up his hand. He had more
to say. “I asked my family to stay away. To give us some space. And I want you to know that when this is over… when Nicholas
is better, we're going to sit down and talk about what is going to happen in our lives, in our future. Whatever we decide,
I'll stick with it. If we go back to Seattle, I'll try the garage thing again. The farm, well, it was really just a dream,
wasn't it?”