Chapter 1 - THE HOSPITAL FLOOR
My mother had both hands on Elodie when I entered the room.
That is what I remember first.
Not the oxygen.
Not the stuffed rabbit lying face-down near the trash can.
Not Colette’s coffee abandoned outside the door.
My mother’s hands.
One clamped around my daughter’s upper arm.
The other gripping the shoulder of her hospital gown.
Elodie’s bare feet hit the floor awkwardly.
Her knees buckled.
The oxygen tubing pulled tight beneath her nose.
Then she fell.
“LET GO OF MY DAUGHTER!”
My voice hit the room hard enough that Bernice turned.
I crossed the distance before she could answer.
Elodie looked up.
Her face was pale.
Eyes huge.
She had been admitted the previous night after another severe asthma exacerbation.
Her oxygen saturation had dropped enough that the emergency department kept her on supplemental oxygen and frequent respiratory treatments.
She was tired.
She was frightened.
She had been told to stay in bed except with help.
My mother had pulled her out anyway.
“Griffin—”
I swung my hand.
One slap.
Across Bernice’s face.
The sound shocked me almost as much as it shocked her.
My mother staggered sideways.
Her pearl earring caught the light as her head turned.
Then silence.
One second.
Maybe two.
And I hated what I had done immediately.
Not because she had not enraged me.
Because Elodie had just watched one adult use force on her and then watched her father answer with more force.
I turned away from Bernice.
Dropped to my knees.
“Ellie.”
She was crying silently now.
That was worse.
I slid one arm behind her back and another beneath her knees.
“Can Daddy pick you up?”
She nodded.
I lifted her onto the bed.
The nasal cannula had slipped partly loose.
I did not touch it.
I hit the call button.
Then bent for the rabbit.
Mr. Patches.
Gray stuffed rabbit.
One ear permanently bent because Elodie had slept on it for five years.
I brushed the floor dust off and placed it in her hands.
She crushed it against her chest.
Bernice regained her voice.
“You have lost your mind.”
I looked at her.
“I did.”
That answer stopped her.
“I should not have hit you.”
Her eyes widened.
Then I said:
“And you will never put your hands on my daughter like that again.”
“She is manipulating you.”
Elodie flinched.
I stepped between them.
Bernice pointed around me.
“She’s pretending to be sick because she wants your attention.”
I stared at my mother.
“She is wearing oxygen.”
“She knows exactly how to make doctors fuss.”
“She was admitted with hypoxia.”
“She can breathe.”
“Yes. Poorly enough that physicians admitted her.”
“You didn’t see what she was doing before you walked in.”
“What was she doing?”
Bernice’s voice sharpened.
“Whining.”
Elodie grabbed my sleeve.
I turned.
Her fingers were trembling.
“Daddy…”
“I’m here.”
“Grandma makes me get out of bed every time you leave.”
The room went cold.
I looked at Bernice.
My mother stepped forward.
“She’s lying!”
The door opened.
Colette Avery entered.
Twenty-nine.
Pediatric nurse.
Blue scrubs.
Hair pulled back.
She stopped as soon as she saw Bernice beside the bed.
Then her eyes went to Elodie.
Then me.
Then the rabbit on Elodie’s lap.
Colette set the medication tray down.
“What happened?”
Bernice said:
“Nothing.”
I said:
“My mother pulled Elodie out of bed.”
Bernice shouted:
“Because she refuses to move!”
Colette’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
She stepped between Bernice and the bed.
“Mrs. Maddox, you need to leave the room.”
“I am her grandmother.”
“You still need to leave.”
“This is absurd.”
Colette looked at me.
“Mr. Maddox…”
Something in her voice made me stop breathing.
“Yes?”
“This is the third time I’ve caught your mother doing this.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Bernice said:
“Colette.”
The nurse did not look at her.
“Yesterday afternoon, she had Elodie standing beside the bed after respiratory therapy even though she was dizzy.”
My jaw tightened.
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“I documented it and spoke with the charge nurse. Your mother said Elodie got up voluntarily and you had stepped away for coffee.”
Bernice interrupted:
“She did.”
Colette continued.
“Last night, I found Elodie walking toward the bathroom without assistance while Mrs. Maddox was telling her she needed to prove she could do it herself.”
I turned to my mother.
“You told me you helped her to the bathroom.”
“I was beside her.”
Colette’s mouth tightened.
“You were six feet behind her.”
Bernice pointed at Elodie.
“She needs confidence.”
Colette said:
“She needs oxygen.”
My mother laughed bitterly.
“You people treat every child like glass.”
Colette stepped closer to me and lowered her voice.
“Today I came in because her monitor alarmed when the cannula came loose.”
I looked at Elodie.
“Did Grandma take it off?”
Elodie buried her face against Mr. Patches.
I stopped.
Wrong question.
Colette noticed.
“We don’t need to question her now.”
Right.
I looked back at the nurse.
“What do I need to do?”
“I need the physician and hospital social worker in here.”
“Do it.”
Bernice stared.
“You’re going to let a nurse turn this into abuse?”
“No.”
I looked at my mother.
“You did that yourself.”
She slapped her hand against her thigh.
“I raised you.”
“And now I’m raising her.”
“You were sick constantly when you were little.”
That made me pause.
“What?”
“You had allergies. Bronchitis. Every cough became an excuse to stay home because your father spoiled you.”
My father had been dead eleven years.
I remembered inhalers.
Nebulizers.
My mother telling me to stop wheezing dramatically.
Then the memory disappeared beneath the immediate problem.
Bernice continued.
“You survived because I stopped indulging it.”
I stared.
There it was.
Not proof.
A philosophy.
Colette hit the call button from the wall.
Bernice turned to leave.
Before she reached the door, I said:
“Give me your visitor badge.”
She stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“You are done being alone with Elodie.”
My mother laughed.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“You have meetings tomorrow.”
“I’ll cancel them.”
“You have a company.”
“I have a daughter.”
Bernice looked at me with something close to disgust.
“You always do this.”
“What?”
“Overreact.”
Elodie whimpered.
I lowered my voice.
“Leave.”
Bernice removed the badge.
Dropped it onto the counter.
Then walked out.
A pediatric resident entered seconds later.
Colette began checking Elodie’s oxygen.
I sat beside the bed.
My daughter still had her fist around my sleeve.
“Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Are you mad at me?”
My throat closed.
“No.”
“Grandma says I make you miss work.”
I stared.
“No.”
“She says if I get better, you can stay at office.”
I took a breath.
Then another.
“You being sick is not something you’re doing to me.”
Her eyes filled.
“Even if I need hospital?”
“Even then.”
“What if I’m pretending?”
I nearly broke.
“Are you pretending right now?”
She shook her head.
“Then Daddy believes you.”
That was all I could safely say.
The hospital social worker arrived.
Then the pediatric pulmonologist.
Then security.
Then a police officer because the social worker explained the physical incident and I disclosed my slap before Bernice could.
I did not call it self-defense.
She had not attacked me.
I had hit her because I was furious.
The officer wrote it down.
There would be consequences.
Good.
If I wanted Elodie to learn that adults did not get to use violence simply because they believed they were right, I had to start with myself.
That night Bernice was barred from Elodie’s room pending hospital review.
I slept in the chair beside my daughter.
At 2:13 a.m., Elodie woke coughing.
Her monitor alarmed.
A nurse came.
Treatment worked.
She settled again.
Then, half-asleep, she whispered:
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Grandma says medicine makes my lungs lazy.”
My body went completely still.
I looked at the inhaler on the counter.
Then at the medication chart.
My mother had been the person managing Elodie’s morning and evening controller medication whenever I traveled.
I had trusted her.
May you like
For almost a year.
I did not sleep again.
