Some more nurses came to assist, and they helped get Jane into a bed and gave her some medicine for the pain and fever, which calmed her somewhat.
“We'll take it from here, Mr.….?” said the head nurse.
“Everett James,” I replied.
“Okay, Mr. James. If you'll kindly see that nurse there to fill out the necessary papers, a doctor will be on his way. Now, has the child's mother been informed of the situation?”
At the mention of Jane's mother, a bitter taste arose in the back of my throat.
“She hasn't. I'll call her now, though.”
I stepped outside into the hallway and got my phone out, breathing in deeply to calm myself before I called Susan – Jane's mother, my ex-wife. When I felt that I was ready, I called her. The phone rang for a while, but eventually she picked up.
“Everett, what the hell are you doing calling me at 2:15 in the morning?”
Her voice was slurred, and the sound of thumping music was loud in the background; I guessed that she was drunk. Well, that didn't matter – her child, our child, was seriously ill. I decided to simply cut straight to the chase.
“I'm in the ER. Jane is very, very ill.”
“Oh, uh... what's wrong with her?”
“Does it matter? You're her mother! Get over here now!” I growled, feeling anger rising quickly inside me.
“Jeez, alright, no need to get worked up about it. I'll be there later.”
“No, not later, now, damn it!”
“Fine. What hospital are you at?”
I told her and she hung up, and I felt like throwing the damn phone across the room and smashing it, but I kept my composure and forced myself to remain calm.
I filled out the papers and went to the waiting room and sat, feeling angry and impatient. The dull pain in my shoulder from the gunshot wound was also throbbing, but that I could handle – it was Jane's mother's indifference that was really getting to me.
After around half an hour, Susan and her boyfriend, Rick, showed up. Susan was as pretty as ever with her big, chestnut eyes and long, flowing brown hair, and she had a killer body too, which she was gratuitously showing off in a skimpy cocktail dress. This, along with her heavy makeup, told me that she had just come from a nightclub or bar or something. Rick looked pretty wasted. He too was dressed to the nines, but with his receding hairline and chubby belly, he just looked like someone who was refusing to accept that he was no longer a 21-year-old – which, as a 36-year-old, he definitely wasn't.
“Glad you could finally make it,” I said to Susan.
“Look, I don't feel like dealing with your bull crap right now,” she said. “Just tell me what's wrong with the kid and whether we have to stay here or not.”
“What's wrong with the kid? The kid?! She's your daughter, Susan; your daughter, damn it! You could at least say her name.”
She rolled her eyes melodramatically.
“Fine. How's Jane?”
“Not good, not good at all. She's running a fever of 105 degrees.”
“Yeah, that's not good.”
At that moment, a doctor came out to speak to us.
“Are you the parents of Jane?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “I'm her fath
er, and this is her mother.”
“Alright. Well, I have some bad news. Jane seems to have picked up a very serious stomach infection. We've given her a strong dose of antibiotics, but this infection is really giving her immune system a rough time. I would recommend that you stay here tonight. We're moving her into a room. There’s a recliner and a bench in there, they're not the most comfortable things to sleep on, unfortunately, but it can be done.”