Page 78 of This Baby Business
The nurse scowled, left, and came back a few minutes later with a pouch of ice. “Here, ice it while you wait.”
I found an available chair near a man who seemed to be bleeding. Grace gummed the bag of ice happily. She’d apparently forgotten she’d just had a near-death experience.
“She’s a cutie,” the man said.
“Thank you.” I shifted in my seat. “They’re not seeing you? You’re…bleeding.”
“Ah, it’s nothin’.” He held up the hand he had wrapped in a cloth and called over to the nurse. “Let the baby go ahead of me.”
The nurse ignored him.
“They’re not very friendly around here,” I muttered.
“What happened to the baby?”
How humiliating to confess to this stranger that she’d turned her back on Grace for one second. One second too long, and now she had a bruised lip and nose. God knew what kind of permanent damage she’d done.
I bit my lower lip and studied the pattern of the floor. “She fell.”
“Oh. Well, she looks okay.”
“Looks can be deceiving. What if she has a concussion? Do you think they’ll do a CAT scan?”
How would they do it on a baby? She’d scream bloody murder. The man gave her a weird look, like he couldn’t believe she’d been so careless. Had he never made a mistake in his entire life? And where was Levi? She’d called—hands-free, of course—from her car, but Levi had been up in a plane. Cassie had said she’d give him the message. She’d also ordered me to calm down and breathe. Not that she’d done any of those things, nor would she, until someone in authority told her there was nothing wrong with this baby.
The man smiled. “Tell the truth. This is your first baby, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but she isn’t—”
“My wife was the same way. First kid she boiled everything. Bottles, pacifiers. Believe me, by the third kid you pick up the pacifier and just blow on it to make sure there’s no hair on it. Germs are good for kids.”
Finally, after what felt like hours, she and Grace were seen by a doctor.
“Well, hewo wittle baby. How are woo?” The doctor, a grown man with white hair for the love of Pete, said this with a straight face.
I already wanted someone who would take all this a little more seriously. “We don’t talk to her like that.”
“Woo don’t?” He was dressed in a typical white lab coat, with a stethoscope around his neck which was supposed to inspire trust and confidence, she assumed. Still, he would talk to Grace like a human being if I had anything to say about this. He bent to inspect Grace’s lip and nose and squinted.
“Woo have a wittle boo-boo?”
I sighed. Where was a grown-up when I needed one? “She fell. From a kind of Bumbo chair.”
At this, the doctor straightened and met my eyes. “Those things are hazards. They should be outlawed. We’ll need a full battery of tests immediately.”
Now this was more like it. “Could she have a concussion?”
“Possibly.” He rummaged in a drawer and came out with a plastic toy elephant that fit on his index finger. “Would you please undress her down to her diaper and put her on the exam table?”
I did all that quickly and stood by, holding Grace in place, as the doctor had her follow the elephant. “Checking for signs of concussion.”
“Good.”
“She looks fine. You were lucky. Did you know that last year two children had cracked skulls from those things?”
“Oh my God!”
“Didn’t you read the instructions? You’re never supposed to put it on a high surface. Where was it? A table? A counter? The couch? How high up?”
