"Is everything okay?" I asked. My voice was already shifting into professional gear—clipped, steady, prepared for data.
There was a beat. The directness seemed to catch him off guard. "Lily's got a fever."
"Okay," I said, reaching for the notepad Tom kept on the side table. "Talk to me."
"I don't—I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do," he said. His voice was flat, stripped of the usual grit, like an engine running on empty. This wasn't a plea; it was just a report from the wreckage. "Whether I take her in or call someone. I was going to head for the ER, but I found an insurance card. I don't know if that changes things. If there’s a process for this."
He stopped. I heard the sharp, metallic click of a lighter or a pen—something for his hands to do.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he said. The words were quiet, blunt. An honest accounting of a man who had finally found a problem he couldn't solve.
Tom glanced over, his brow furrowing as he sensed the shift in my posture. I stood up, the movement abrupt enough to spilla few drops of wine onto my coaster, and walked toward the far window. The rain was drumming against the glass, a frantic, uneven rhythm.
"How high?" I asked. I didn't wait for him to find the words; I just started the checklist.
"Hundred and three point two," he said. "Checked it twice."
"Breathing?"
"Fast. But even. No wheezing."
"Is she responsive? If you say her name, does she open her eyes?"
"She groans. Turns away from the light. She’s... she's deep under."
I ran the diagnostic in my head, a mental whiteboard filling with possibilities. Lethargy, high fever, no respiratory distress yet. He mentioned the park—the pink cheeks he’d mistaken for the wind. It was a classic misstep.
"Any rash?" I asked. "Check her torso. Her legs."
"Nothing. Just red in the face."
"Vomiting? Stiff neck?"
"No. She just won't wake up properly."
I looked out at the streetlights. Ten-thirty on a Friday. Clear Creek was a forty-five-minute drive on a dry night, and the roads out here turned into black ice the second the temperature dipped.
"Check the medicine cabinet," I directed. "There should be children’s Tylenol. It’s a red liquid, probably. Or chewables."
"I found it," he said, the sound of a plastic bottle rattling against a sink. "It’s... it’s basically empty. Maybe a teaspoon left. I don't think Cassie had time to get more."
"How does she look to you?" I said. "Not the numbers. Just—how does she look?"
A pause. "Small," he said. "She looks small."
I stood at the window with the rain on the glass and the orange of the streetlights below. The answer hit me lower than I expected. It wasn't a clinical statement; it was more like a confession.
"Okay," I said, my hand tightening on the phone. "Listen to me. Any twenty-four-hour pharmacy will have children's Tylenol. CVS, Walgreens, doesn't matter. Get a cool cloth on her forehead, and whatever you do, don't bundle her up in blankets. You need to let the heat out. Try to get her to take some water if she rouses."
"Got it," he said. "Thank you, I?—"
I stopped. What was I saying?
He was alone.
It didn't matter if he had a car or not. He couldn’t leave a semi-conscious five-year-old alone in a house in Clear Creek to go hunt for a pharmacy, and he couldn’t drag a kid with a 103-degree fever out into a cold rainstorm just to stand in a checkout line.
"Ignore that," I said, already turning away from the window. The "Doctor" part of my brain—the part that valued boundaries and professional distance—was being shoved aside by something older and more urgent. "Don't go anywhere. Stay put."