Page 52 of Before You Can Blink
When we finally reached the building that served as the town’s family medical practice, I bolted from the truck before it stopped moving. Hitting the ground running, I burst through the door and immediately heard the piercing cries of my baby girl.
Maryanne stood from reception. “Jett, they’re—”
Before she could finish that sentence, I was halfway down the hallway, having tracked the location of my baby’s pained wails. Scared shitless of what I would find on the other side, I took a steadying breath before pushing inside the exam room.
Aspen’s face was red as a tomato as she screamed her head off. Snot ran freely from her nose, mixing with the drool spilling from her wide-open mouth, before it dribbled past her chin.
Daisy wasn’t faring much better. Her tear-streaked face was blotchy and pink, and great hiccupping sobs wracked her body as she tried to restrain our daughter while Doc Stevens focused on her pudgy little hands.
“Daze,” I breathed out in a rush. “Got here as soon as I could.”
Red-rimmed blue eyes lifted, and my wife absolutely crumbled before my eyes. “Jett, I-I’m so sor-ry.”
When I stepped forward, Aspen caught sight of me. Ripping her hands out of Doc Stevens’s hold, she reached both of them toward me, and her cries increased in volume.
Easing her out of Daisy’s hold, I winced at the shrill decibel of her screams. “What happened, sweet girl?”
“It’s all my f-fault,” Daisy blubbered before burying her face in her hands.
Doc Stevens placed a comforting hand on my wife’s knee. “It was an accident.”
Looping an arm around her waist, I shifted her across the exam table so I could take a seat beside her. She immediately buried her face in my neck, body trembling violently.
I pressed a reassuring kiss to the top of her head before turning my attention to the doctor. “What’re we dealing with?”
His chest expanded on a deep inhale. “Second-degree burns on both palms.”
“Sec—” My words trailed off, and I honed in on the angry, red, blistered skin of my daughter’s hands. Sucking in a sharp breath, I murmured, “Oh, baby girl. How in the world did you manage to do this?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” came Daisy’s muffled confession. “We haven’t needed to use the stove for heat since she started walking. One minute, she was playing with her blocks across the room while I made dinner. The next, she was screaming, her tiny hands pressed to the hot iron.”
My wife might be blaming herself, but I was the one who’d put my family in this situation. Most parents didn’t have to worry about protecting their children from 19th-century exposed heating elements.
With my family paying the price for my failings, I began to wonder if they might be better off without me. I was ashamed to admit the thought had crossed my mind to send them both back East to Daisy’s father. At least until I figured out how to take care of them the way they deserved.
I squeezed her tighter to my side. “It’s okay. Like Doc said, it was an accident.”
“But her little hands.” Daisy’s hot tears soaked through the fabric of my flannel.
“Will be just fine,” Doc reassured her. “If we can get her still enough, I’ll apply some ointment and wrap her up. Keep the area clean and dry for at least a week. Change the bandages daily and administer pain relievers as needed. You do that and, in a few weeks, it’ll be like this never happened.”
“See, Daze? Our girl will be right as rain in no time.”
Too bad it wouldn’t be so easy to soothe my guilty conscience.
All that crying and screaming wore Aspen out, and now, she was passed out in the middle of our bed, her outstretched hands wrapped up like a mummy. I didn’t have the heart to move her into her crib tonight. I needed to keep her close, needed to soak in as much of her sweet scent as humanly possible to carry me through the days ahead we were going to spend apart.
Running a hand through my hair, I blew out a heavy breath. “Daisy, we need to talk.”
My wife’s eyes never left our sleeping daughter. “Okay.”
“I think it might be best if you and Aspen go stay with your dad for a while.”
“What?” She sat upright in bed, freezing when our baby girl stirred and let out the tiniest whimper.
Time stood still while we waited to see if she would wake.
When Aspen curled onto her side, Daisy slid from the mattress, pacing the floor. “You want to send us away?”
