“I’ll keep an eye on him,” she assures me.
“Okay, boss, let’s get to it.” I start to stand up and get back to my desk, get back to work, but her phone goes off and she holds her hand up, pausing me.
“It’s Chrissy,” she says. And then her face pales. Drops. Fear enters her voice. “Chance, where is your phone?”
My hands instinctively pat down my pants, every pocket on them, but they come up empty. “On my desk, I think. Why, what the fuck is going on?”
Her eyes pull up to meet mine, and they’re limned with tears. “You need to get to the hospital. Go, now, go!”
I’m already running as she shouts the name of which one to me. I speed through the sales area, grabbing my phone and keys from my desk, plugging the name of the hospital into Google Maps so I can actually find it because I don’t know these streets without that fucking app, been relying on it since it was a website we had to print directions off of. I’d be damn near useless in an apocalypse.
I have missed calls, texts, from Chrissy, from my parents, from her parents, and the worst ideas imaginable are flooding my mind as I fly through the streets of St. Pete, trying to call them all back but not reaching anyone.
Ellie took off right behind me from the office, and as I’m pulling up, a call from her comes through, telling me what building and floor to go to. Guess she got a hold of one of them.
The minivan stays in the drive-through circle out front of the entrance, regardless of what the signage says. Like I care if I get towed, or a ticket. I need to get to my fucking family.
Race through the halls, not stopping to check in and get a visitors’ badge, I find the right elevator bank and press the button ten times a second until the doors open for me.
Force myself to breathe in and then out as I wait for it to get to the third floor. Muscles are bound, body shaking, nerves fluttering to the point I could puke if I let myself. But I don’t. Focus. Get to my wife. My kids. Make sure they’re okay. Then I can break down.
The heavy slaps of my feet pound down the hallway as I dart around nurses’ stations, wandering staff, and loose patients, ignoring the frantic cries of “Sir! Sir! Slow down!” in my wake.
The sound of protests, arguing voices tells me I’ve found the right room before I even see the number on the door.
“Ma’am, you really need to let a doctor inspect you.”
“And you really need to stop trying to get me away from mychildren.” The tone she’s using, it’s audible how much she’s holding herself back from going off on the poor person assigned to her.
I careen around the corner and through the door to find a room with two beds, someone I love in each.
Brad in the one closest to the door, looking a little worse for wear but in one piece, and Ford in the bed by the far window. He’s not looking so hot. His face is pinched in pain, he’s got an IV going into his small arm, and a bloody bandage around his left hand.
Preston and Lea are both glued to their mother, who is in a stand-off with an older woman in scrubs. Another medical professional darts between the boys’ beds, hooking things up.
My eyes scan each of them, up, down, front, back, as best I can in a fraction of a second as I make my way farther into the room.
Chrissy is covered in dirt, blood, leaves, I think? Her arms are all scratched up, but she won’t let the woman near enough to inspect them. Instead, she has one arm wrapped around each of our youngest, while her eyes stay frantically glued to Ford’s pale face.
“Dad!”
“Daddy!”
“Chance!”
The cries start to ring out from all of my favorite voices in the world, and I get down on my knees by Chrissy’s side, scooping up Lea and Preston into my arms, feeling their little bodies up and down, making sure they’re really okay.
My eyes find my wife’s rabid ones, and hers soften fractionally.
“Who wants to tell me what happened?” My soft question sparks four different iterations of the tale, nearly drowning each other’s voices out as they talk over one another to fill me in on what went down. I sit on the edge of Ford’s bed, hand wrapped around his ankle as I listen.
Chrissy manages to fill in the gaps of their story, until I get a pretty clear picture.
All the kids were playing out in the backyard, with the dog, when a raccoon popped up from who knows where. Sir Wags went to investigate, the raccoon attacked, and all hell broke loose.
Apparently, Preston ran for the dog first (that kid and his good intentions, I tell ya), and Lea followed, toddling along after him, so Brad intervened. He tossed P back, scuffing him up a little, and then dove on Lea (probably like he saw me do at the beach the other day), protecting her from harm.
Ford, our resident nerd, and arguablyleastathletic of the family (but clearly one of the bravest), tackled the scuffle, managing to separate the raccoon and the dog, but he ended up getting bitten in the process, losing a chunk of his middle finger.
