Clearly, this was why she was irritable and misbehaving.
Clearly, another woman with more experience with children would have read the signs.
Clearly, I should have been paying more attention to my charge and not freaking out about Mitch and then fooling around with him on his couch.
Clearly, I sucked as a guardian.
“No, I don’t think Mara’s got that but I’ll go to the drugstore. Yeah, thanks, later,” Mitch said, flipped his phone shut, his eyes coming to me. “My sister says children’s Tylenol and we should get a thermometer. If her fever is bad and stays bad, we need to take her to the ER.”
“Okay, are you doing the drugstore run or me?” I asked.
“I’ll go, you good here?”
I nodded and took her hair from his hand. He nodded back and leaned across her to kiss my forehead. Then he straightened and was at the door when I called his name.
He stopped and looked down at me. “Yeah?”
“She doesn’t have any insurance,” I whispered.
His jaw clenched, he nodded and said softly, “Don’t worry about that now, sweetheart. Let’s get some medicine in her and ride it out. Yeah?”
“Yeah, Mitch.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
Then he disappeared.
Billie had drained herself dry and I had her in bed with a new cool cloth on her head. I had also managed to clean up her sick in the living room without vomiting (though I did gag a lot) and had blown out all the candles and figured out his remotes to turn off the music by the time Mitch got back. He came in and I was curled around Billie in his bed. Billie was curled around me and she was whining, moaning and clearly in a state and therefore I was inwardly in a state because her noises and the way she was clutching me was scaring me to death.
Mitch hit the door and my eyes went right to him.
“Hurry,” I whispered.
“Right,” he whispered back.
He dosed her and took the cloth from her forehead because it was heated clean through while I coaxed her to hold the thermometer under her tongue. Mitch came back with a newly cooled cloth for her forehead and an extra one to put at the back of her neck. Then he took out the thermometer, read it and muttered, “Fuck.”
“How bad?” I asked.
“Not good,” he said, dropped the thermometer on his nightstand and pulled his phone out again. Billie pressed into me and started shivering so I moved us both so we were under the covers. I stretched out on my side, pulled her into me and returned the cold cloth to her head as Mitch talked. “Sorry, Penny, her fever’s one hundred and three, she’s shivering and she’s burrowing so hard into Mara, it looks like she wants Mara to absorb her.” He paused as I watched him and his eyes never left me. “Yeah, I gave it to her.” Pause. “Yeah.” Pause. “Right.” Pause. “Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know.” Pause. “Yeah, thanks, honey, later.” And he flipped his phone shut.
“Your sister?” I asked.
“Yeah. She says wait it out. Give her another dose when it’s safe which is four hours and check her temperature then if the fever doesn’t break. If it’s worse than now, take her in.”
“Mitch,” I whispered with fear in my tone because I didn’t know much about fevers but little Billie’s body being a hundred and three seemed bad to me.
Then I stared as he sat down on the bed, yanked off his boots, got up, lifted the covers and climbed into bed opposite Billie and then he slid into Billie and me.
“Mitch,” I repeated my whisper, this whisper had fear too but it was an altogether different kind.
“I’ll set the alarm to wake us in four hours and we’ll check her.”
“Um…maybe you shouldn’t be in this bed –” I started.
“Want Mitch,” Billie whined, somehow managing to burrow into both Mitch and me at the same time.