Page 30 of Love on the Brain
Ryan lived in Texas. She and Noah lived in Maine. Simple as that. They’d go home, and he’d stay here.
“Mommy?” Noah clutched his stomach. “I don’t feel good.”
His eyes were dilated. “Ryan, take the tray away.” Thinking fast, she slid off the bed and grabbed the wastebasket just in time for Noah to vomit into it.
Ryan set the tray on the floor and pulled on his stethoscope. Though calm on the outside, Jane was panicking. “Is it possible the tumor shifted?” she asked softly as Noah continued to heave. “Its proximity was already close to the oculomotor nerve—”
“I don’t know. Can I look at your eyes, buddy?”
Noah dragged his head up for Ryan to examine them, and Jane handed him her nurse’s penlight. When the beam fell on his pupils, he cried out and fell backward as the jerking of another seizure gripped him. Her arm snaked behind him, and she eased him down. Ryan was already at the drawer with the medication and handed her the syringe.
“BP one-forty over ninety and rising,” Ryan observed.
Jane rushed back to the bed, and the next few moments blurred by as they worked to get Noah stable.
“It’s time to bring him in,” Ryan said. He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. “This is Dr. Ryan Engstrom on Kindred Oaks Circle. I’ve got a tender-age patient needing transport to the children’s pavilion.”
“What are you doing?” Jane hissed. “We can get him there.”
Ryan shook his head. “Thanks. Noah Allen, age five, two days post-surgery…”
Jane stared at Ryan as he gave the pertinent information to whoever was on the other end. A siren wailed in the distance, and she froze.
“No ambulance! He can’t go in an ambulance.”
“Excuse me a sec.” He covered the speaker on his phone. “What? Why not?”
“Because they took his father away in one! He’s afraid of them!” Jane scrambled around the room, grabbing Noah’s favorite things and stuffing them in his backpack. The Daddy book, race cars, his stuffed Wally the Red Sox mascot…
“Jane, my car is stuck in the ice. We need help.”
“A fire truck! A cop car! A National Guard Humvee!Notan ambulance!” She knew she was sounding crazy. You couldn’t request a National Guard Humvee. But theywereout there … somewhere. There was always a chance, right?
The sirens grew louder until it sounded like they were on top of them. Noah began crying, and she ran over to him and pulled him into her arms. “Please, at the very least,” she pleaded, “tell them to turn off the sirens.” She closed her eyes and held Noah as he wailed.
When she opened them, Ryan wasn’t there. “It’s okay, Noah,” she assured him. “Uncle Ryan and I will stay with you, and you’re going to be fine. His car is frozen to the ground. Isn’t that the funniest thing you’ve ever heard? So we can’t take his car. God has a Plan B, and that’s the ambulance outside, and it’s going to take us to the hospital so Uncle Ryan and his friends can fix you up and help you to stop hurting, okay?”
“Okay.” Noah hiccupped and sniffed.
“I need you to lie back now so I can get these patches off, all right?” She held him steady, easing him back into the pillows with one arm as her other hand unbuttoned his pajama shirt. “Just going to peel these off, okay?”
She removed the patches and left his shirt open. Gathering him into the comforter, she hefted him into her arms to carry him to the living room. No way was a stretcher going to make it up the driveway unless it had sled rails.
“I got him. Get coats and your stuff.” Ryan took her precious bundle, and she quickly gathered her go-bag, Noah’s backpack, and their jackets off the hook by the front door. “I de-iced the stairs and walkway before I made breakfast. Be careful, though.”
Jane hurriedly tugged on her boots and opened the door, stepping gingerly onto the stoop. She gripped the frozen rail tightly with one hand as she descended the steps. The gritty salt mixture had melted through the ice in the morning sun. Still, she treaded carefully. Behind her, with Noah in his arms, Ryan locked up and proceeded to follow her down the walkway.
Luckily, the street had recently been deiced and plowed, so the ambulance was able to pull up in front of the house. It was only a few steps from the end of the walkway over the sidewalk to the rear door of the rescue vehicle. Jane waited as Ryan transferred Noah to the emergency responders.
“Please, take all this.” She pushed the load in her arms into his and slipped past him to climb up into the back. “I’m a nurse. I can help back here. Whoever’s driving, please, let’s go!”
The woman responder eyed her partner. He nodded to her, and she moved into the front. Ryan joined her in the passenger seat.
The man turned to Jane, and she gasped. “Cruz!” The paramedic had grown up playing ball with Casey and Ryan and had been Casey’s catcher all through high school.
“Hi, Jane. Hey, Noah.”
“No more wires. Please, no more wires.” Noah began to cry again, and Jane reached for his hand. Holding on to the support handle with her other hand while they pulled away from the curb, Jane watched the paramedic with an eagle eye as he positioned the oxygen tubing over Noah’s face.
