Page 82 of Pucking the Single Dad
I could handle Finn—had been handling him for months. But Finn came with instruction manuals, established routines, seven years of Brad's expertise to rely on. A baby would be different. A baby would be mine to potentially fail.
"Serena?" Brad's knuckles rapped the door. "You okay?"
"Just doing my makeup!" My voice came out like I'd been huffing helium.
"For the game that's in twelve hours?"
"It's... a process!"
His footsteps retreated. I shoved the test in the trash, then immediately dug it out and wrapped it in toilet paper like I was hiding evidence of a murder, then buried it under Q-tips and dental floss in the wastebasket. My hands shook as I splashed cold water on my face, practicing normal expressions in the mirror.Hi, Brad. Ready for the biggest game of your career? By the way, I'm growing your child. Please don't collapse.
Coming out of the bathroom, I found him at the kitchen table, bathed in phone glow, watching the same power play formation for the hundredth time while absent-mindedly forking eggs he wasn't tasting. His knee looked like a science project—wrapped, braced, elevated on three pillows, ice pack secured with what appeared to be half a roll of plastic wrap.
This was not the morning for revelations.
"You need actual nutrition," I said, sliding into my chair with toast that might as well have been cardboard. "Not whatever that is."
"It's eggs."
"It's yellow sadness."
He didn't even smile, completely absorbed in watching himself fail to stop Bob’s wrap-around from three different camera angles. On the screen, past-Brad moved like his joints were held together with wishful thinking.
"Your knee looks worse," I observed, immediately regretting it.
"It's fine."
"Brad—"
"It just needs to last twelve more hours."
Twelve hours. I pressed my palm against my still-flat stomach, where cells were dividing with ambitious determination.Just wait twelve more hours, little secret. Let Daddy have his moment.
That's when the air changed.
Not the air itself—the way Finn breathed it. The shift from normal to crisis happened between heartbeats. One second he was drawing a racing car at the table, red crayon steady in his grip. The next, his shoulders hunched forward, chest caving with the effort of pulling oxygen through airways that had decided to slam shut like subway doors.
The wheeze started low—that sinister whistle that meant his bronchioles were staging a rebellion.
"Nebulizer." Brad's command cut through my freeze response, but I was already at the medication station, hands hovering over the arsenal of inhalers, nebules, and spacers that had colonized our kitchen counter.
Albuterol. No—wait. Budesonide? We'd been alternating based on triggers. Morning was usually Pulmicort unless he'd had nighttime symptoms, then we'd switched to Xopenex but only if his heart rate was under 100, and had we checked his peak flow this morning? The medications blurred together, their names suddenly foreign. My hand closed on the wrong vial—the purple cap, maintenance dose, the one that would do absolutely nothing for acute bronchospasm.
"SERENA!"
Brad's voice sliced through my panic. He shoved past me, his bad knee buckling slightly, grabbing the correct vial with the precision of muscle memory. 0.5mg of Albuterol mixed with 3ml saline, nebulizer mask over Finn's face before I'd even processed my near-catastrophic error.
"Easy, buddy. Dragon breaths, remember?"
Finn nodded against the mask, eyes locked on Brad's with absolute trust while his intercostal muscles pulled tight between his ribs, the hollows above his collarbones sucking deep with each labored breath. His pulse ox read 77%. The number blazed red on the monitor like an accusation.
I stood there, useless as furniture, watching Brad conduct the emergency symphony he'd performed hundreds of times. Check pulse ox. Count respirations. Watch for cyanosis. Adjust medication flow.
His hands never shook, even though his own body was disintegrating, even though the biggest game of his career loomed, even though I'd almost—
"Getting better," Finn whispered through the mist after eternal minutes. "Yellow zone now."
"That's my warrior." Brad kept one hand on Finn's back, feeling the respiratory rate, while speed-dialing Dr. Lisa with the other. "Hey, it's Brad. Finn's having an episode. Acute onset, no obvious trigger. Responded to Albuterol but slowly."
