Page 50 of Molly
I emerged from my bedroom and crouched a little, prepared to swing Chloe up when she plowed into me like she always did. Only no little body hurled herself at me. In fact, the house seemed too quiet for a four-year-old to be in residence.
“Chloe?” I called as I rounded the corner of the hall into the living room.
Chloe looked up at me as she opened the storage chest and dragged a Sherpa blanket across the floor. Who needed a fuzzy blanket when the weather was a balmy seventy-eight degrees?
Molly’s form draped across the couch, her glasses resting on her stomach, and the back of her hand shielded her eyes. Chloe covered her with the blanket then retrieved her toy doctor’s kit from her room. She pushed a plastic thermometer into Molly’s sputtering mouth.
“Do we have a sick patient, Dr. Chloe?” I wouldn’t be one of those parents who wanted their progeny to follow in their footsteps, but boy did my daughter look cute with a toy stethoscope arranged around her neck.
Chloe velcroed a toy blood pressure cuff around Molly’s arm and nodded gravely. “Very sick.”
I peered down at Molly with a grin. She handled Chloe’s ministrations like a trooper. I’d never been thankful for someone else’s hardships before, but I selfishly rejoiced that Mrs. Bardowski had fired Molly that day. Her loss had been Chloe’s and my gain. She’d so seamlessly entered our lives that I had a hard time imagining her anywhere but here.
And that made me more nervous than I had been doing my first intravenous catheter in med school. I’d rather insert a hundred needles into people’s veins than inspect my confusing swirl of feelings.
I cleared my throat, hoping to clear away my unwelcomed thoughts as well. “Do you need a medical consult, Dr. Chloe?”
She stopped squeezing the blue ball that made the blood pressure cuff needle spin. “What’s a consult?”
“When you ask another doctor for their opinion.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Okay.”
Molly moved her hand and peeked up at me with one squinty eye. Her retina appeared glassy and bloodshot. My lips pulled down in a frown. Now that I was really looking at her, she seemed flushed as well. I gently grabbed her wrist with two fingers and lowered her arm beside her before resting the back of my fingers at her temple.
Warm.
“I’m fine.” Molly’s assurance, delivered around a plastic thermometer in a decidedly scratchy voice, came before I even had a chance to ask the question.
“You don’t look fine,” I quipped as I lowered my fingers to feel the pulse in her neck. Her heartbeat felt strong if a little fast.
“I’m sure you say that to all the girls, doc.” Her laughter turned into a cough.
I supported her back as her lungs worked to expel any unwanted irritants, returning her to a supine position when the coughing stopped.
“It’s nothing,” she assured again before I had a chance to say anything.
“Look after your patient, Chloe. I’ll be right back.” Time for a real thermometer.
Molly obediently lifted her tongue when I returned, though her eyes shot daggers at me.
“Have you had the flu shot?” I asked.
She responded with a nonverbal shake of the head. After a minute or so, I pulled the thermometer out of her mouth. 101.3. Low grade fever. I combed my fingers through my hair, pulling on the ends in frustration. This was my fault. I shouldn’t have let her and Chloe go to the playdate with Brad having been sick. Whatever virus he’d hosted, Molly had picked it up.
I looked down at my wristwatch. My shift started in an hour. Should I call Drew and see if he could cover for me? He’d already been on for twelve hours, but I’d seen him go twice that long on his feet. Dr. Feinburg would need to be notified as head of the department. Calling in wouldn’t be ideal—rather, another dock on my reputation at the hospital, at least in Feinburg’s eyes. But what else could I do? Molly needed someone to take care of her. Not to mention Chloe. I wasn’t about to leave them.
“I’m perfectly fine, Ben.” Molly sat up, setting her glasses back on her face. The lenses only accentuated the feverish shine of her eyes. “You should start getting ready for work.”
“And you should lie back down.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to try and find someone to cover my shift.”
“I thought you said you were on fairly thin ice at the hospital anyway. Isn’t the night float duty a punishment? What do you think will happen if you call in when you aren’t even the one who’s sick?”
I ratcheted my head up from my phone to meet her gaze. “I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get to it. Chloe can’t take care of you, and you can’t take care of Chloe. Not when you’re sick. The two of you need me.”
Molly got her hands under her to help push herself off the couch, mumbling something under her breath that sounded like, “We do need you.” On her feet, she raised her chin. “A low-grade fever isn’t a big deal.”
My feet moved to square off with her. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to argue with your doctor?”
