Vital Signs (15 page)

Of course she did. She had to go. David needed her.

Laura had been standing beside her, listening.

Hailey grabbed her purse from the table and her keys from the hook by the door. “You might as well crawl into my bed, Laura. I'll probably be at St. Joe's the rest of the night.”

Laura tried to look regretful, but she couldn't quite manage it. “I'm sorry about David, but I have to admit I'm glad about the bed. That floor is not exactly the softest thing I've ever tried to sleep on.”

Hailey was thinking about David, but she had to grin at her sister. “You are one spoiled lady. Ever hear about the princess and the pea?”

“Yeah, but didn't she marry a prince? I missed out on that deal—I got the frog, instead.”

At least Laura still had a sense of humor. Hailey remembered about Nicole and dug her business card out of her wallet. “If you decide you wanna dump the frog, this is someone to go see. She's a friend of mine, and she's also Roy's sister. I'm pretty sure she's really good at what she does.”

It was encouraging that Laura even accepted the card.

“See you in the morning,” Hailey said, and then
felt warm and fuzzy all over when, for the first time in years, her sister grabbed her close and hugged her tight.

 

A
T
S
T
. J
OE'S
, Mary was sitting beside the door holding David, wrapped in a big blue blanket. His hair was damp and his face flushed, and when he saw Hailey, he held out his arms and whimpered.

“Hey, punkin, what's up with you?” She scooped him into her arms and kissed his hot cheek.

“Hailey, you shouldn't have trekked out here in the middle of the night.” But Mary looked relieved. “Sick as he is, he won't stay in his crib. He climbs out and comes to the door and lies down on the floor. It makes me want to cry.”

Hailey had been thinking about it on the way in.

“Why don't we just move his crib out here for the time being? I'm taking him home first thing in the morning, as soon as Harry Larue signs the release. I'll stay till then, anyway. No point in driving home and coming back. We can move the crib back before Margaret comes on shift.”

Mary's forehead wrinkled in thought and then she nodded. “Let's do it. I'll go get it now—that way at least he might sleep. Being held all the time isn't very restful, for him or for us.”

The crib made the difference. Hailey rocked David until he was sleepy and then laid him in it. He turned his head so he could see the door, clutched Bonzo to his cheek and finally fell asleep.

Hailey spent what remained of the night on a cot in a room nearby. Drained and exhausted, she awoke
with a start at seven, when the new shift of nurses arrived. Incredibly enough, David was still sleeping, bottom in the air, head facing the door.

In the staff washroom, Hailey showered quickly, hoping the hot water would take away the muzziness in her head. She kept a change of clothes in her locker, and David was awake by the time she'd changed. He was cranky and restless, refusing fluids. Karen took his temperature.

“It's still way up,” she said.

“Look at this.” Hailey was changing his diaper.

A sprinkling of angry red spots peppered his round belly.

“There's more coming out on his neck, as well. What do you think, Karen? Chicken pox, measles?”

“Nobody else seems to have symptoms,” Karen said. “We're gonna have to move him into an isolation unit.”

Although she knew it was necessary, Hailey felt totally defeated. Whatever this was, it was doubtful Harry Larue would sign any release for her to take David home today. And unless things had changed overnight, David was going to scream and fight when they moved him, and that was going to challenge his immune system even further.

“We'd better get it done before Margaret arrives,” Karen suggested.

The move went exactly the way Hailey had thought it would.

As soon as he was away from the door, David started screaming and climbing out of his crib. Hailey held him and did everything she could think
of to distract him, but ten minutes later, he was still screaming and she was beginning to panic. Margaret would be coming on shift soon and undoubtedly would insist on either restraints or a cover on the crib. And now David's entire face and body were covered in red spots.

Hailey fought the idea, but there was only one thing to do.

She rang the call button, and Karen came.

It hurt to say the words, and her voice was harsh. “Get hold of Roy and ask him to bring Shannon Riggs here. And have him tell her she has to stay right here with David until he's better.”

It took the better part of two hours. Harry Larue arrived, and his jovial face puckered into a frown when he saw David, who was still sobbing intermittently and refusing any liquids.

Hailey held David down while Harry examined him. The rash was a mystery, neither measles nor chicken pox. Harry thought it was likely a food allergy, but that didn't account for the fever or vomiting.

“We'll keep him here for another twenty-four hours,” he decided. “I know you were looking forward to taking him home, but I'd like to see him feeling really well again before he leaves.”

When Harry left, David refused to eat and drank only a quarter of his bottle of juice, no matter how much Hailey coaxed.

Margaret came by and looked in, but to Hailey's relief she left without commenting.

Hailey was rocking David and her back was to
the door, but she knew by the sudden stiffening of his body the exact moment when Shannon arrived.

“Mama.” There was a husky catch in his voice. He was hoarse from crying, but he managed to smile at Shannon. His arms went out to her, and for just an instant, Hailey wished with all her heart she'd never laid eyes on either of them.

S
HANNON LOOKED
as if she hadn't slept much. Her eyes had huge dark circles beneath them, and her hands were visibly trembling when she held them out to David, who almost leaped into her arms, snuggling his face into her shoulder. He strung together a series of words, indecipherable except for
Mama.

Hailey held out the bottle of apple juice and the tray with his uneaten cereal and fruit. “See if you can get him to eat and drink something,” she snapped. “He needs nourishment.”

“What's wrong with him? What are these red spots?”

“The doctor thinks maybe an allergy.”

“He's never had any allergies.” Shannon offered the bottle to David and he took it and began to swallow in great gulps. His eyelids fluttered and closed, and he knotted one plump fist in Shannon's T-shirt.

Hailey went to the nurses' lounge. She made toast and ate a slice, but her stomach was roiling. When she returned to David's room, he was asleep in his crib and Shannon was sitting in a chair, one leg drawn up beneath her, a paperback novel in her hand.

“He ate everything and then he went to sleep.”
Shannon gave her a defiant look and gestured at the empty food containers and bottle.

“I want to talk to you. Come outside for a minute.” Hailey led the way out into the ward and around a corner to a visitors' waiting room, which was empty. She turned and faced Shannon.

“I wonder if you have any idea what you've done to David, how seriously you've damaged him.” She kept her voice low and conversational, but the overwhelming emotion she felt made it quaver.

Shannon's eyes grew big and she held up a hand, palm front, but Hailey wasn't about to stop now.

“He was brought into emerg after being alone for three days. Your son was too little to even reach a water tap and get a drink, much less find any food. He had blisters on his bottom from feces, and he'd cried until he had no voice left to cry with. He was unconscious when they brought him in, and in another few hours, maybe a day, he would have died. When he came to, you were the person he asked for, over and over.” She kept her gaze on Shannon's face. Her sallow skin had turned greenish white, and tears swam in her eyes.

Angry as she'd ever been, Hailey felt only satisfaction at confronting Shannon. “As if it wasn't enough to desert him, you waltzed back in here yesterday, after he'd adjusted to us, to being here, and when you left, he screamed for hours. He kept an all-night vigil at the door to the ward, Ms. Riggs. He grew hysterical when we tried to move him, and he developed a fever and that rash and wouldn't eat.
The doctor can find no physical reason for it, so we can only assume it's emotional.”

Shannon was crying now, mouth open, sniffling like a child. She rubbed her shirtsleeve over her eyes and runny nose.

“I love David.” Hailey knew she sounded fierce now. “I've been approved to foster him, and I want to take him home and take care of him the way he deserves, the way
you
didn't care enough to do. But before that can happen, he needs to rest and relax and get well again, and he can't do that unless you stay here with him. He's only two—he doesn't understand why you'd desert him.” She added in an icy voice, “Frankly, neither do I, but you're the one who has to live with what you've done to him.”

“You…you shouldn't talk to me this way,” Shannon whined. “I took good care of him. That was the only time—”

“Once is all it takes, isn't it?” The impotent rage Hailey felt toward this girl spilled out in sarcasm. “Do you think you can possibly manage to give him your attention for maybe a couple days and nights, so he has a chance to get out of here?”

Shannon's face was stricken. “You want him—that's what this is about. You want my baby.”

Savage now, Hailey said, “Someone has to want him and love him and care for him, don't you think?”

Crying in earnest now, Shannon turned and ran from the waiting room, and for a few moments Hailey felt vindicated. She'd said what she'd been feeling and thinking, and she told herself that Shan
non deserved to hear it. But then she began to regret her outburst.

Shannon was right—she did want Davie. But was her own need interfering with her role as a caring professional? She was an adult, and Shannon Riggs was only a teenager, a sad, skinny kid far too young to have a child. The words Hailey had used were harsh and judgmental. Would she have been more understanding if she weren't so personally involved?

“Damn.” Hailey walked up and down the corridor, trying to shake the guilt and shame that clung to her like a bad odor. She wasn't thinking straight. She was still pacing when she heard her name called.

“Hailey Bergstrom.” Margaret came sailing toward her like a heat-seeking projectile, nostrils flaring, breath huffing in and out. “I know you feel you're above reproach, but this time you've gone too far.”

Margaret was in a rage, and the dislike she felt for Hailey was evident in her scathing look. “How dare you take it upon yourself to upset that child's mother in such a fashion? I won't have such unprofessional behavior from a nurse on my ward.”

Hailey's instinctive reaction was to turn her back and walk away. She didn't need this on top of everything else. But a tiny, nagging voice was telling her that this time, however galling she might find it, Margaret was right.

“You will apologize to her,” the head nurse ordered. “She's in the child's room.”

Didn't Margaret ever ask, instead of ordering?

“Okay. I'll apologize. What I did was wrong.”

It was almost worth humbling herself just to see the shock on Margaret's face. She'd obviously expected an argument or a flat-out refusal.

“I'll go do it right now.”

Hailey walked down the hall to David's room. She opened the door to find Shannon huddled on the chair, knees up, forehead resting on them. When the girl looked up and saw Hailey, she lifted her chin defiantly, but her face was still wet with tears.

Hailey gestured for her to come out into the hall so David wouldn't be disturbed. Shannon did so, but with visible reluctance.

“Look, I'm sorry for what I said,” Hailey began. This was hard to do, but she knew it was the right thing. “I was way out of line. He needs you badly right now, and I was wrong to upset you.”

Shannon went on the offensive. “Yeah, well, he's my kid, just remember that, Bergstrom. And
nobody's
gonna take him away from me.” There was a manic tone to her voice. “Maybe you'll have him for a few weeks. I can't do anything about that until I go through rehab and stuff. I can visit him, though, the lawyer said so. And I'll get him back because I'm his
real
mother. He'll remember me.”

She shot Hailey one last burning look, then spun on her heel and went back into David's room.

That was what she got for trying to do the right thing, Hailey fumed as she hurried out of the hospital, found her truck and headed home. The girl's words bothered her. How likely was it that Shannon would get custody of David again? Not very, Hailey consoled herself. She had both Shannon's track rec
ord and Roy's support on her side. There was no way a judge would hand David back.

With all that had happened, she'd forgotten about Laura and the kids. It was a shock all over again to see the red van in front of her house, hear the kids laughing in the backyard. She felt mean, but this was one day when she really wanted the house to herself.

Well, she was having a run on not getting what she wanted, wasn't she?

Sam and Christopher, wearing perfectly coordinated shorts and tops, were outside playing with Skippy. They came and greeted her with hugs and questions about where the baby was.

Weary and depressed, Hailey explained.

Laura was in the kitchen, boiling pasta and sautéing onions and fresh tomatoes for the lasagna. She had a dish towel pinned around her middle to protect her narrow, green twill skirt and matching sleeveless blouse, and her hair and makeup were flawless.

How did anybody manage to look like that before ten in the morning?

She glanced at Hailey. “You look wrecked—you mustn't have slept at all. And where's your little boy?”

“You look your usual gorgeous self, and he's with his useless birth mother at St. Joe's.” Sick to death of explaining, Hailey did so once again.

“Well, sounds like you did the best you could,” Laura said. “And he'll be coming here soon, so why don't you use the time to get some sleep? You won't get much afterward. That bed of yours is actually quite comfortable.”

“Thanks, I've noticed.” Hailey collapsed in a chair. Every bone in her body ached right along with her head. “I'm going to have to sleep awhile, all right. I'm suicidal when I'm this tired.”

Laura added spices to the tomato sauce. “It'll be quiet here—we're going out. The kids have soccer camp and then swimming lessons, and I have errands and an appointment with the hairdresser. I have to leave in a few minutes and we probably won't be back until after five today. Could you put the lasagna in the oven at four? I made a chocolate cake—it just needs to be iced. It's on top of the bread bin. And the salad greens are washed and in the fridge.”

In spite of the cooking, the kitchen was cleaner than it had probably ever been.

Hailey said, “You are amazing. You wanna stick around for a couple of years? I've always wanted a wife.”

“I'd rather have one than be one.” Laura dumped tomato paste into the sauce. “I'm thinking of calling that lawyer.”

“So do it.”

“There's just one little problem.”

“You mean besides having to sleep on my floor until you win the house away from Frank?”

“There's that, and also the fact that I'm pregnant.”

“Omigod. How far along?” Hailey sat up and gaped at her sister.

“Six weeks.”

“Does Frank…?”

Laura shook her head. “Nope.” She blushed and paid more attention to assembling the lasagna than was necessary. “The thing is, I don't think it's Frank's.”