Even Now

  “I’m hungry, Mama. Can I eat something, please?”

  “That’s a great sign.” Her mother pulled her close and stroked the back of her head. “Little girls get their appetite back when they’re feeling better.”

  Her mother’s words faded from her mind. Hunger meant that children weren’t that sick, right? That was what her mother had told her that day. She sat down and adjusted her shirt so she could nurse her daughter. Sure enough. Emily was starving. She made precious little sounds as she ate.

  Maybe that’s all this was. A little cold, a fever, and a lot of hunger. She’d driven a long way that day. They probably should’ve stopped sooner.

  The doctor walked in then. She was holding the form Lauren had filled out. “Lauren.” Her voice was tender. “I see you’ve listed no emergency contact and no next of kin.”

  “No.” She looked at Emily. The baby was much happier now, content to be eating. Her eyes lifted to the doctor’s. “No, we don’t have family at this point. We’re making a new life for ourselves out in California.”

  “Okay.” She leaned against the examining table and took a slow breath. “But you’re a minor, is that right?”

  Lauren searched her mind for the right answer. She hadn’t written her age on the form, so how did the doctor know? Had the woman contacted the police or found out that she’d been reported missing? Lauren gulped and just as she was about to shake her head and deny anything of the sort, she felt herself nodding. “Yes. I’m . . . seventeen. I’ll be eighteen before Christmas.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?” Lauren held Emily a little closer.

  “I think you need help, Lauren. We have social workers here in Oklahoma City who can help you if we admit Emily. They can find somewhere for you to stay while your daughter’s being treated.”

  Lauren shook her head and looked at her daughter. “Actually, I think she’s doing much better. She’s eating.” She lifted her eyes to the doctor again. “I think maybe she was just hungry.”

  “I’m worried she could have pneumonia.” The doctor winced. “I can’t be sure without an X-ray, but I’m concerned.”

  “What happens if a social worker helps me? I mean, what happens next?” She hated the thought. It meant that there was a possibility someone would take Emily from her. That’s what agencies did to mothers like her, right? Mothers too young to know how to care for a baby?

  “We’d have to cross those bridges when we reached them.” The doctor frowned again, but Lauren didn’t sense any anger from her. Just a compassion she hadn’t felt from either of her parents. “Everyone would do their best to keep you and Emily together. I’m sure about that. I think we’d want to run a missing persons check. Just to see if you’ve been reported missing.”

  A missing persons check? Lauren felt herself closing down. That wasn’t going to happen. The police would come and they’d make sure Emily was admitted to the hospital, then they’d take Lauren to the station and call her parents. Social workers would get involved, and when Emily was better they wouldn’t consider giving her back to a seventeen-year-old run away. Then Lauren would be shipped back to her parents. She might never see her daughter again.

  She had to buy time. “Okay.” Lauren licked her lips. “Well, first I need to get some things from the car. Then we can talk about it, okay?”

  “All right.” The doctor straightened and felt Emily’s head. “She doesn’t feel as warm as before.”

  She wasn’t as warm! That was a good sign — a sign that Lauren could take Emily and race back home and still get her the care she needed without risking the possibility that social services or the police would get involved. Lauren slipped her daughter back into her car seat and thanked the doctor. “I’ll be right back.”

  Dr. West turned a different direction as they left the examination room. Lauren wanted to race out the door. She only had a few minutes to get away without being noticed. But she wouldn’t leave without paying. She took two twenty-dollar bills from her purse and set them on the counter since no one was behind the desk at that moment. Without looking back, she hurried out the door.

  She drove as fast as she could and was on the freeway before she looked over her shoulder. When she did, Emily was sleeping. Then, for the first time since she’d left home, Lauren thought about God. In the days after she got pregnant, Shane had talked all the time about faith and the Lord and His plans for them. Lauren never quite understood how God could want anything to do with them.

  Still, she’d told Him she was sorry for messing up, sorry for sleeping with Shane when this whole mess could’ve been avoided if they’d only done things the right way. She was forgiven, at least that’s what the youth group leaders had told her. It was what Shane said too. But still she’d felt like a failure, a disappointment. If God was her heavenly Father, then she would be the last one He’d want to hear from.

  But there, with Emily sick and a thousand miles between her and the help she needed, Lauren couldn’t do anything but cry out for help.

  “Lord, I’m here again,” she whispered the words out loud. “Help me, please! I’ll drive fast, I won’t stop for food, just gas. But please get me home so Emily can get help. Don’t let her die, God.” Suddenly she realized there were tears on her cheeks. What was she doing, turning around from Oklahoma City and heading back to Chicago? She should never have left home in the first place. She should’ve let her mother take care of Emily. That way she could’ve gone after Shane on her own, without risking any harm to her daughter.

  “God, I’m the worst mother of all. But you’re our Father. For both of us. Please get us home safely, and please, please let Emily be okay.”

  She wanted an answer, a loud shout maybe from the dashboard speakers, something that would tell her everything was going to be all right. Instead, she felt only a sense of urgency. As if maybe God Himself was telling her that Emily was sicker than any of them knew. She pressed her foot on the gas pedal and picked up another ten miles per hour.

  Then just as quickly she eased up. She couldn’t get pulled over for speeding. That wouldn’t do either of them any good. “God, help me!”

  Daughter, my peace I give you . . . I am with you always.

  The answer might not have come across the stereo speakers, but it resonated in her heart. I am with you always. What a wonderful thought. Lauren could feel her heart begin to respond to this truth. She wasn’t alone, driving into the dusk and facing fifteen hours of freeway time before she could get help for Emily. She was driving with God right next to her. God Himself.

  She leaned back in the seat and relaxed her grip on the steering wheel. He would see her home safely, and He’d help Emily get better. It was all going to be okay. The peace that felt nothing short of Pine stayed with her for the next twenty-four hours. It was on the last stretch that everything began falling apart again.

  Emily cried all the time and nothing made her feel better. She was burning up and with every breath her little chest rose higher than before. Lauren pulled over at a rest stop and slid into the backseat. She leaned up and locked the doors. It was pitch dark, and there was a group of shady-looking people standing near the water fountain. The stop would have to be a short one. She unbuckled Emily from her seat and felt her fear double. Her daughter’s body was still burning up. “Are you hungry, little one?”

  Emily’s wheezing was worse, but it wasn’t until she refused to eat that Lauren felt truly terrified.

  Come on, God . . . I need you. Make her eat, please . . .

  She held her daughter tight, tried to help her nurse, but nothing worked. Emily was too sick. Lauren gave her a small dose of cough syrup and another spoon of pain reliever. But still she cried for most of the last five hours of the drive. By the end of that time she sounded so sick, Lauren could barely focus on the road.

  All along she’d been blaming herself for being a bad mother, for having no experience, for thinking she could take a newborn on a road trip across the country.
But in those final hours, her anger shifted toward her parents. This wasn’t her fault, it was theirs. They intentionally separated her from Shane. If he hadn’t gone away, she would never have packed up a car and taken Emily on the road.

  The whole situation was her parents’ fault. Theirs and the Galanters. The people who were supposed to love her and Shane the most had almost destroyed them. Her very own parents had betrayed her by allowing the Galanters to leave without any forwarding information. The reason was obvious now. Shane’s parents and hers never had any intention of staying in touch. They’d been willing to sacrifice their friendship for the sake of keeping up appearances.

  Lauren’s stomach hurt as the reality sank in.

  Appearances. That’s what it came down to. Shane could have his life without the responsibility of being a teenage father. And with Shane gone, then just maybe she would give up the baby and she too could carry on into her senior year without a care in the world. If things had gone according to her parents’ plan, Emily would be safe in the arms of some adoptive family by now.

  Lauren gritted her teeth and shifted her lower jaw from one side of her mouth to the other. Were they right? Should she have given little Emily up for adoption? Was that the answer in all of this? She shuddered at the thought of saying good-bye. It wasn’t possible; she loved Emily with everything in her.

  No, she would take her home, get the help she needed from her parents, and then she would leave them and never look back. Because they would never accept her for who she was, never accept Emily. Her life and the life of her daughter would always feel like second-best to her parents. And she couldn’t have that attitude coloring Emily’s life. No, they wouldn’t stay. They would get help, get Emily better again, and then they would leave.

  And this time they would never, ever come back.

  NINE

  Angela was sitting alone in the dark, her head in her hands, when a car pulled into the driveway. Her heart leaped into her throat and she raced for the door in time to see Lauren get out of the car.

  “Mother! I need your help!”

  Angela wasn’t sure what to do first. The reality was just hitting her. There was Lauren standing in the driveway, when only a minute earlier it seemed they might never see her again. But her tone snapped Angela out of her shock. She stepped out onto the walkway, ran to her daughter, and embraced her. When Lauren remained stiff, unresponsive, Angela drew back and took hold of her daughter’s forearms. That’s when she saw it. Intense anger and fear, all mixed together, burned in her daughter’s eyes.

  “Lauren . . . ” The fear was hers now. She brought her hand to her daughter’s face. “What is it?”

  “She’s sick.” Lauren jerked away. She opened the back door and unbuckled Emily from her car seat.

  As Lauren lifted the baby, Angela grabbed a sharp breath. The baby was limp, her face red and blotchy. Angela took a step closer. “How long has she been like this?”

  Lauren cradled Emily against her chest. “I don’t know.” Her face was pale and drawn. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

  The hospital? Angela’s head was spinning. It was just after eleven o’clock at night. “Let me go get your father. He’s asleep already and he should — ”

  “No!” Lauren was wide-eyed. She looked crazed, like maybe she was having a nervous breakdown. “I don’t want him coming with us.” She held Emily out toward Angela. “Take her, tell me how sick she is.”

  Angela took the baby in her arms and immediately felt the heat. The child was burning up. Worse, her eyes were open but she was indeed unresponsive. “Is she half asleep?”

  “No.” Lauren was breathing fast, wiping her palms on her shorts and pacing a few steps in either direction. “She’s been like this for a few hours. She won’t eat.”

  Angela held her head near the baby’s chest. She was having a terrible time trying to breathe. Angela felt the blood drain from her face. Emily wasn’t only sick. She was deathly sick. “Okay — ” she nodded toward Lauren’s car — “let’s get her back in her car seat. She needs a doctor. I’ll drive.”

  They made the trip in silence, Lauren in the backseat with Emily. Angela wanted to ask where Lauren had gone and why she hadn’t gotten help in one of the cities she’d passed through along the way. But it was too late for any of that. All that mattered now was Emily.

  “Sweetie, it’s okay,” Lauren cooed at her daughter, but Angela could hear the tears in her voice, hear the way her hushed sobs broke her statements into short bursts of words. “Mommy’s here, honey.”

  When they reached the emergency room entrance at the hospital, Angela directed Lauren to take Emily inside. She parked the car and when she ran in to join them a nurse was taking the baby from Lauren and rushing her through a set of double doors.

  “Lauren . . . ” Angela stopped, not sure what to do.

  Lauren looked over her shoulder. “Follow us!”

  They gathered in an examination room just inside the double doors. In seconds, a doctor joined them and began undressing the baby. It took him less than a minute to look up from her, his expression grim. “She has pneumonia. We need to start treatment right away. We’ll put her on an IV antibiotic and give her immediate breathing treatments.”

  He rattled off a series of orders to a few attendants and nurses standing by. When everyone was in action — with one nurse putting an IV in Emily’s arm, and another preparing a machine with a miniature face mask — the doctor motioned for the two of them to follow him.

  In the hallway outside Emily’s room, he directed them to a quiet alcove. Then he held his clipboard to his chest and looked first at Angela, then at Lauren. “I have to be honest with you.” His expression was deeply troubled. “She should’ve come in much sooner. I’m afraid her chances aren’t good.”

  Lauren began to fall, slowly at first and then her knees buckled beneath her. Angela hurried to catch her, but she was out cold.

  “We need some help!” The doctor snapped his finger and a pair of nurses jumped into action. “Smelling salts; let’s hurry.”

  Angela was on her knees, her daughter’s head in her lap. Everything was falling apart, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Emily might not make it? Was that the next terrible thing that would happen? And then what? How would they ever have a restored relationship with Lauren after this? She wanted to pray, but she was out of practice. Besides, they hadn’t exactly asked God about what to do when it came to Shane and Lauren. Why ask Him now? He had probably washed His hands of them a long time ago.

  The nurses were at Lauren’s side now, waving smelling salts beneath her nose. In a few seconds she came to, but she looked deathly white. Her eyes were glazed over, and Angela could only imagine all she’d been through. She must’ve turned back to Chicago when she realized Emily was so sick. She probably drove straight through, terrified that she wouldn’t get back home in time.

  Lauren was fully awake now. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. A frantic look came across her face and she stared at the doctor. “Where is she?”

  “Your daughter’s in the room across the hall, Miss Anderson. We’re doing everything we can.”

  “What was that part you said? Before . . . before I fell?” Lauren didn’t look even a little familiar. The fear in her eyes made her look like a crazy person. “Something about my little girl and her chances.”

  The doctor sighed and helped the nurses get Lauren back to her feet. Then he looked straight into Lauren’s eyes. “She’s getting everything she needs, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough.”

  “Meaning what?” Lauren’s words were fast and hard. “Tell me what that means.”

  The doctor looked to the nurses and then to Lauren. “Your daughter’s very, very sick, Miss Anderson.” He pursed his lips and gave a slight shake of his head. “She won’t make it without a miracle.”

  “Lauren . . . ” Angela moved to take hold of her daughter’s arm, but she pulled away.
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  “Leave me alone.” Her anger lasted only a moment. When she turned back toward the doctor there was no trace of it. “Can I sit in the room with her? I . . . I won’t be in the way?”

  “Yes.” He nodded toward the door. “You can be with her the entire time.”

  Angela looked at the doctor. “Can I stay too?”

  “No!” Lauren held out her hand in as top-sign fashion. Her eyes were ablaze with anger. “I don’t want you in there. This is — ” She looked at the doctor. “Excuse us, please.”

  “Certainly.” The doctor cast Angela a quick look as if to ask if Lauren was all right. Angela gave him a slight nod. Everything wasn’t okay, of course, but the two of them could work through it. “I’ll be coming in often to check on her and give you updates.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

  When he was gone, Lauren’s eyes blazed. “I don’t want you in the room with us.” Her words were a hiss, and Angela took a step back. She’d never seen Lauren act like this, never.

  “Honey, I think I should stay.”

  “Mother, listen to me.” The confusion and craziness seemed to fade, and she looked more lucid than she had since she’d pulled in the driveway. She pointed at the door of Emily’s room. “My baby’s dying in there because you lied to me, you lied to me and you pushed me and Shane apart, and you left me no choice but to go after him.” Her voice was a study in controlled fury. “So I’m going in there to sit with her, and I don’t want you anywhere near me. Or her. Understand?”

  A shiver passed down Angela’s spine. “I’m sorry, Lauren. I never meant for this to — ”

  Lauren wasn’t listening. She opened the door, stepped inside the room, and shut it behind her. Only then did Angela turn and walk back to the waiting room. She would stay until Lauren was willing to talk to her again. As she sat there, she was too stunned to cry, too shocked to do anything but go over what had just happened. She’d wondered what the repercussions might be if they separated the kids, if it all didn’t go the way they’d planned. She’d doubted Lauren and Shane would be okay, as the others asserted. Agonized over what would happen if they all were wrong.