Page 20 of American Hellhound
“Shit.” Ghost wasn’t a natural at this – he didn’t have that maternal magic thermometer in his palm – but this fever was bad enough it left no doubt. “Hold on. I’ll get you some…” Could kids have aspirin? “Something,” he muttered, and got to his feet.
In the bathroom, he found splotches of vomit on the floor leading up to the toilet. He wiped them up with toilet paper and looked into the medicine cabinet above the sink. He had Advil, aspirin, and ibuprofen. None of it was labeled as being child-suitable, so he scanned the labels. Aidan could have one ibuprofen tablet, he decided, and shook one out.
Aidan had fallen into a fitful sleep, legs twitching, face screwed up with pain, small hands clenched over his stomach. “Here. Hey, wake up,” Ghost said, nudging a glass of water into his hand. “You’ve got to take this.”
Aidan opened his eyes slowly, propped up on his elbow, and frowned at the oblong pill in Ghost’s hand. “Wha’s that?”
“It’ll get rid of your fever. Come on, take it.”
“I can’t take pills.”
“What?”
“No pills.” Aidan shook his head. “I need the red stuff.”
“Red stuff?”
“Mommy always gives me the red stuff.”
Ghost ground his teeth together. “Yeah, well, Mommy ran off to be with another dude. So. There’s no red stuff.”
Aidan looked like he’d been slapped, bloodshot eyes wide and mouth trembling.
“Just take it,” Ghost said, getting frustrated. “Please.”
“Ican’t.”
“You don’t know that for sure until you try.” Inwardly, he was panicking. He hadn’t even considered that Aidan, freshly eight, might not be able to swallow a pill. And if he couldn’t get his fever down, how could he get him feeling better? “Try,” he urged. “It’s easy. You just put it in your mouth with some water, and swallow.”
Aidan tried. But he sputtered, and coughed, and the ibuprofen tablet went flying across the room. Ghost got showered with water.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Shit. What are we supposed to do now?”
Exhausted from the effort of trying to choke down a pill, Aidan lay limp on the pillow and stared at him, blinking.
“We’re gonna have to get some red stuff, aren’t we?”
Aidan nodded, weakly.
“Shit, hold on.” One day, he was going to feel bad about all the cussing he did in front of his kid, but today wasn’t that day.
He walked down the short hallway to his bedroom, heart knocking unhappily against his ribs, and dialed Olivia.
She picked up in the middle of the fourth ring. “What, Kenneth?”
He took a deep breath, bit the inside of his cheek, and told himself to be calm. “What’s the red stuff?”
There was a pause on the other end. “What?”
“The red stuff. Aidan’s got a fever and he says he needs the red stuff.”
“Oh. Children’s Tylenol. The liquid kind.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it, then?” Ghost took a deep breath, heart knocking. “You don’t care how he is? That he’s sick?”
