No Longer Waiting For You Chapter 02
“Mommy, I’m cold.”
It was 2:00 AM, and Tania was shivering. I felt her forehead. She was burning up.
I grabbed the thermometer—it read 39.9°C.
The bedroom door was wide open. Rodney was already gone.
I called him immediately. He finally picked up on the eighth ring.
“Hello? What is it? You woke me up,” he grumbled, sounding groggy and annoyed.
“Tanny has a fever of 39.9°C,” I said, panic edging into my voice. “I can’t drive right now. I need you to come back and take us to the hospital.”
“Don’t we have fever medicine at home? Just give her some.” He yawned loudly into the receiver. “I’m at Claire’s. A water pipe burst, and her living room floor is flooded. I’m helping her clean it up.”
“Is a broken water pipe really more important than Tanny running a fever of almost 40°C?”
“Why are you giving me an attitude?” His tone sharpened. “Claire is raising a kid on her own, and it’s tough. Just catch a cab to the hospital with Tanny. It’s not a big deal.”
“She’s literally delirious from the fever!”
“Then take her right now. Telling me about it isn’t going to help. I can’t leave.” He hung up abruptly.
I carried Tania downstairs and waited outside in the pouring rain for twenty minutes. Not a single empty cab drove by.
My hands were shaking as I dialed Konnor’s number. “Konnor, could I ask you a huge favor…”
“Text me your address. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He didn’t ask a single question. Exactly five minutes later, he pulled up right in front of us. He sprinted out with an umbrella, stripped off his heavy jacket to wrap around Tania, and gently settled her into the backseat.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I just got off the phone with the director at the children’s hospital. They’ve got a bed waiting in the ER, and the staff has meds and ice packs ready to go.”
Just hearing his steady voice instantly took the edge off my panic.
By the time we arrived at the hospital, Tania started seizing the second they wheeled her into the emergency room.
The doctor was sharp with me. “Why did you wait so long to bring her in? Ten more minutes, and this fever could’ve caused meningitis! I need a family member to sign this immediately.”
Before my brain could even process what he was saying, Konnor stepped up and signed his name on the paperwork.
I stood off to the side, shaking so hard I could barely stay on my feet.
He turned back, steadied me by the shoulders, and pressed a cup of warm water into my hands. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here.”
Out in the waiting room, I watched Konnor handle everything. He paid the hospital bills, picked up the prescriptions, and even ran out to buy us clean clothes. He had somehow remembered Tania’s aspirin allergy, too, double-checking the IV meds with the nurses over and over to be safe.
Meanwhile, my husband was busy mopping up a flooded floor for another woman.
My phone lit up with a text from Rodney, “How is Tanny doing?”
A minute later, a second text came through, “OK.”
He didn’t bother asking about her temperature, and he didn’t mention when he was actually coming.
At six in the morning, Tania was finally discharged from the emergency room.
Konnor held her close, softly humming a lullaby to get her to sleep. The early morning light washed over him, highlighting just how gentle he was being with her.
Looking at them, I suddenly flashed back to when Tania was a year old. Her fever had spiked to 40.5°C in the middle of the night. Panic-stricken, I’d called Rodney, but he just told me he was out entertaining clients at a nightclub and to figure it out myself.
I had stood in the pouring rain with my baby in my arms for forty minutes before finally managing to hail a cab.
I should have known right then and there that I could never rely on him.
My phone rang, pulling me back to the present. It was my mom. “Liv, did Tanny have a good birthday? Did Rodney get her a present?”
I bit my lip. “Yeah, she had fun. He did.”
“That’s good. When you got into that car accident last year, he didn’t even bother to call. It was completely unacceptable. At least he’s stepping up now.”
Right. Last year, while I was in critical condition in surgery, he was out celebrating Claire and her daughter’s birthdays. And this year, while Tania was getting emergency medical treatment, he was busy helping Claire mop up a flooded floor.
At three in the afternoon, Rodney sent a rare text, “The pipe is fixed. Claire is buying dinner tonight. Bring Tanny over.”
I didn’t reply. Instead, I turned to Konnor. “Can we change our flights to tomorrow? I just want to get out of here as soon as possible.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’ll change them right now. Just wait for me at the hospital.”
