“Will it hurt then?” she asks, voice still shaky.
“I hope not,” I say, which is the only honest answer I can give. I close the back and as I walk around the car, I quickly text Sadie.
Are you at work? I’m heading to the hospital now.
My kid has a raisin stuck in her nose.
I don’t get an immediate response, so I hop in the car, but before I can pull out of Anne’s driveway, she texts back.
I’m here, so I’ll see you soon. Try not to panic.
It’s more common than you think and an easy fix. Promise.
I put down the phone and let out a sigh of relief.
“Don’t worry, Charlie. I just texted my friend who works at the hospital and she said she will get it out, easy-peasy.”
My daughter gives me a wobbly smile. She’s still scared as hell. Poor kid.
I try not to speed as I head toward the hospital. Charlie, thankfully, has stopped crying, but she’s sniffing now. I dig around my console and pull out a small pack of tissue. “Try blowing, sweetie. I don’t want you to sniff too hard.”
I hand it back to her and I hear her blow. “It didn’t come out,” she reports.
“No worries, kiddo. We’ll get it out.”
“Will your hopsital friend laugh at me?” she asks nervously, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing at the way she said “hospital.” She’s started to develop self-consciousness lately, and it makes me sad. I don’t remember having those worries at her age and I wonder if it’s a gender thing. I hate it. It’s not fair. I want her to be carefree and confident forever, even though I know that’s completely unrealistic.
“No, Charlie, nurses and doctors will have seen this type of thing before. A lot,” I reply soothingly. “I promise you’re not a weirdo.”
I glance in the rearview mirror and watch her stare despondently at the tissue in her tiny hands. “Cale laughs at me sometimes.”
My blood turns to ice in my veins. Stay calm. Stay calm… “What do you mean, Charlie?”
My voice is soft and calm, but I’m griping the steering wheel so hard I could probably rip it out of the car right now. We stop at a red light. She shrugs her delicate shoulders. “I spilled my drink last week and he laughed really loud and people looked at me.”
“Where was Mommy?” I’m going to fucking kill this dude.
“She was there. She told him to stop and helped me clean it up and the lady brought me a new drink,” she explains. “But I cried and that made him mad.”
“Well, he was wrong,” I say firmly but still calmly, because I’m scared if I show her how enraged I am it’ll scare her or, worse yet, make her hold on to this shitty moment even more. “He wasn’t nice. You had an accident. It happens. No one should be made fun of for accidents.”
“That’s what Mommy said later,” she says, her voice getting a little stronger and a timid smile on her lips.
Later? Lauren should have said it immediately. And then thrown Charlie’s new drink at him.
The hospital is visible now half a block up, and I push my anger at Cale aside and concentrate on the problem at hand. “Try blowing again, nugget.”
She does. “It didn’t come out.”
“Okay. No worries,” I reply and pull into the parking lot.
The nurse at the desk is the friendly blond lady Sadie sent in to check on Eli. I tell Charlie to sit in the plastic chair nearest the counter and walk up. I smile. “Hi. How are you tonight?”
“I’m doing okay. Thank you for asking.” She seems surprised I asked. She smiles and glances past me at Charlie. “Your little one under the weather?”
I shake my head. “No, she stuck a raisin up her nose and we can’t get it out.”
The blonde, whose name tag saysShelda, doesn’t even blink. “Right. Sadie just told me you’d be coming in. We can handle that. You know my kid once wedged three marbles up his nose.”
