Page 80 of Single Dad's Fake Bride
Sadie 10:15 AM: Mom's really sick. Going to check on her. Can't think straight right now. I'm not feeling so great.
His response came back immediately
Kramer 10:15 AM: What kind of sick? Food poisoning? Or are you preggers or something and freaking out?
I stared at the screen, my blood turning cold. Kramer was always joking around, throwing shade, but this wasn't the time and I didn't even know how to respond to him.
Pregnant. The word almost made my knees weak. When was my last period? I'd been so focused on the wedding, the move, the constant stress of navigating this fake marriage that I hadn't been tracking anything properly.
"Sadie?" Harrison's voice cut through my spiral. "Are you ready?"
I shoved the phone into my pocket without responding to Kramer. "Yes. Let me just grab my purse."
Harrison was already walking toward the front door when I caught up to him. "I'll ask the lady next door to keep an eye on Eloise while they play. She won't mind."
"Thank you." The words felt thick in my throat.
He knocked on the neighbor's door, and the lady appeared in the doorway, her gray hair in curlers. I watched from a distance as Harrison spoke with her. Meanwhile, my mind was a mess. Mom needed me, and my best friend had inadvertently started a forest fire in my central nervous system.
Harrison's car was warm from sitting in the afternoon sun, but I couldn't stop shivering as he backed out of the driveway. My phone buzzed again, but I ignored it. I couldn't handle Kramer's questions right now, not when my mind was racing between my mother's condition and the terrifying possibility that my life was about to become even more complicated.
"She'll be okay," Harrison said, glancing at me as we turned onto the main road.
"You don't know that," I snipped, truly afraid of what was going to happen. Mom had been like this before, and while some of my nerves were due to worry about her, the reason I suddenly felt sick to my stomach had nothing to do with my mother.
"No," he admitted. "But she's tough. Anyone who raised you has to be."
The drive to my mother's house took twenty-three minutes that felt like hours. Harrison didn't try to fill the air with empty reassurances, and I was grateful for his understanding of when to stay quiet. My hands stayed clenched in my lap, and every time I tried to calculate dates in my head, I lost count and had to start over.
The apartment building looked the same from the outside—small, weathered, but neat. Inside was a different story. I could smell the sickness before I saw my mother huddled on the couch, her face gray and slick with perspiration. The home nurse, a middle-aged woman named Carol, met us at the door.
"She's been vomiting for the past hour," Carol said in a low voice. "Severe abdominal pain, and she's refusing to let me call for help."
I rushed to the couch where my mother lay curled on her side, a mixing bowl clutched against her chest. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, and when she saw me, she tried to sit up.
"Sadie, honey, I'm fine. Just a little bug."
"Mom, you're burning up." I pressed my hand to her forehead and felt the fever radiating from her skin. "I think we should listen to the nurse and go to the hospital."
"I don't need a hospital. Too expensive."
Harrison appeared beside me and rested a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Mrs. Quinn, I really think we should call an ambulance."
"No, no hospitals. Sadie, tell him I don't need—" She doubled over suddenly, retching into the bowl with violent heaves that shook her entire body.
I looked up at Harrison, and he was already pulling out his phone.
"What's the address here?" he asked Carol.
I rattled off the numbers while my mother continued to be sick, her body convulsing with each wave. Harrison spoke to the emergency dispatcher with the same controlled tone he used for everything, providing clear information and answering their questions, but his monotone sounded like background noise to my frazzled nerves. When he hung up, he crouched down next to my mother.
"The paramedics will be here in ten minutes. They're going to take good care of you."
She tried to protest, but another round of nausea cut her off. Harrison moved around the room, gathering her insurance cards from the kitchen table, finding a clean blanket to wrap around her shoulders. He spoke quietly to Carol, getting a rundown of my mother's symptoms and medications. When the sirens grew loud outside, he opened the front door and guided them in.
I watched it all happen as though I were underwater, every sound muffled and strange. The paramedics asked questions I couldn't answer, checked vitals I couldn't interpret, loaded my mother onto a stretcher while I stood frozen in the middle of the living room.
"Sadie." Harrison's hand touched my elbow. "We need to follow them to the hospital."
