LILY IS FINEduring the drive home, but she gets sick again as I unfasten her seat belt. I silently bless Sarah for sending the plastic baggie.
Zack comes around and lifts Lily out. We walk to the front door and I unlock it, gingerly holding the barf bag. Ruffles barks.
“Ruffles, this is my daddy,” Lily says from her perch in Zack’s arms.
“Where should I put her?” Zack asks me.
“On the sofa,” Lily replies. Amazing, how emptying her stomach immediately perks her up. I head to the kitchen, throw the sick bag in the trash, wash my hands, and then grab a big plastic bowl and place it on the floor beside Lily.
“What can I do?” Zack asks.
“Why don’t you bring a couple of warm, damp washcloths? There are some clean ones in the bathroom cabinet.”
He returns in a moment. I wipe Lily’s face with one and her hands with the other, then notice her shirt has not come through her sick spells unscathed.
“Let’s get you into your jammies,” I say.
“Okay,” she agrees.
Zack fetches another couple of warm washcloths as well as Lily’s pajamas from her room, then feeds Ruffles while I clean and change Lily. He’s at ease in my house, helping out as if it’s no big deal.I could get used to this, I think. I immediately censor the thought.He’s married. He’s moving to Seattle. Stop that right now!
I turn on a Disney movie and give Lily some Pedialyte, but shecan’t keep it down. I decide to call her pediatrician. I get the answering service, then wait for the doctor to call back.
“It sounds like a virus,” Dr. Zegetti says when she returns my call. “Let her stomach settle for thirty minutes to an hour, then give her a few sips of Pedialyte. If she keeps it down, slowly rehydrate her. If she gets tired of Pedialyte, ginger ale or Popsicles will work. If she’s no better in the morning, bring her in.”
Zack runs to the store and brings back everything Dr. Zegetti suggested. We both sit on the sofa with Lily, her feet on his lap and her head on mine, and watch Disney princess movies.
It’s a long night of bodily functions gone awry. Through it all, Zack is patient, gentle, and easygoing. Lily dozes off sometime around one in the morning, reclining against him.
“I think you missed your calling as a health care professional,” I tell him.
He shrugs his shoulders. “Life put me through basic training.”
“With your mom?”
He nods. “She had a lot of internal injuries. I took a six-month leave of absence from work and went home to help Dad care for her.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Wow. Didn’t that throw a wrench in your career?”
He nods. “One of the firm’s partners warned me it would probably set me back a couple of years.”
“And you did it anyway?”
“Sure. Family comes first.”
I don’t know many men who’d deliberately take time out from a promising career to go home and help care for a sick mother. Correction: I don’t know any. I don’t know if it’s pregnancy hormones, worry about Lily, or fatigue that makes me emotional, but my eyes grow teary. “That was noble.”
He gives a little laugh and looks embarrassed. “It’s what families do. My sister tried to help out, but she had two toddlers and lived two hours away. Anyway, I think Dad was in worse shape than Mom. She was his whole world.”
“Your family sounds wonderful.”
“Yeah.” He looks down at Lily, then back up at me. “You know, watching you with Lily tonight reminded me of Mom. The way you put your palm on her forehead and smoothed back her hair and cleaned her face—it was just like she used to do when my sister and I were little.”
I realize he’s paying me the highest of compliments. “Thanks,” I say. My throat feels strangely thick. “I only did what I always wished my mother would do for me.”
“And she didn’t?”
I shrug. “There were little stretches of time when she would, but it always seemed like she was performing in a production calledThe Really Good Mom, starring Deirdre Langston. After half an hour or so, she’d get tired of the part.”
