Sick Day

 Ok folks, taking a step back in time!  I wrote this a while back and really really like it.  There's some stuff that went on years ago that we need to explore and delve into because it plays a role in the present day cedar falls... dun dun dunnnnnnn!

Ok, hope you like...

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Jonah pushed the front door inward and it smacked hard into something that rang and erupted into a jaunty, high-pitched electronic version of ‘The wheels on the Bus’.  He frowned and pushed the door open more carefully.  The foyer was littered with enough toys for an entire preschool.  Furrowing his brows he closed the door behind him.

Somewhere deep in the house an exaggerated eastern European voice could be heard counting to ten and laughing in a vampiric ‘ah-ah-ahh’.

He put his briefcase down next to a rainbow colored xylophone on wheels and started toward the sounds of sesame street when a metallic clatter and a peel of giggles sounded from the direction of the kitchen.  Pocketing his keys and stepping over an orphaned baby doll and a pile of wooden block puzzles, Jonah moved toward whatever mischief was transpiring in the kitchen.

He groaned when he saw the dining room.  Someone had decided to do arts-and-crafts in here.  On the walls, and floor, and, was that?  Yes.  On the cream colored Italian silk upholstery on each and every dining room chair.  The indecently expensive hand woven rug was now decorated with what appeared to be an entire bottle’s worth of Elmer’s glue and confetti, and, oh yes, macaroni elbows too. 

What the hell was going on here?

An A-rhythmic and very insistent metallic banging from the kitchen helped drag his attention from the disastrous dining room.  “Sonuvabitch.”  He said quietly to the spilled fingerpaint kit in the corner by the standing porcelain vase that had been a wedding gift from his parents.  Taking a deep breath he pushed the kitchen door inward almost reluctantly.

“Jesus Christ.”  He said, but it was drowned out by a boisterous clatter and tapping accompanied by a full-lunged, a-tonal, almost unrecognizable version of the alphabet song.  Jonah forced himself to count to ten very slowly--fighting the rapid pace of the amateur drumming--as he surveyed the damage.

Someone had figured out a way around the child proofing.  Every condiment kept below, say four feet, had been removed from the refrigerator and strewn about gloriously throughout the kitchen.  Every single pot and pan and lid they owned seemed to be out of the cabinets and were now serving as an entire percussive symphony for someone.

“Zeeeeeeeeee!”  The voice shrieked triumphantly, followed by a beat of silence and then the enthusiastic sound of self-applause.  “Yeeayyyyy!”

Jonah bit down on his lips to keep from laughing.  When the banging began again he crept toward the kitchen island.  He glanced at the cabinets under the sink—they seemed to be one of the only sets still securely closed and undisturbed by whatever little hurricane had struck the kitchen.

“Eeee-yiiiii eeeee-yyyyyiiiii eeeeey-iiiiiiiyyy!!”  The voice was doing ‘Old Macdonald’ now, as Jonah placed his palms on the kitchen island and slowly leaned over the smooth granite surface to peek.

He’d expected to see a mop of red hair, but what he saw instead was enough to make his jaw fall open.  She was powder white.  All over.  Head to toe.  Covered in a layer of white dust.  As was the floor all around her, and the pots and pans and the wooden spoon she was using to play drums.  Jonah spied an upturned bag of flour by the sliding glass door, along with multiple tracks of various sized footprints heading in and out of the mess.  Holy God.

“Haii!”  His daughter greeted him with a wide grin and he looked her over, unsure whether he wanted to laugh or cry.  What a mess. 

With the crystal clear decisiveness signature to toddlers, she flung the wooden spoon away and scrambled to her feet, eager to run around the island and clamp his pant leg in a full body squeeze.  He wasn’t even quite sure which one she was under all that flour.

“Hi there.”  He said, and when she looked up at him he couldn’t help laughing.  It was even in her eyelashes for god’s sake.  What the hell had happened?  He bent down and swung her high above his head, causing a puff of flour to shake loose from her hair, and a pleased giggle to bubble up from her belly, before setting her firmly on his hip and taking one last inventory of the kitchen.  He opened a few lower cabinets to make sure the other twin wasn’t hiding within, peered under the kitchen table in the breakfast nook—finding evidence that the area had likely been used as a fort or a cave of some kind—and then departed the kitchen in search of the rest of his family.

“You made quite a mess.”  He murmured to the nearly-naked little flour-cloud on his hip.

She made a devilish giggle and kicked her legs eagerly. 

“Yes.”  He agreed with her, “But I think you must have had some help, hmm?”

She tossed her head to the side (another little puff of white powder) and rambled vehemently but mostly incoherently.  He thought he might have heard “Ball” and “Monkey” and possibly “Elmo” among the nonsense syllables, but even those he couldn’t be sure of.

He picked his way carefully through the foyer and stepped into the living room with a euphemistic curse.  “Son of a gun.”  He said through clenched teeth.  He was starting to get worried now.

The potted plants from the large bay window had been overturned and potting soil, like the flour in the kitchen, had been tracked to and fro by tiny feet.  The furniture was strewn with what had been piles of clean laundry when he’d left that morning, and the sofa and chair cushions were nowhere in sight.  In here, like in the foyer, there seemed to be an almost un-navigable maze of miscellaneous toys and playthings.  From small items like blocks and fake plastic food items, to larger items like a tricycle and a pink plastic (kid-sized) shopping cart.  Jonah doubted a single toy remained behind in the toy chests they kept in the den.

He doubled back to the foyer quickly and let out a shaky breath of relief to see that the safety gate was still in place at the base of the stairs.  Thank God.

At this point the girl on his hip decided to perform ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes’, apparently determined to cycle through her entire repertoire, and she was slapping at his head and shoulders with great gusto.  Jonah tried to lean out of her range but she managed to knock his glasses askew on one wild swing and he had to clamp down hard on the insides of his cheeks to keep from cursing.

He was really getting nervous now, and his strides became longer as he headed to the downstairs bathroom.  He said a quick thanks to the fates that they’d decided against a tub in the downstairs bathroom, but he was holding his breath nevertheless.  There were all sorts of ways for a child to manage to do harm in a bathroom.

“Jeeeesus.”  He said when he got close and stepped into a wide, spreading puddle.

“Uh-Oh.”  Said the girl, recognizing a curse when she heard it.

“Uh-oh.”  Jonah echoes absently, taking one splashing, soggy step after another until he reached the door and pushed it open quickly.

The toilet was overflowing (he had anticipated as much), and bubbling up out of it, like an insane fountain in a princess dream, was a dense carpet of fluffy, foamy bubbles, which blanketed not only the toilet but the entire floor of the little room as well.

And there was the other twin.  Naked.  Soaking wet.  Covered in bubbles.  And apparently on cloud nine about it.

The twin on his hip squealed and the one planted among the foam looked up with an answering shriek.

Ok.  Genny was the one in the bubbles, so Vienna was his flour-child.

Vienna started squirming and wriggling to get down as Genny clambered to her feet and crossed to him with her small arms held aloft.  “Up!”  She demanded. “Up!”

Jonah had been a father and an elementary school teacher long enough to know what would happen if he let the two come into contact—he’d have two daughters covered in paste.

So he deftly dodged Genny and crouched down to turn the valve behind the toilet until the water supply was closed.  By this time the water was seeping through his shoes and his socks were getting quite wet.  His daughter had, apparently, done her level best to flush an entire bottle of bubble bath or baby shampoo or something.  Holy hell.  He’s never seen so much foam, outside of a carwash, and he’d certainly never seen it spilling gloriously from a toilet.  He couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity of it.

Genny was doing her level best to climb onto his back or knee or whatever she could manage, and the squirming Vienna was becoming quite irate with his refusal to put her down in the bubbles.  “Up!”  Genny demanded.  “Bubbuhz!”  Whined Vienna.

“Hi Daddy!”  Piped a bright voice from behind him. 

He grunted as he stood, working hard to maintain his balance despite Vienna’s forceful wriggling and Geneva’s tenacious climbing.  He turned to see his four-year-old looking cheerful but disheveled, her hair a mess, her mouth orange (he’d put his money on canned pasta as the likely culprit there), and paint all over her hands and arms and pajamas.  Pajamas?

“Hiya Birdie.”  He responded in as chipper a voice as he could manage.  “What’s uh, what’s the story?”

She looked around at the bubbles with astonishment, took in the sight of her two ragamuffin sisters, and then looked at him with wide purple eyes and a serious expression.  “I didn’t do it.”

Jonah clenched his jaw and ran his tongue over the insides of his teeth.  “Crazy day, huh?”  He inquired, plucking his slippery wisp of a daughter from the field of bubbles and pressing her slick little form to his side as he stepped from the bathroom.

“I made you a picture!”  She told him, sounding enormously excited.

“Thank you.  Did you go to school today?”

“Nope.”  She replied pleasantly as she trailed along in his wake.  “We stayed home sick.”

He paused in his progress just long enough to maneuver the back of his hand to her little forehead.  She didn’t feel warm.  He moved away from her just before Genny would have landed an unwitting kick to the girl’s face.

“We?”  He asked, resuming his steady pace toward the den.  “Who is ‘we’?’

“Me and Grey.”  She answered, and he heard a note of resentment in her voice at the mention of her older brother.

“Grey’s sick?”  He peered into the den where Sesame Street was playing at full volume, where books and toys and sippy cups were strewn about in disarray.  Where a couch cushion fort had been erected over by the piano.  But where there was no sign of his wife or son.

“No, he’s taking care of Mummy.”  Avalon answered, running off toward the art table.  Where arts and crafts were meant to be done.  Where paint and crayons and glue and things of that nature were sanctioned.  Today the art table looked almost pristine.  Because she’d opted to re-locate to the dining room today.

“Where is Mummy?”  He asked, trying not to let the panic he was feeling creep into his voice.  “And where’s your brother?”

Avalon shrugged and began singing along with Ernie, twirling several long ribbons around herself fluidly.

On his right hip Vienna was trying to get his attention with her garbled, mish-mash version of ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’, recognizable only because of the upward climbing hand motions; And on his left hip, Genny, not to be outdone, began a very rowdy ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’.

A sharp throbbing was beginning to gather behind his eyes and his breathing was tight.  He slipped Genny down his side and to the floor despite her urgent renewal of the plea of “Up!”, then crossed to the television set and clicked the ‘down’ volume button furiously.

“Ava-Bird, I want you to do me a big favor please.”  He said as calmly as he could. 

She stopped twirling and singing—she’d detected something serious in his tone.  “Yeah?”

“I need you to keep your sister here with you in the den while I go find Mummy and Grey.  Can I count on you?”

Genny was stomping now and he knew she was likely to have a hell of a tantrum in a matter of moments, and even though Vienna wanted nothing more than to be set down, it just had to be this way unless he wanted flour all over the den as well.

Avalon nodded, solemn in her appointed duty.

“Good girl.”  He told her, and rested his hand on her head for a moment.  “Try and distract her, ok?”

“Ok.”  Avalon began talking in an over-bright, uber-enthusiastic voice to her little wet stormcloud of a sister and was doing her best to engage her in a sing-along as Jonah back-tracked through the den, through the livingroom and into the foyer.

Vienna chattered at him in a very displeased sort of tone.  He recognized, vaguely, that she was scolding him.  He kissed her cheek before her thought about it and inhaled a nose full of flour dust.  He sneezed.  “Bessooooo.”  She declared promptly.

“Thank you.”  He responded with a gentle smile.

Were they upstairs?  He sniffed and adjusted his glasses.  Why on earth would Velvet go upstairs and leave her very young children downstairs?  A lump was forming in his throat, which, in combination with the constriction around his ribs, made the act of breathing an enormous challenge.

“Velvet?”  He called up the stairs.

He heard Genny wail in the den in response to the sound of his voice.  The little girl called out for him plaintively.  He heard Avalon try another tack—“Genny, Genny, let’s color!  Wanna color?!”

No answer from above stairs.

He looked at Vienna, who was looking up the staircase as he had been.  How had all this happened?

He didn’t want to leave Ava alone with Genny for too long, but he needed to go check.  His heart was beating very irregularly and a leaden weight had settled in his gut.  Whatever it was that had facilitated today’s chaotic sequence of events, it wasn’t good.

He lifted one long leg over the child-safety gate, gripped the railing and pulled the other over carefully.  It wasn’t so easy with a kid on his hip. Then he mounted the stairs with enough speed to illicit a breathless “Wheee!” from his daughter.  He wondered, for half a second, if they’d trailed a cloud of white powder behind them on the way up.

When he reached the top landing his son appeared before him.

“Grey!”  He said, a measure of relief spreading through him at the sight of the boy, who looked just fine.  “Been looking for you, Buddy.”

“Mum is sick.”  He responded without preamble.  His seven-year-old face was drawn and pale with concern.  He was frowning and looking much more mature than any second grader had business looking.

Ok.  Something was wrong with Velvet.  He swallowed.  Maybe very wrong.  “How about you, son?  You ok?”

Grey looked impatient.  “I’m fine.”  He said hurriedly.  “Mum is really sick though.”

Jonah squeezed the boy’s shoulder firmly.  “Where is she?”

Grey spun on his heel and Jonah followed without delay.  He led his father to the master bedroom.  The first thing Jonah saw was blood on the sheets.  He stopped functioning for a minute and went clammy all over.

He slipped Genny down and forced her hand into Grey’s.  “Hold her.”  He managed to say.

The door to the master bathroom was ajar and Jonah moved toward it, hardly aware of the steps it took to cross.  He pushed open the door very slowly.

His heart surely skipped several beats. 

She was curled up on the bathroom floor, in the fetal position, a pillow from Grey’s bed cushioning her head, a wadded up towel between her legs, the toilet seat up and ready, he imagined, for vomit.  She was paler than he’d ever seen her, and her underarms were dark with perspiration.  Her hair was pulled back in a hectic ponytail and the dark circles under her eyes were alarming in their severity.

“Velvet?”  He croaked.

She lay quite still.  He was frozen.  He watched her torso for a moment and was able to see her small frame lift and fall with inhalations and exhalations.  Thank god in heaven. 

“Velvet.”  Jonah repeated sternly, still rooted to the floor just outside the bathroom.

Her eyes fluttered.

“Mumma!”  Vienna called.

“Don’t let her come over here.”  Jonah said sharply to Grey.

Velvet’s eyes fluttered again and finally opened.  She looked faraway and dazed.  “Grey?”

Jonah crossed to her then, knelt beside her, and put a hand to her forehead.  Warmer than he’d like.   “Velvet, sweetheart, it’s Jonah.”

“Jonah.”  She murmured her voice as weak as a mewling kitten.

“Angel, baby, what’s going on?”  He urged her, his voice thick with emotion and ringing with panic.

“Told him not to call you—“

“I’m home now love, I’m here now, just talk to me.”  He ran his eyes over her and discerned the likely source of the blood. 

She fell quiet for a long moment.  Outside the bathroom in the master bedroom Grey was blocking his baby sister’s attempts to get to her parents.  He wasn’t doing it kindly, but Jonah could hardly be bothered by that at the moment.

“Grey—put her in the nursery, shut the door, and get the phone please.”

“She told me I couldn’t call you—“  He said, sounding angry and afraid and ashamed.  “She said I wasn’t allowed to call 911 either.”

Jonah closed his eyes.  “It’s ok Buddy, just do what I say now, alright?  Put your sister in the nursery for a minute, make sure the door’s closed tight, and run and get the phone please.”

Grey didn’t respond verbally but Jonah heard the unmistakable sounds of a toddler getting half-carried, half-dragged down the hall kicking and screaming.

He re-opened his eyes and stared helplessly at his wife.  He stroked her cheek and rubbed her back gently.  “Velvet, baby, talk to me.”

Her wide green eyes peered up at him and he read sorrow in them.  “I think… I think I might be pregnant?”  She more asked it than stated it.

Jonah thought about the blood on the sheets and cast a quick glance at the blood on the towel between her legs and he wasn’t so sure she was still pregnant, but she very likely had been.

“Ok.”  He said gently, rubbing her back in a soothing rhythmic pattern.  “Ok, well, don’t you worry about a thing sweetheart.”  He crooned.  “We’re gunna get you to the doctor’s right away, ok?”

She shivered all over and his heart twisted dramatically in his chest.  “Can you sit?  Do you think?  If I help you?”  He asked.

She looked disinclined to such a course of action.  “I don’t feel so hot.”

He snorted at the euphemism.  “I know, love, but we gotta get you up and to the doctor, ok?”

She shook her head and crinkled her brow.

“Yes.”  He insisted.

“Here.”  Said a breathless voice behind him.

Jonah turned and took the cordless bedroom phone from his son’s outstretched hand.  “Good work, thank you.”   He said.  “Stay here a minute please.”  Grey looked as though he hadn’t planned on going anywhere, no matter what Jonah said.

Jonah dialed Nolan.  Not at home.  He didn’t have time to track him down.  He dialed the next person he knew he could count on. 

Grace answered on the third ring. 

“I need you to come over and watch the kids.”  He stated before she’d even finished her greeting.

“Jones?  What’s going on?”  She was instantly alert, immediately receptive.

“Please—I need to get Velvet to the hospital.”

“I’ll be right there.”  She answered without hesitation.

“Thank you.”

He hung up and dialed Sam’s office. 

The secretary put him through rather quickly when he told her it was an emergency.  “This is Dr. Bennett.”

“Sam, Velvet’s been bleeding—I think she may be… pregnant—“  He euphemized neatly.  “She’s, she’s not doing well here.  I’m bringing her to the hospital.”  Jonah had avoided saying ‘miscarriage’ because he didn’t want to upset his wife or his son—though he doubted Grey knew what a miscarriage was, and the boy looked plenty upset already by the prospect of his mother having to go to the hospital.

“How long and how much?”  Sam asked soberly.

“I just got home.”  Jonah said, his body beginning to shake with the panic flooding through him.  “A lot.  A, uh, a fair amount here Sam.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Thank you.”

Jonah’s thumb punched the button to hang up and he pressed the firm plastic against his lips for a long moment.  He could hear his two year old stomping around in the nursery, throwing a fit.  He’d venture a guess that they hadn’t napped today.

He put the phone on the tiled floor and held out his hand to Grey.  Grey scowled and looked very serious.  Jonah opened and closed his hand several times wordlessly.  After a long deliberation Grey finally slipped his hand into his dad’s.

Jonah closed his fingers around his son’s small hand and pulled him into a fierce one-armed hug.  “I’m so proud of you for taking care of your mother today.”  He said passionately.

Grey grunted.  “I tried.”  He was trying hard not to whine by covering his anxiety with a forced gruffness.  “I made her soup and brought her water and crackers and a pillow.”  Grey was allowed to use the microwave.  Jonah would bet he’d also made the canned pasta lunch that had given Avalon an orange mustache.  And he’d probably had to feed the twins too.  Jesus.

“You did a great job.”  Jonah affirmed, pulling him back to look him in the face.

“But she just kept throwing up all the time.”  Grey lamented, his big green eyes flicking over to where his mother lay quite still and pale on the bathroom floor.

“Hey, look at me.”  Jonah said gently but firmly.  Grey did.  The boy was scared to death.  Jonah could empathize.  “You did a great job.  I’m proud of you.”  His son’s lower lip trembled just a bit and then he shrugged dismissively.  Jonah planted a kiss on his forehead.  “And you helped take care of your sisters, too, didn’t you?”

He nodded grimly.  “I tried to give them lots to play with so mummy wouldn’t have to get up.”

“That was smart thinking.”  Jonah said kindly. 

“And I made lunch too.”

“Impressive.”  He said.  “Thank you for being such a good big-brother.”

“Is she dying?”  He demanded suddenly, looking angry and terrified all at once.

Jonah fixed him with an earnest, steady stare.  “No.”  He told him plainly.  “Your mother is going to be ok.”  He continued.  “You took very good care of her for me, and because of that she’s going to get well very soon.”

Grey dragged in a shuddering breath and sighed it out.  His lowered brows and his frown remained unwavering.

Vienna was banging her head or feet against the nursery door.  Jonah squeezed his son’s hand reassuringly.  “Now, son, I need you to keep being a great big brother and bring Vee downstairs, ok?  Be careful with her on the stairs, you hear me?”  Grey nodded reluctantly.  “Ok, good.  You bring her down while I get Mummy dressed and ready to go.”  Jonah no longer gave a flying fuck about where his daughter might trail flour.  “And then wait downstairs and let Aunt Grace in as soon as she gets here—got it?”

Grey nodded once, firmly. 

Jonah cupped the boy’s cheek and smiled a soft, sad smile.  “I love you.”

“Loveyoutoo.”  Grey mumbled and, with one last baleful glance at his mother, hurried out of the bathroom and to his appointed tasks.

Jonah turned back to his wife.  She was awake and watching him with watery eyes.

“What is it?”  He asked quickly.  “Are you in pain?”

She shook her head weakly.  “You’re the best dad—“

He shook his head as he adjusted his body and slipped one arm below her legs just above the knees, and one around her back an under her arms.  “Can you put your arms around my neck sweetheart?”

She tried, but they fell back limply.  He tried not to think about how serious her condition was, why she was so very weak.  He maneuvered as gently as he could, so as not to jostle her, and stood with her bundled in his arms.

He’d never been so afraid in all his life.