Sooner rather than later.
My son stirred in my arms, moaning slightly, and then nuzzled deeper into the crook of my neck.
Where was that fucking doctor?
I haven't been sick in six years, except if you count the overwhelming fatigue I feel before the sun goes down. Vampire Fatigue Syndrome. Whatever. Anyway, I suspected I would never get sick again. I couldn't say the same for my kids.
Anthony wriggled in my arms and leaned back. He turned his sweating face toward me, opened his eyes. "Mommy?" he croaked.
The instant he said the word I heard another little voice in my head say something similar: "He kilt my mommy dead."
"Hey, baby," I said. I did my best to ignore the black halo around his angelic face.
"Where are we?"
"At the doctors, honey."
He nodded. "I don't feel very good."
"I know, baby doll."
He continued staring at me even while I looked ahead and tried to be strong. He was so hot. I started rocking him slightly. I could feel the tears on my cheeks.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"I'm gonna die."
I stopped rocking and snapped my head down. "Why would you say that?"
"I dream that I go to heaven. I always dream it now. And he's waiting for me."
I think my heart stopped. "Who's waiting for you?"
Anthony actually smiled and reached up and touched my face. "You know, Mommy."
I was crying now. Openly crying and I couldn't stop myself. No, I didn't know who. God? Jesus? Krishna? Who was waiting for my son? What was happening?
"Don't cry, Mommy," he said. "He told me to be brave. He told me to be brave for you." He touched my cheek gently and I realized he was wiping away my tears. "I'm being brave for you, Mommy."
I pulled him into me and rocked faster and faster, and as I rocked, words tumbled out of me uncontrollably: "You're not dying. You're not dying. You're not dying...."
Chapter Twenty-three
The visit to the Urgent Care turned into something more than a visit. My son's fever was climbing. The doctor there examined my son's stomach and thyroid glands. He didn't like what he was seeing. I didn't either. My son had a rash on his belly that I had missed and his thyroid was swollen many millimeters. Blood samples were taken. My son never blinked when he was pricked with the many needles.
I impassively watched his blood being drawn.
The doctor left and I sat holding my son, who seemed to dose off and on. I rocked him gently and discovered I was humming a song to myself. I fought to remain calm but I couldn't. My lower jaw was shaking nearly uncontrollably. I had never felt so damned cold in my life, even while I held my burning son.
I rocked and hummed and prayed. The tears came without saying.
An hour later, my son woke up laughing. Startled, I asked him what he was laughing about, and he told me that Jesus had told him a funny joke. He giggled again and went back to sleep.
I continued rocking.
The doctor came back. He had arranged for a bed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Orange, which is where I now found myself an hour later.
The doctor who met me at the hospital smiled warmly and held my cold hands with a look of utter fascination. What he made of my cold hands, I didn't know or care. He did not ask me about them, which was a relief.
He was the pediatric infectious disease specialist and just hearing those words alone nearly sent me into hysterics. He did his best to calm me down, emphasizing that many more tests still needed to be done, but as of right now it was too soon to tell what was going on with my son.
For now, they were waiting for the blood test results, which they would have in a few hours. Once the blood tests were in, he would know which tests were needed next.
One step at a time. Detective work, really. Looking for clues, following up on hunches. Following the evidence.
Now I was alone with my son while he slept fitfully, looking so damn tiny in his bed. Just a small mound of dark hair and chubby red cheeks.
Hard as it was to do, I briefly left his side to go outside and make all the phone calls and text messages I needed to make. My sister assured me she would pick up my daughter. My ex-husband never called back. Neither did Kingsley.
Back in my son's room, I sat on the edge of his bed and held his left hand. The curtains were drawn and the lights were low. We had a room to ourselves, which was just as well, because I couldn't stop crying. The black halo that surrounded his body seemed to have grown a few millimeters as well. I didn't know much about the spirit world, but I was certain that I knew what I was seeing.
His soul was leaving.
Or perhaps it was already gone.
No, I thought. I refused to believe that.
He was just sick. Very sick. I am looking at the aura of a sick boy, that is all. A very sick boy. My sick boy.
Shit.
The light particles that flitted through the room, swirling and flashing and illuminating the air, disappeared completely into his aura. My hand, which glowed silverish to my own eyes, seemed to disappear into the blackness, as well. It was as if I had plunged my hand into freshly turned soil.
Graveyard soil.
I sat like that until the blood tests came back, miserable and borderline hysterical. The doctor returned and talked about normocytic anemia and thrombocytosis and blood count. He discussed something called an erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein levels being elevated. None of it sounded good to me. As he spoke, the doctor bit his lip a lot and looked grave and I sensed from him extreme concern and even alarm.
He next ordered liver function tests, an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, an ultrasound and a urinalysis.
And while they poked and prodded my son, my ex-husband Danny appeared in the doorway of the hospital room.
Chapter Twenty-four
He blinked, taking in the scene.
It was quite a scene. Three nurses and two doctors, all swarming around my son, who appeared to doze in and out of sleep. Or in and out of consciousness.
In our separation, Danny had proven to be particularly vindictive and mean-spirited. Unless, of course, you saw things from his point of view. Admittedly, very few people on the face of this earth would ever find themselves in his peculiar position. His once mostly happy household had been turned upside down. His wife of five years (which was how long we had been married prior to my attack) was suddenly not the person he had wed...and for the next six years Danny didn't handle things very well.
Yes, eleven years of marriage down the drain.
Would it have taken a special man to be strong and stay by my side? Certainly. It also would have taken true love, too. That was, perhaps, the hardest realization of all. That my husband didn't love me enough to be there for me.