“I got errands, Helen. And if she’s so sick, won’t she want you? I don’t know what to do with sick kids. ”
“You know I can’t leave here. As it is, every time I turn around, Laura’s eyes are burning a hole in the back of my head. I won’t get out of here till nine. ”
Nine-zero-zero. It mocked him.
He’d had his omens. He had to seize them.
“What’s wrong with her, anyway?” Maybe a car ride might be soothing. Put her to sleep like when she was a baby.
“Croup. ”
“How bad can it be? You dropped her at camp in the first place. ”
“Yeah, and it killed me to do it,” she said slowly, her resentment crackling over the phone line. “But croup’s like that. Kids seem fine, until they can’t breathe. So just go get her already. ”
“What do I do if she has trouble?” He checked his watch. Helen wouldn’t resent him when he brought home enough to cover next month’s mortgage…double zero paid thirty-five to one.
“Sit her in the bathroom and run the shower. Moist heat is good. Helps her breathe. ”
“You sure you can’t do it?” He thought he’d try one last time.
“Someone needs to earn money in this family. ”
“Oh, and I don’t earn any money?” He’d show her just how great his earning potential was.
“I’m not going there now, Rob. ” The wind had left her sails, and suddenly his wife just sounded tired.
There was one thing a gambler was good at, and it was a poker face. “Sure thing,” he told her. “I’ll go get her. ” It wasn’t like he was lying—he was doing this for her.
“You sure?” Helen sounded so relieved that, for a moment, he believed himself the hero.
He wanted to be the hero. “If I said I got it, I got it, babe. ”
Not thirty minutes later, he was with Ellie in her room. She flopped dramatically onto her pink rug. “Can’t I just watch TV?”
As he’d predicted, she didn’t look so bad. She didn’t even have a fever, just a voice that made her sound like a seal.
“Come on, angel girl. ” He leaned down and scruffed her hair. “A little field trip will fix you right up. The best thing for that throat is ice cream, and the best ice cream is in Indian Rock. ”
“My throat doesn’t hurt. I just want to watch TV. ”
“They have TVs there. A whole wall of them. ” He pictured the screens with keno and horse races flashing by. “And they have a buffet, with soft serve and sprinkles. ”
“Bear’s place has yummy ice cream,” she argued. But she’d sat up, and that was progress.
He studied her stuffed animal shelf. Why were there so many, and who’d paid for all this crap, anyway? But he wasn’t about to mess with the fragile mood of a second-grader, so instead he asked, “Which one of these is your favorite?”
“Mister Bear. ”
There must’ve been two dozen bears on that damned shelf. “Which one is Mister Bear?”
“The brown one. ”
That narrowed it to one dozen. He grabbed the biggest one, and she hopped to her feet. “That’s Missus Bear. ”
“Shouldn’t Mister Bear be bigger than Missus Bear?”
“No. ” She shouldered by him and pointed up. “That’s him. ”