Yours, Mine & Ours

time to ease her on her side before jerking across the bed, patting the floor until he located his pants, found and flipped on the phone.

She knew it was about Teddy. What else? Her blurry eyes eventually made it to the bedside clock. 3:00 a.m.

Definitely Teddy.

The conversation was hard to transcribe. Someone on the other end was talking; Mike’s voice sounded as if he were talking through mud. “Okay. Okay. Okay. I’ll be right there.”

When he snapped off the cell, she said, “Ill? Or scared?”

“Ill. Just woke up. Rash and a fever.” He was already out of bed, pulling on jeans. “At least he didn’t wake up from being afraid. He was making it the whole night. My mom’s best guess is chicken pox. I could have sworn he had every vaccine known to the universe. I thought kids couldn’t get any of those ‘spot’ diseases anymore.”

He’d immediately gone into dad mode, which she completely understood. When a child was sick, parental instincts took precedence over everything else. She didn’t expect him to be thinking of her…yet the minute he pulled on his shirt, he leaned over and kissed the side of her neck. Slowly. Tenderly. Softly.

Before swearing, and grumbling that he had to go.

“But we have unfinished business, Red. And don’t you forget it.”

She smiled in the darkness, closed her eyes.

She thought she’d sleep…not only had Mike completely worn her out, but the day had been long and traumatic before that. Yet moments later, her eyes popped wide-open.

The day had been traumatic, the custody hearing agonizing. She’d been building character and strength and some skills, she’d thought. All blown away when she couldn’t get the judge to listen about Molly. She’d left the stupid hearing feeling beyond inadequate.

Now, though, it occurred to her that was kind of how she’d felt after Mike bailed her out of her plumbing mess. She’d been so clueless. Because she’d been clueless. He’d been a hero for her that day.

The blackest night slowly brightened, turned into a pre-dawn dusty charcoal…then finally the pearl fog of a new day. It was still only five o’clock. She faced the window, from the pillow where Mike had laid his head, curled up tight. Now she got it. He hadn’t stopped over by accident with that god-awful whisky.

He’d been her hero.

Again.

He hadn’t changed the outcome of the stupid hearing. But he’d made her put it in a different perspective. He’d known perfectly well what he was doing. He’d planned it.

By five-thirty, she was biting her nails…and she hadn’t bitten her nails since she was six. This was precisely how they’d screwed up before. That’s what happened when you had kids, of course. Instead of being able to cuddle and talk things out and just be together after making love…they’d had to separate. And in the hours apart, they’d both frozen up.

Both of them. Not just her. He’d frozen up, too.

She felt as if she were on the cusp of grasping it all-grasping what really mattered, about her, about him, about the two of them…when suddenly she heard Molly cry out.

There was no way Teddy was staying at his parents’ house. None. Teddy was beside himself crying when Mike showed up…and burning up, as well.

His mom never freaked in a crisis, but she was clearly upset. “I know what to do for a sick child, Mike, for heaven’s sake. It has all the symptoms of chicken pox. Nothing worse. But I just couldn’t seem to comfort him. All he wanted was you.”

“It’s okay. I’ll get him home.” Teddy immediately simmered down-at least temporarily-once Mike picked him up.

Except, Mike was the one shaken up after that. Teddy’s little body was so darned hot. Mike wrapped him in the sheet he’d been sleeping in, added a blanket, strapped the whole bundle into the truck and took off for home.

Before daylight, he’d called the new pediatrician, the old pediatrician, the E.R. They all gave him the same answer. The pinpoint-size spray of spots on Teddy’s chest and tummy were symptomatic of chicken pox. So was the l02-degree fever. And a mild case of chicken pox was running through the county. They gave him the rundown on the course of the disease, things he could try, what to expect for the next ten days.

They all said the same thing.

This was a normal childhood illness, nothing to worry about.

Right. His kid was miserable, threw up the child’s fever reducer, didn’t want to sleep, just wanted to be held on his dad’s lap in the recliner. Eventually Cat joined them. Then Slugger.

He wanted to call Amanda. Couldn’t-without dislodging his entire family. And then she called, sometime early in the morning. He couldn’t reach the phone fast enough, and the answering machine picked up.

“Mike…Molly came down with chicken pox. I’m guessing if you’re dealing with a rash and fever, your Teddy has the same thing. Call if you need a hand.” Then her softer voice. “We’ll catch up. You can count on it.”

He brooded on that. For him, their night together had been an Armageddon…but there was every reason to fear she wouldn’t take it in a positive way. Hell. It could look to her like he’d plied her with liquor and been insensitive to the custody hearing thing she’d been through.

He made red Jell-O soup and scrambled eggs, then blue Jell-O soup, then finally got the hang of making the Jell-O gel. But then it gelled so tight that you could turn the bowl upside down and it wouldn’t come out. Teddy asked for peanut butter and jelly-which he promptly threw up. Mike microwaved chicken noodle soup. Then more scrambled eggs. Then he ran out of Jell-O and scrambled eggs.

The tiny dots formed blisters two days later. Teddy’s fever broke, but now he was itching and miserable and crabby.

Mike played trucks. And watched cartoons. And read books. And played fish. He coated the kid with everything he had in the medicine cabinet to stop the itching.

When he heard the knock on the door, he wasn’t sure if it was Tuesday or Thursday, what month, what year. It was daylight. That’s all he was sure of.

He opened the door, squinted at the sudden sharp sunlight…saw Amanda. Well, mostly what he saw was her flaming hair and shocked expression.

“Holy kamoly. You look horrible. Why didn’t you call me? I was-”

He wasn’t coherent. Wasn’t going to be coherent again. Maybe ever. So he just blurted out what he needed to say. “I wasn’t trying to get you drunk.”

“I never thought you were.”

“I didn’t mean to be so…physical.”

“Of course you did. That’s you. You’ll always be more fantastic with action, especially that action-than talk. Chitchat isn’t your thing. No sweat.” She closed the door and took a long gander at his living area. “You are such a dimwit. Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble?” Then she took an even longer gander at him. “You haven’t shaved. You look as if you haven’t slept. You look as if-”

“It’s been horrible,” he confirmed.

“Molly’s taking a nap. My mom came over to watch her for a couple hours. I needed to get out to the grocery store, and I came over to see if I could pick up anything for you two.” She raised her eyebrows. “No point in asking, I can see. It’s obvious you need everything. Let’s see how good you are at following orders.”

“What orders?”

By nightfall, Mike figured she was akin to a cyclone. They were at her house by then. The kids were in pajamas in front of the TV. Both had had oatmeal baths, rubdowns, a liberal application of calamine, then dressed in their pj’s. They’d gobbled down toasted cheese sandwiches, then lemonade, then small bowls of sorbet.

Nobody was crying. Nobody was whining. Both kids looked a pinch away from going to sleep for the night.

“I think,” Amanda said quietly, as she handed him a serious bowl of chili sprinkled with sour cream and melted cheddar, “that you and Teddy should take the spare room tonight. Molly can sleep in with me. My guess is that you really need a night’s sleep, and I can handle a round if the kids need someone in the night.”

She could handle both kids behind her back. And him. They’d stayed at his place until she’d transformed it. The dirty dishes went away. The Jell-O bowls disappeared. The heap of messy cutlery seemed to all fit in the washer.