I Love You, I Hate You: Part 2

“Doesn’t make me feel any better,” I mumble.

“Dad,” Danika says. I hear her impatience, but she’s doing her best to keep it together. We all are. “You’re stalling.”

Walter grimaces and pulls a chair beside mom. There’s a pause, only a half second but it makes my chest squeeze. “She's alive.”

Mom covers her heart with her hand, expressing the relief we all feel. “Oh thank heavens.”

“But Molly lost consciousness on the way here. She stopped breathing for a few minutes,” he says hesitantly. “She coded again on the table, but we brought her back.”

My throat tightens as liquid heartache begins to pool again. I blink a few times and kiss the side of Danika’s head, wiping my cheek with her hair. I know what this means for her, for us. “How bad is it?”

Walter shakes his head and shrugs. “We won’t know until she wakes up.”

Danika’s gaze bounces between her dad and me. She can’t read between the lines like I can. That much time without oxygen to the brain is not good. “What are you not telling me? Molly is still unconscious?”

Walter exhales loudly. I’ve never had to deliver this kind of news, but I’ve given bad news before. You never know how someone is going to react. Sometimes the people cry hysterically. Other times they accept the news with grace but break down as soon as the doors close. The worst is denial. People refuse to accept what you have to say and attack. No matter the news, there’s always that twist in my gut. I can’t imagine what Walter is feeling.

“Under normal circumstances, the first forty-eight hours are the most crucial. The longer it takes for Molly to wake up, the higher risk we have for brain damage.”

Danika still looks confused. “Okay, but there’s a chance she’ll be fine. Right?”

Walter runs his hand over his face and sighs. “Sweetheart, Molly had a lack of oxygen to her brain not once, but twice for minutes at a time. It’s not a matter of if she’ll have brain damage, it’s a matter of how severe will it be.”

Danika shakes her head, the words not sinking in. “What?”

‘Honey,” Walter reaches over and sets his hand on Danika’s knee. “Everything will be explained down in Palm Beach.”

“Palm Beach?”.

Walter nods. “We aren’t a children’s hospital. They’re getting ready to transport Molly now that she’s stable. You two need to get going.”

37

Logan

It’s a forty-five minute ride to Palm Beach. With the cruiser lights spinning and following the ambulance, we’ll make it in thirty. I’m not used to people being in the passenger seat. Outside of a few training weeks, I’ve been on my own. With the computer and everything on the dash, her seat is tight, but Danika looks semi-comfortable.

Danika stares out the window, silently watching the stream of colors that are passing cars. She hugs herself, peach thumbnail running a trail of worried thoughts across her arm. “I hate her,” she says suddenly, turning her red rimmed eyes towards me. “I went against my gut and trusted her and she nearly killed our daughter.”

I extend my hand across the center console. Danika’s tiny fingers tangle with mine and I squealed some understanding into her hand. “There’s no way you could have known Mom would give Molly strawberries.”

Danika bites her lip and shakes her head. “God,” she exhales. Her eyes fill with water again, beads of liquid dejection falling down her cheeks. “It was five minutes. How could everything have gone so wrong in five minutes?”

I squeeze her hand again, hard enough that I pull her gaze back to me. “This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.” I hold her gaze for a second, long enough to let her know I mean every word but not so long that I put our lives in danger. “Whatever happens with Molly, we’ll get through it. Together.”

Danika exhales a pained laugh through her nose. She pulls her hand back, crossing her arms and shifting towards the window again. “That’s easy for you to say, Logan. You won’t be the one who has to deal with it.”

I bite my tongue, literally, until it bleeds. There is no point in arguing with Danika. She’s hurting and saying things she doesn’t mean. As much as I want to stick up for myself, I’m the outlet for her pain. I’ll prove I’m in this for the long run. She thinks I’m going to bail when things get hard. Hell, that’s her reasoning for leaving me in the first place; but she’ll find out that I’m not going anywhere.

Just like before, I don’t follow the ambulance to the Emergency bay. I park in the visitor’s lot and walk around the front of the cruiser to open Danika’s door. I hold my hand out for her, but again she rejects it.

The double automatic doors slide open with a whoosh. Cold air kisses our skin. Tiny goosebumps break out across Danika’s arms. She rubs her hands across her flesh, creating friction to warm herself. If I had a jacket I would give it to her, but I don’t, so we press forward.

The triage nurse smiles brightly at us, her greeting the warmest thing in the room. “Welcome to Beach’s Children’s Hospital. How can I help you folks?”

Danika looks like she’s on the verge of another breakdown. I step forward and flash the nurse, who’s tag reads Nilla, my signature smile. Her brown eyes jump to Danika, who’s lost in her own world of sorrow, then back to me. I sit on the counter, one foot on the ground, the other hanging off the desk. “Nilla. That’s pretty.”

“Not really. My mom was a hippie.” Nilla rolls her eyes and tucks her chocolate locks behind her ears. “She named me after her favorite ice cream.”