and Austin asked for a pastrami sandwich. They had the best in the city. When Jaime’s hot dog came, Austin cut it in little pieces, which Jaime objected to strenuously.
“Why did you do that?” Zoe asked him, shocked. He hadn’t listened to what Jaime wanted, and cut it up anyway.
“Because if she chokes on a bite of hot dog, and I have to do the Heimlich on her, I’m going to have a heart attack. We’ve had enough excitement for one day.” Zoe nodded, and told Jaime it would be yummy anyway, and it came with French fries, which she loved. Zoe doused them in ketchup, just the way Jaime liked them, and she ate the little pieces of hot dog and dipped them in the ketchup too.
Austin looked relaxed by the end of lunch, and ordered a piece of cheesecake for dessert, while Jaime ate her donut with sprinkles on it. Zoe had hardly touched her soup. She was too upset by Austin’s attitude. He was blaming her for all of Jaime’s injuries, or that was what it felt like to her. She had texted Cathy by then, who called them at the end of lunch.
“What happened?” she asked, stunned by yet another broken bone after an accident, when Zoe explained it in detail.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put her on the big swing. I didn’t think she’d fall off, but when she turned around to look at me, she lost her balance, and the swing was at the high point.”
“It can happen.” Cathy sounded discouraged too.
“The doctor asked me if she has ADHD. Do you think she does?”
“Of course not. She’s just a busy two-year-old.”
“With an irresponsible mother.” Austin felt guilty when he saw the look on Zoe’s face. She had taken every word he’d said to heart.
“I’ll come by to see her later,” Cathy promised. “I can’t right now. I’m at a flea market in Brooklyn.”
“We’re out to lunch. Jaime just had a hot dog and fries and a donut. Her appetite doesn’t seem to have suffered.” Austin almost said that she was used to breaking bones by now, but managed to restrain himself. “She’ll come by to see her later,” Zoe said after the call.
“She doesn’t have to. She seems fine. I think you and I are more upset than she is.” It was an accurate statement of how the adults were feeling. Jaime looked relaxed and happy by the end of the lunch.
They drove back to the apartment, and Austin put the car in the garage where he kept it, and walked into the apartment twenty minutes later. Zoe had put Jaime on her bed for a nap, and was going to lie down herself. It had been an upsetting morning, and Jaime had recovered faster than she had. Zoe still felt slightly sick. “What took you so long?”
“I got a call from my mother. I told her what happened, and had to explain it to her. She thought I was joking at first, she couldn’t believe Jaime broke her wrist. Neither could I when you called me.”
“I felt the same way when I saw her do it,” Zoe said, looking exhausted. The hospital, and Austin’s anger over the whole thing, had worn her out.
Austin went to watch TV in the living room then. He didn’t even want to think, just focus on something else. He didn’t tell Zoe that his mother had burst into tears when he told her, and she finally realized he wasn’t joking.
“Something is really wrong here,” she said to her son when she regained her composure. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it. No child has this many accidents.” She had already said it to him several times, and it didn’t feel good to hear it again, and he didn’t entirely disagree with her. He just didn’t know how to stop it. Every time he turned around, Jaime was in the ER again and had just been there. Now that they had made it through apnea safely after a year, it seemed like she was breaking something every five minutes.
He wanted to be angry at Zoe about it, but he couldn’t be. She looked so devastated and remorseful that he felt like a monster continuing to make an issue of it. He peeked into Jaime’s room and saw her sound asleep in her bed, looking like an angel. It had been a big morning for her too, and traumatic. Then he went to