Page 18 of The Kiss Principle

When Augustus was happy, his whole face lit up, and his nose got a little crinkly. The ten-year-old version of it was staring back at me. I thought about his face if I sent that text. And then I thought about the years and years I’d have to spend cutting him down to size again.

I was still waffling over sending the message when Bea replied:Hi! Good to hear from you!

Sorry,I wrote back.Things have been weirdly busy.

Lou told me about the baby??!!!

After that, it was easier. At first, the texts were short, and I focused on talking about Igz, because it was easier. But slowly the chat moved on to other things. She was a biochemist at Caltech, which immediately put her about eight leagues out of reach, and she loved scuba diving and swimming and, in general, being in the water as much as she could. I managed not to make myself sound like a total tool, I think, butI do some mountain bikingsounded pretty limp-dicked compared to her last vacation, diving the Great Barrier Reef.

I was surprised, when she told me she needed to call it a night, how much time had passed. Igz was getting fussy, and it was time for both of us to go to bed (for approximately three hours, before Igz screamed me awake). I told Bea goodnight, andthen I carried Igz and laid her on the floor in the hallway while I peed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face.

I changed into my pajamas—this ratfucker T-shirt that said BIBLE EMERGENCY HOTLINES, and then a list of things like STRESSED and LOSING HOPE and SINNED, each one with a Bible verse, and then at the bottom, TOLL FREE – TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. Augustus had given it to me because he still thinks he’s hilarious. He’d given me the shorts too, which made me look like I was ready for somebody to swing me from an ass hook in his dungeon, but I couldn’t stop wearing them because they were literally the most comfortable thing ever.

I bent over to pick up Igz and stopped. She was breathing fast, what I would have called hyperventilating. And then, as I watched, she stopped breathing entirely. She looked like she was struggling to get any air, her tiny nostrils flaring. She was pale.

“Oh my God,” I said, dropping onto my knees.

My first thought was that she’d somehow grabbed something and put it in her mouth and was now choking. I opened her mouth as gently as I could and, using my phone as a flashlight, tried to see if something was blocking her windpipe. Not that I could see anything. Not that I knew what I was looking for. I wondered if I was supposed to do the Heimlich.

By that point, though, she was breathing again—those rapid, frantic breaths. I’d done enough safety trainings to know not to try the Heimlich if someone was breathing. I scooped her up and staggered through the house, grabbing my keys and wallet, shoving my feet into a pair of sneakers. Her little face was full of struggle as I fumbled with the buckles on her seat.

“Go in, go in, go the fuck in,” I said.

Why hadn’t I practiced? Why hadn’t I spent more time doing this?

Somehow, I got her secured, and then I bolted for the SUV. I backed out of the driveway so fast we bounced off the curb,and a voice inside my head told me to calm down before I made things worse. I took a deep breath as I shifted into drive, and I accelerated more carefully down the street.

Orange County was a patchwork of light and dark: streetlights, security lights, neon lights buzzing on and off. The sky ended in a low, flat ceiling of clouds. I called Mom, and she didn’t pick up.

“Call me back.”

I hesitated. Who next? Augustus? But he was two thousand miles away, and, more importantly, I hadn’t told him about Igz yet. It wasn’t the time, and there was no point telling him something that would upset him until we knew what was going to happen long term.

Before I had time to reconsider, I placed a call to Zé. This one went to voicemail too.

“It’s Igz.” My voice broke, and I had to struggle to shore up that place inside myself before I could say. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.”

I disconnected.

The drive to the closest urgent care felt like a lifetime: my hands slick on the steering wheel; my back aching as I twisted around, every fifteen seconds, to make sure Igz’s eyes were open, that she was still breathing; the storm inside my head ofwhat if what if what if.

It was a corner unit in a stucco strip mall, with a wall of windows and an illuminated sign in red and white letters. Then I couldn’t get the car seat out of the base, and a scream started building at the back of my throat. Press this button, then press—

With a click, it came free.

I ran.

The lobby was empty, and the white woman behind the safety glass was missing her front tooth and had a tattoo of an anchor on her forearm, like a cartoon sailor.

“She’s not breathing. She can’t breathe.”

The woman’s expression changed. She said something I couldn’t hear into a walkie and then motioned me toward the door that connected to the rest of the facility. I jogged over to it, and the door opened. This woman was Black, her hair in beaded braids, and she wore a white lab coat with a name tag that said Ferguson. She glanced at me before bending over Igz.

“Her name’s Igz,” I said, and that place inside me threatened to break open again. I fought back tears. “She’s a month old, and she—and she—” I knew there was more I was supposed to say, but it was like I’d reached the end of the tape, and there wasn’t anything left.

The doctor ignored me. She had a stethoscope out, and she was listening to Igz’s heart. Then she slipped an oximeter onto Igz’s big toe. She checked the display. After what felt like an eternity, she said, “All right. She’s breathing, and her oxygen saturation is good. Her heart rate is a little accelerated, but it’s not in the danger zone.” She straightened, looked me over again, and said, “She’s not in any danger right now, sir. Let’s get you set up in an exam room, and we’ll see what’s going on.”

Afternot in any danger, I barely heard the rest of it. My knees didn’t literally buckle, but my body did feel a million times lighter, and I had this strange sensation that someone had turned up the lights, that the ceiling was higher than it had been a moment before. There was this whooshing sound in my head, and I heard myself think, Oh shit, am I going to pass out?

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