Cooper laughed. “Very funny, Dave,” he said. “I see you’ve been working overtime on your sense of humor.”
“I’m not kidding,” David said. “I’ve booked her a flight out of Nashville. It leaves at six-fifteen tonight.”
“Shit!” Cooper said, then caught Lucy’s big brown eyes on him. “Shoot,” he corrected himself. “What I meant to say was
shoot.
”
On the other side of the kitchen, smoke started curling up from the forgotten sandwich in the frying pan, and Cooper lunged for it.
“She’s not gonna leave,” he told David as he grabbed the pan off the burner. But even as he spoke the words, he wasn’t completely sure. “These kids are her number one priority for the next few weeks.”
The sandwich was charred almost entirely black. Cooper put the pan in the sink and tried to open the window to let the smoke and burning smell out. But the window was painted shut and he finally gave up, crossing to open the back door instead.
Cooper said, “You’re going to have to muddle through without her—”
The smoke detector went off with an earsplitting shriek.
Lucy clamped her hands over her ears and Cooper dropped the phone, scrambling to pull a chair over and remove the smoke detector’s plastic cover. He tore the battery free.
The noise stopped and the house was suddenly silent. Cooper could hear the second hand clicking its way around the face of the kitchen clock. He could hear the quiet hum of the refrigerator. He could hear the shrubbery beyond the back door as it rubbed against the side of the house in the wind. He could hear Dave’s tiny voice from the telephone handset saying, “Cooper? Cooper? Dammit, Cooper . . .”
And then he could hear the baby start to cry.
It was a thin, very sleepy cry, but as Cooper listened, Ben began to warm up, getting louder and stronger with each passing second.
He closed his eyes. “Shit,” he muttered, not even bothering to whitewash his language for Lucy’s tender ears.
“Cooper!” he heard Josie wail from upstairs.
“Goddamn
it!”
He picked up the telephone. “Uh, Dave,” he said. “Can Josie call you back?” He hung up, not waiting for David to answer. “Eat your sandwich, kid,” he said to Lucy, then went to face Josie’s—and Ben’s—wrath.
That afternoon, Cooper figured out a way to keep Ben from crying.
Unfortunately, it involved putting the baby into a special backpack and making sure that Ben—and the backpack wearer, namely Cooper—never stopped moving.
It was raining outside, a slow, steady, gray rain. Fortunately, the downstairs of the house was all connected—the living room led directly into the dining room which led directly into the kitchen which led back into the front hall which led into the living room.
Cooper made the circuit of the downstairs for the nine thousandth time. Naturally Ben wasn’t content to move at a leisurely rate, so Coop went at a pace that would have won him the gold medal in speed walking.
As he passed through the kitchen for the nine thousand and second time, he noticed with some satisfaction that there was only one tiny piece of bread crust left on Lucy’s plate. She’d actually eaten the sandwich he’d made for her lunch.
But the satisfaction vanished instantly when Lucy came down the stairs. Cooper stopped short at the sight of her.
The child was one giant, allergic hive. A red rash covered her skin and her fingers were so swollen she could barely bend them. Her lips and mouth were puffy, too, and Cooper could hear her wheezing as she breathed.
“I
knew
I shouldn’t have eaten that sandwich,” she said accusingly.
“Josie!” Cooper shouted, and from the backpack, Ben began to wail.
Josie took in the scene in one quick glance. “Get Ben into the car seat,” she ordered Cooper as she scooped Lucy up into her arms.
Cooper scrambled for the door as Josie carried Lucy into the kitchen.
“Honey, are you allergic to something?” Josie asked as she put Lucy down and quickly searched the high kitchen cabinet where her brother had kept things like liquid Tylenol and infant cold medicine. “What did you eat?”
Antihistamine. The bottle of the pink liquid medicine was in the back, behind the Maalox.
“I’m ’lergic to milk,” Lucy said. “But I didn’t drink any milk. I had a sandwich.”
Josie stuck the bottle into her pocket. Then she quickly filled a covered tippy cup with water and scooped Lucy up again. “Drink this, hon,” she said, handing the little girl the cup of water. “Drink all of it, right away, okay?”
Josie pulled the door shut behind her, not taking the time to lock it.
Cooper had the rental car running, and Josie quickly strapped Lucy into the back seat. Ben was screaming, but somehow it seemed an appropriate accompaniment to the situation.
“The county hospital’s only five minutes away,” Josie said.
“I can make it in three,” Cooper said, backing out of the driveway. As he threw the car into gear, the tires squealed.
When they reached the hospital, Cooper pulled up to the emergency room entrance, and Josie was out of the car before it stopped.
Lucy’s breathing was thick and raspy, and her fingers were now so swollen she couldn’t hold the handles of her cup.
Josie ran with her into the hospital, through the automatic doors. The nurse on duty took immediate control of the situation, calling the doctor, stat.
“You give her anything? An antihistamine?” the doctor asked, trying to take Lucy from Josie’s arms. But Lucy clung tightly to her neck. Josie ended up sitting on the examining table, the little girl on her lap.
“No, just water.” Josie pulled the bottle of pink liquid from her pocket. “We had this at the house, but I didn’t want to give her something that might make it more difficult for you to treat her. I brought it in case we needed it in the car.”
The doctor nodded his approval, fired off a stream of commands to the nurse, quickly giving Lucy a heavy dose of antihistamines.
“So she
is
having an allergic reaction.”
Josie looked up to see Cooper standing in the doorway. Ben, quiet for once, was in his arms.
The doctor glanced curiously up at Cooper. “With a reaction this severe, she’s had to have other, milder allergic reactions to food,” he said. “Unless—what did she eat? Shellfish? Peanuts? Something new, that she hasn’t had before?”
“I made her a sandwich,” Cooper said. “Grilled cheese. Nothing weird.”
“Is she allergic to anything else that you know of?” the doctor asked.
“She told me she was allergic to milk,” Josie answered.
“She
told
you . . . ?” The doctor’s eyebrows were raised.
Josie looked down at Lucy. Already the antihistamine was starting to work. The child was starting to breathe easier, and the swelling around her mouth was starting to decrease. But the medicine made Lucy drowsy, and as her eyes closed, Josie gently lifted her off her lap and laid her down. “We should probably discuss this out in the hall,” she said, sliding off the table.
“I’ll stay with her,” the nurse volunteered.
Outside the room, Josie briefly filled the doctor in on their situation—the car accident, their unexpected custody of the children.
“And nobody told you Lucy had a potentially life-threatening allergy to milk?” he said in disbelief.
“Life-threatening?” Josie repeated weakly.
“Milk.”
Cooper made the sudden connection. In his arms, Ben was starting to fuss. Coop shifted the baby onto his shoulder almost absently and began to rub his back. “She’s allergic to milk, so she’s allergic to
cheese,
” he said.
The doctor nodded. “Cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream—any dairy product. Whey. Non-fat dry milk. Lactose. You’ll have to read the ingredients to make sure it’s not in the bread you give her, or the breakfast cereal, or cookies or anything else she eats. And I suggest you check with her pediatrician to find out if she’s allergic to anything else. Eggs maybe. Or even wheat.
“But right now, you need to go to admitting,” the doctor continued, “and fill out the paperwork. We’ll want to keep her here overnight, at least.”
“Overnight?” Cooper was unable to keep the dismay from his voice, and Ben started to cry. “But she’s okay now, isn’t she?”
“You made it in here just in time, Mr. McBride,” the doctor said. “Another ten minutes, and Lucy’s throat could very well have swollen shut, blocking her air passage. Without medical attention she would have suffocated. Considering the severity of her reaction, I’m not comfortable releasing her without at least another twelve hours of observation.”
Cooper felt faint. “God damn, I gave her a cheese sandwich and nearly killed her.”
Maybe Josie was right. Maybe the two of them made lousy parents. After only a few days of caring for these kids, they were here in the hospital emergency room, and why? Because Cooper hadn’t paid attention. Even though Lucy hadn’t told him specifically that she was allergic to milk, she had expressed enough doubt at the idea of eating the cheese sandwich. If he’d only listened . . .
As the doctor went back into Lucy’s room to check on her progress, Cooper turned away. The dull ache of failure made his head pound. He’d made that little girl sick, and he couldn’t forgive himself.
Josie touched his arm, reading his mind flawlessly. “It’s not your fault,” she said softly.
Ben was crying in earnest now—crying the way Cooper felt like crying.
Cooper started down the hall, bouncing Ben on his shoulder, unable to meet Josie’s eyes. “Yeah, right.” God, he felt sick.
“Cooper, come on,” Josie said, stopping him by slipping her arms around his waist and holding him tightly, for once unmindful of Ben’s crying. “Don’t beat yourself up. There’s no way either of us could have known about Lucy’s allergies. Besides, she’s going to be all right.”
Cooper closed his eyes, momentarily resting his check on the top of Josie’s silky brown curls. “I was so sure I could handle this,” he said, “you know, this kid stuff. I thought, how hard could it be? But now I’m starting to wonder. What else don’t I know? What’s going to happen that I can’t even imagine because I’m too damned ignorant?”
“They’re only going to be with us for a few more months,” Josie said. “We can handle that, Coop.”
He looked down into the velvety darkness of her eyes.
“But I want to keep ’em, Joze.”
It was the first time he’d actually said the words out loud, and Josie froze, staring up at him. “Don’t do this, Cooper,” she said softly.
“I can’t help it, babe. It’s the way I feel.” He hoisted the fussing baby higher on his shoulder and reached out for her. But she moved back, away from him, out of grasp.
How about the way
she
felt? Didn’t that count?
And permanently taking on the care of two young children wasn’t something that should be decided Cooper-style—based on gut feelings and knee-jerk reactions and spur of the moment wants and desires. This was a major decision that would seriously affect the entire rest of their lives.
Their
lives. Hers as well as his.
And they’d already decided
not
to keep the children. They’d discussed it calmly and rationally, and decided they couldn’t handle the added responsibility and pressures. The children would suffer. She and Cooper would suffer. They’d both agreed that putting the children up for adoption was the only viable solution.
So what the heck was Cooper doing, changing his mind this way?
“Can you take care of the admission process?” she asked, purposely changing the subject. “I want to go sit with Lucy in case she wakes up.”
Cooper nodded. “I guess you don’t want to talk about this right now,” he said, keeping his voice even.
“If you want to know the truth, I don’t want to talk about it ever,” she said. She turned and walked away, back towards Lucy’s room. Cooper didn’t follow, he just watched her go.
The night passed so slowly. Lucy’s pediatrician stopped in, bringing with him a long list of the foods the little girl was allergic to. Chocolate, corn, and citrus fruits were up there on the list, but her milk allergy was by far the most severe. He gave them a prescription for an industrial-strength antihistamine, the names of several cookbooks that specialized in milk-free cooking, and sheet after sheet of paper explaining allergies, what they were, and why some people had them when others didn’t. Lactose intolerance and dairy allergies tended to run in families, the doctor said. Apparently Lucy’s mother was also allergic.
At midnight, Cooper took Ben home, but Josie stayed in the hospital, sleeping fitfully in a chair next to Lucy’s bed.
Ben woke up at quarter after six, and Cooper dragged himself out of bed to change the baby’s diaper. It seemed as if Ben was always at his best first thing in the morning, and today was no exception as he smiled up at Cooper from the top of his changing table.
“Why can’t you be happy like this all the time?” Cooper asked him, as he strapped the baby into the high chair in the kitchen. Ben gurgled and banged a plastic spoon on the tray.
Cooper got out the box of baby cereal. He was becoming a master chef at baby food preparation. After only a few days, he didn’t need a measuring cup. He did it by eye, by feel, and it came out perfectly. He poured exactly the right amount of rice cereal flakes into a bowl with a suction cup bottom, then took the gallon jug of milk from the refrigerator and froze.
Milk.
Of course.
The pediatrician had said milk allergies tended to run in families. But if Ben was allergic, too, then why didn’t he get hives, or a rash?
Cooper quickly flipped through all of the information the doctor had given them until he found a page that had the heading, “Symptoms of Allergies.” It was a huge list that included things like sneezing, coughing, asthma, hives . . . and gastrointestinal distress.
This kid was having outrageous stomachaches.
It made sense. Ben was fine in the morning—until he ate his breakfast: a large bowl of cereal mixed with milk. Then he turned into a screaming maniac until he wore himself out and went back to sleep. After his morning nap, he was generally okay—until after he had lunch: a jar of something unidentifiable, along with more cereal and milk. Then more wailing until he slept again. The pattern was repeated for dinner.