Page 57 of Maybe
“He’s wondered about switching to a career in ED or geriatrics,” I informed her. “Not cardiac surgery.”
“He’s never said that to me.” If Janice’s subtly Botoxed brow could have wrinkled into a frown, it would.
“Have you ever actually asked him?”
“I haven’t needed to. Everyone knows it’s the right choice for him. He might feel daunted now, but he’ll love it once he gets into it.”
“I see where you’re coming from,” I hummed. I could give Kofi Annan a run for his money. “And I can see why everyone would love Isaac to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.”
Seriously, if I was an item of furniture, I’d be one hundred percent pink velvet chaise right now. “But,” I continued, because there was always a but, “if we look a little closer, perhaps there’s another angle to consider. The impact that high pressure career had on Dad’s health, for instance. Poor man.” It killed me saying that. “Scarcely had time to piss, let alone take part in raising children. You wouldn’t want that for Isaac, would you? Jet-setting across the world, no time for family? For his mother? Not if his heart wasn’t in it.”
Pun absolutely intended, though it was lost on Janice. “All I’m asking, Janice,” I said, in a voice like gentle ripples through a pond, “is that we think about supporting each other during this difficult time the best way we can. And that includes you supporting Isaac and me supporting you.” A little bit of sick made its way to my mouth. “We’re family, right?”
By the time we reached home, Jonty was wheezy again. I called Isaac, who was already putting the mid-range electric car into gear, or whatever one did with electric cars, before I was off the phone. Carly’s mum swung by the GP surgery earlier and picked up another prescription for oral steroids. Seemed like the first dose was taking effect; an uptick in Jonty’s peak flows had him more settled, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Tell me what you think, Isaac? Should I call 999?”
I wrung my hands, a mannerism up until now I’d always believed to be nothing but a turn of phrase. Yet here I was, contorting my fingers into sweaty knots. My anxiety had ramped up about three hours earlier, when Jonty held onto the handrailand paused for breath halfway up the stairs, like a bloody geriatric. By the time Isaac arrived, my anxiety had developed its own anxiety, not helped by the methodical slowness of his damned evaluation of my son’s lungs.
Jonty, with his brain made of sponge, soaked up Isaac’s detailed explanation of how each side of the stethoscope was adapted for differently pitched noises and how the thing had been invented two hundred years ago. If he put it on my chest right now, to listen to my heartbeat, he'd call for an ambulance to come and collect me, never mind my wheezy boy. When Isaac finally stepped away and made his solemn pronouncement, I considered calling it myself.
“The steroids might be kicking in just in time,” Isaac pronounced. “His respiratory rate isn’t too bad, and I can only hear a faint wheeze.”
That had to be a lie. “Really?”
“Yes. There’s no rattling, as if he has a bacterial infection. And he hasn’t got a temperature.”
I threw him a suspicious look.
“Honestly, Ez. I think he’s okay. But we’ll check his flows again in an hour, to be sure, and take it from there. If those peak flows stay at this level, then I think he’ll get away with it.”
“I feel fine,” said Jonty. “Much better. You can examine my tummy now, if you like. I ate six jammy dodgers when we went over to J?—“
“Honestly, the boy’s an attention whore.” My nerves might have ratcheted down a notch, but some conversations were better suited to another day and when nosy little ears weren’t pricking up. “He’ll have you counting his toes next.”
Isaac’s lovely mouth twisted into a smile. “I can’t imagine who he’s he inherited that from.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “His mother, obviously.”
“Daddy, what’s a whore?”
“Hare, I said hare. You need your ears seen to by a doctor, never mind your belly.”
Now Isaac outright smirked.
“So you don’t think we need to go into the hospital?” I clarified.
“No.” Isaac regarded a cheerful Jonty thoughtfully. “Not at this point.”
“But you’re not an asthma expert.”
“No,” he answered. “But I do see a lot of patients in ED with shortness of breath, including children, and I’m confident I’ve learned the red flags, how to differentiate the sick ones who need escalating from the ones that need safety netting.”
A persistent thin stream of fear trickled through my mind, cutting a channel across social niceties. “Explain in English, babe. We didn’t all have the advantage of a higher scientific education.”
If I’d have been Isaac, I’d have come back with a smart retort, but if he hadn’t realised by now that rudeness was my coping strategy for all Jonty-related anxieties then there was no hope for us. Seems he had; he simply nodded gravely. “Safety netting is what we’re doing now: continuing with the meds, rechecking peak flows, and relistening to his chest, with a low threshold for going to hospital. As opposed to merely saying, no, he’s fine, he doesn’t need admission.”
Then Isaac, his mouth set in a thin priggish line, took a long look at the mushrooms growing up the damp hallway walls. The brother, uncle, and doctor in him was not happy. “Jonty can’t stay here,” he announced flatly, like it was his call to make.
