“Mommy! Mommy!” Olivia cried, panic making her voice high-pitched.
“I’m okay, honey,” Jocelyn said, her voice hoarse.
She tried to stand but her legs were too wobbly. Caleb lifted her easily, holding her around the waist. “Jocelyn,” he said. “You should have called. Come on, we’re going to the hospital.”
Olivia held a large plastic bag in one hand, likely with all of her loot. With her other hand, she picked up Jocelyn’s phone. “Mommy, your phone.”
Jocelyn took it and tried to smile at her daughter. She could tell by the slight quiver in Olivia’s bottom lip that the girl was scared. Jocelyn had to stay calm. “Thank you, sweetie,” she said.
She fumbled to put it back in her pocket until Caleb took it and put it in his own. With his other arm, he scooped Olivia up, bag and all. “Let’s go,” he said.
Jocelyn let him guide her, stumbling over her own feet, gripping his waist tightly to stay upright. “Not to the hospital,” Jocelyn said. “Please just take me home.”
“Will my mommy be okay?” Olivia asked as they reached the parking lot. The cold air was a balm to Jocelyn’s burning skin.
“She’ll be fine,” Caleb assured Olivia. “She just has a really bad belly ache.”
Caleb loaded both of them into her car since she had Olivia’s booster seat. He strapped Olivia in and then buckled Jocelyn into the passenger’s seat. She’d put a yellow Shop Rite bag on the floor for trash, which she used to vomit into during the ride home. It took fifteen minutes, and Caleb drove like he was being pursued by men with guns, but it still felt like the longest car ride of Jocelyn’s life.
“We’re almost there,” Caleb assured her over and over. He kept one palm on the back of her neck.
“Is my mommy okay?” Olivia kept asking.
Between heaves, Jocelyn tried to steady her voice. “I’m fine, honey.”
Caleb tried too. “She’s just a little bit sick, Olivia. We’ll get her home and take care of her.”
“I know what she needs,” Olivia said.
It turned out to be a Disney Princess ice pack and Olivia’s stuffed bear, Snowflake Bearington of the Bearingtons, which she always gave Jocelyn to sleep with when Jocelyn didn’t feel well. Once at home, Olivia set both items next to Jocelyn on the bathroom floor, where her mother had taken up position, dry-heaving into the toilet every few minutes.
At least it was her toilet.
Caleb knelt beside her, smoothing hair out of her face and grimacing at what he saw. As Olivia went to get Jocelyn’s fuzzy robe, Caleb whispered, “You’re scaring me a little, Rush. What’s going on here?”
Her body felt so weak, like a pile of trash light enough to blow away in the wind.
“You’re burning up,” Caleb added, pressing a cool palm to her forehead.
She closed her eyes. The nausea was unbearable. She’d brought up everything she’d consumed that day, and still she felt like she was being batted to and fro in the bottom of a shoddy boat on choppy seas. The S.S. Vomit.
“I’m just sick,” she said. “Can you stay? Watch Olivia?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“What can I get you right now?”
Jocelyn tried a smile. “Privacy,” she said. “I just need to be close to the toilet awhile longer.”
He looked as though he wanted very badly to ignore her request, but he didn’t. He left her there, mercifully, and went in search of Olivia. He left the bathroom door ajar and convinced Olivia to play in her room, which was just down the hall from the bathroom. Jocelyn knew he was doing it so he’d be able to hear her if she called for him.
She dry-heaved a few more times, then began bringing up bile. Mostly, she lay on the floor, curled around the toilet with her sweaty cheek pressed against the tile. Her body was cushioned by her fuzzy robe, which Olivia had insisted would make her feel better. She was too hot to put it on, so she’d spread it out and lay on top of it. She knew her four-year-old daughter was trying to take care of her in her own way. Jocelyn had no idea how long she was on the floor. Her exhausted body drifted in and out of sleep. She listened to Caleb and Olivia talking down the hall.
“This one is Princess Anna,” Olivia explained in a voice patient parents use on unruly children. Jocelyn knew at once that Olivia had broken out her Disney dolls. Right now, Frozen was all the rage among the pre-K set. Jocelyn almost felt bad—Caleb had a college-age son, but he had never had the girl experience as a parent. “You can be Anna, and I’ll be Elsa.”
“You don’t have any boy dolls? An Army guy? A policeman?” Caleb asked.
Olivia giggled. “No,” she said. “I’m a girl, silly.” A pause. “There is a boy doll named Kristoff, but I don’t have him because Mommy says you don’t need a man to complete your life.”
Caleb’s guffaw masked Jocelyn’s groan. Olivia really was at an age where Jocelyn needed to watch what she said in front of her. The kid was like a sponge—or an elephant. She remembered everything.
“You can be the reindeer if you want,” Olivia offered. There was a longer silence. Then Olivia asked him, “Do you love my mommy?”
Jocelyn’s breath hitched in her throat. She prayed her gurgling, nauseated stomach would stay calm long enough for her to hear the answer. She and Caleb had never said the L-word, never discussed it. Jocelyn rolled away from the toilet, closer to the door, covering her cramping abdomen with both hands as she strained to hear.
“Yes,” Caleb told Olivia. “I love your mommy very much. Do you know who your mommy loves more than anyone in the world?”
“Me,” Olivia answered easily.
Good girl.
“Exactly,” Caleb said. “Since you are the most important person in your mommy’s life, I wanted to meet you and spend time with you.”
Heart. Melting.
Jocelyn hoped she’d remember this later. She hoped it was real and not a result of illness-induced delirium.
“You could be my mommy’s boyfriend,” Olivia offered.
“Really?” Caleb said. “That would be okay with you?”
“Sure. My mommy never goes on dates. She never had a boyfriend before.”
“Well, I would like that very much,” Caleb told her.
“You’ll have to hold her hand though,” Olivia said, her tone grave. “And you might have to see her naked and rub butts with her.”
Jocelyn gasped. From Caleb, there was perfect silence.
Olivia explained, “My friend Raquel told me that’s what grown-ups do when they’re in love.” She lowered her voice to a whisper that Jocelyn could barely make out. “It’s called sex.”
This time, Caleb laughed loudly, the kind of free and unfettered laughter he let loose when something struck him as deeply and unexpectedly funny. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. That sounds pretty gross, but I’ll talk to your mommy about it.”
“So, do you want to be the reindeer?”
Jocelyn turned back toward the toilet as the stabbing pains in her abdomen increased in frequency and intensity. She pulled herself up and brought up more bile. When she finished, she lay back down on the floor, drifting to sleep once more. It didn’t last long. She woke again soon after, dry heaving. This time, Caleb was there next to her, rubbing her back. He wore a tiara and he said, “That’s it, I’m calling Inez to come take Olivia, and then I’m taking you to the hospital.”