Page 35 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door

I catch her before she hits the ground, lifting her into my arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

Her head lolls against my shoulder, her tiny frame feeling too light, too limp. My pulse thunders in my ears as I march up the beach. We’ve wandered far from the pathway that leads up to the duplex, but I close the distance in no time at all, fueled by pure adrenaline.

Darting around the side of the house, I head for the car. Every worst-case scenario flashes through my mind.

This has happened to me before. Out of nowhere, on a perfectly beautiful and ordinary day.

I can see it now as if I’ve traveled through time and dived right back into the memories. The sterile halls of a hospital. The beeping of monitors in other rooms that mock me in comparison to the one very quiet monitor before me. The quiet, detached voice of a doctor delivering news that no amount of preparation could soften.

“I am very sorry, Mr. Sterling. There’s nothing we could do.”

Not again.

I tighten my grip on Wren, holding her close as I stoop over the backseat of the car and try my best to secure her in the car seat. She’s limp, barely lucid, and yet her lower lip trembles as if she’s doing her best to hold back tears.

“Hang in there, kiddo,” I murmur, my voice trembling as I shut the door and fumble with the keys. “We’re going to the hospital. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I don’t know who I’m trying to convince—her or myself.

The drive to the nearest hospital is a blur. All I manage to do is shout a garbled “emergency room” command to Siri, and then I’m navigating blindly according to her robotic instructions. I keep glancing in the rearview mirror, checking to make sure Wren is still breathing, still awake. Her eyes flutter open and closed, her lips moving faintly, but I can’t make out the words.

“Try to stay awake, honey,” I say to her.

If she hears me, she doesn’t acknowledge it.

My heart is throbbing, my stomach squirming.

By the time I pull into the hospital parking lot, my hands are shaking so badly I can barely shift into park. I scoop her up again, ignoring the curious glances from passersby as I rush through the automatic doors. I think the security guard says something to me, but I plow right through the metal detectors and exhale in relief when I see there’s no line at reception.

“She’s not feeling well,” I blurt out to the woman at the reception desk. “She was running around on the beach, and then she just—she wasn’t okay. It happened very suddenly, and I don’t know how. I didn’t even take my eyes off her. Please, you have to help her.”

The receptionist nods calmly, typing something into her computer before waving over a nurse. They ask me more questions that feel stupid and useless. Her name. Her date of birth. Her symptoms, clearly and eloquently itemized.

“You don’t understand,” I snap. “Her mother passed away from a sudden cardiac arrhythmia. This is—she might be—”

That does the trick. The nurse nods and jumps into action, signaling for another nurse on the other side of the waiting room.

Within seconds, Wren is whisked away on a gurney, and I’m left standing there, empty-handed and breathing hard as if I’ve just run a marathon.

“Sir, we’ll need you to fill out some paperwork,” the receptionist says gently, handing me a clipboard.

“But I need to go with my daughter.”

“Just give the nurse a few minutes to stabilize her so that we—”

“I can’t leave her alone.”

The receptionist swallows hard, leaning forward to pat my hand, which is balled into a fist on top of the desk. “She’s in good hands. I only need some basic documentation that is absolutely crucial for her to receive proper treatment.”

Clearly, she’s experienced enough to know exactly how to communicate with panicked parents. Her words manage to crack through my anxious armor, and I know that she’s right. I accept the clipboard and step aside, even though there’s nobody else waiting behind me, then blink through the haziness to read what’s on the page in front of me.

My hands tremble as I scrawl Wren’s name and details onto the forms. The questions blur together—Previous medical history? Allergies? Current medications?—and I answer them on autopilot, my mind consumed by the thought of my little girl lying on a hospital bed, scared and sick and not knowing where I am right now.

When I hand the clipboard back to the receptionist, she murmurs something about how one of the nurses will come fetch me in just a moment.

But the minutes feel like hours as I pace the length of the waiting room, every muscle in my body taut with worry. I feel like I might be sick. Like I might collapse and never be able to get up again.

The day my wife dropped to the floor, so suddenly in the middle of an otherwise pleasantly normal day, was the worst day of my life. One minute, she was laughing at the stupid voice I was using for Wren, who was strapped to my chest in a baby carrier, still so tiny and frail. The next minute, my wife was unresponsive and Wren was screaming at the top of her little lungs.

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