Page 51 of Backup Plan

He reaches around my waist and hauls me down so I’m on top of him.

“Liam! Stop! Benji has a fever. Do you have a thermometer or any children’s medicine?”

His eyes open slowly, and he squints at the light coming in from the hallway. “Shit,” he mumbles, and he lets me go. “Yeah, there’s a thermometer in the first aid kit under my bathroom sink, but I doubt there are any meds in there for kids. Hang on.”

I sit up, and he climbs out of bed to go grab it. He returns with one of the old-school oral digital thermometers. My kids are used to the forehead scanner ones, but this will work.

“No meds. Sorry.”

I shake my head. “Thanks. I didn’t think I’d need something on my very first night here.”

“What can I do?” he asks.

“Nothing, but thank you.” I rush downstairs with the thermometer. “Hold this under your tongue until it beeps,” I tell Benji. He does, and I read the screen when it beeps: 104.1.

“Shit,” I mutter, and normally he’d scold me for cursing, but that’s a pretty high fever, and he’s kind of out of it.

I’m not quite sure what to do.

It’s two in the morning. It’s not like his doctor is open, or even urgent care. This feels serious enough to warrant an emergency room visit, but I don’t want to wake Sammy. I can’t exactly leave him here with a stranger, though, either.

Shit, shit, shit.

Why tonight of all nights?

I just wanted to get away from Brent. I really didn’t think this whole moving-out thing through.

I draw in a deep breath.

“How is he?” Liam asks from the doorway.

I walk over to him and admit the truth. “He has a really high fever, like dangerously high, and I have no clue how to handle fevers.”

“Do you want me to run out and get some medicine?”

I bite my lip. “Actually, I think I might want to take him to the emergency room. Let me just wake Sammy and have him get dressed.”

“I can watch him,” he offers. “He’ll probably sleep until morning, anyway, right? But I’ll be here if he needs anything. I’ll sleep out on the couch in the living room to make sure I hear him if he wakes up.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” I say, my eyes filling with tears.

“I know. You didn’t. I’m offering. Or you can wake Sammy up and give him the option,” he suggests.

“Oh, good idea.” I rush to the room next door and climb halfway up the ladder to the bed. “Sammy,” I whisper-yell, shaking him to get him to wake, but it’s like trying to wake the dead. He’s not budging. Once that kid is out, he is out.

I scribble a note for him letting him know his brother is sick, I’m taking him to the doctor, and Liam is here if he needs anything, and then I head back to my bedroom.

“Okay, my boy, here’s what we’re going to do,” I say to Benji while I find some clothes to change into. “We’re going to go see the doctor and find out what’s wrong so we can get you feeling better, okay?”

“Okay, Mama,” he says.

I rush around the room while Benji lies in the chair somewhere between awake and asleep, and Liam sleeps in the living room just in case Sammy wakes.

Ten minutes later, I’m carrying my boy down the elevator and toward my car in Liam’s parking garage. The streets are quiet this time of night, and we make it to the hospital in just a few minutes.

I check in at the desk, and the room is fairly empty, thankfully. Only one other patient waits for care, and we’re called back first. Benji’s temperature is even higher now, and the tech offers several different test options.

Fifteen minutes later, we have a flu diagnosis and a prescription for Tamiflu. They gave him some ibuprofen to bring down the fever for now, and they sent us on our way.