Glass scattered over the photographs.
One shard landed beside Rosie’s little white sandal.
I stared at it.
That tiny shoe.
That was all I could see.
My daughter had worn those sandals that morning while she danced in the kitchen because she had discovered that if she stomped her feet hard enough, the straps made a funny little clicking sound.
Now one of them sat beside broken glass.
“Call an ambulance!” Daniel shouted.
“I am!” somebody yelled from downstairs.
Finally.
Someone was finally calling.
I dropped to my knees beside Rosie.
“Mommy’s here.”
Her eyelashes didn’t move.
“Mommy’s here, baby.”
I pressed two fingers against her tiny neck.
There was something.
A pulse.
Weak.
Too slow.
But there.
I nearly collapsed from relief.
Then I smelled it.
Not the wine.
Not the frosting.
Something sweet and medicinal clung to her hair and pajamas.
Benadryl.
I remembered what Natalie had said.
Some Benadryl.
I looked at my sister.
“What did you give her?”
Natalie had gone pale.
“Nothing dangerous.”
“What did you give her?”
“I told you. Benadryl.”
“How much?”
She didn’t answer.
“HOW MUCH?”
My voice cracked through the hallway.
My mother stepped between us.
“She’s a child, you’re upsetting everyone.”
I looked at her.
For years, that sentence had worked.
You’re upsetting everyone.
You’re being dramatic.
You’re making things difficult.
Don’t ruin the occasion.
But something inside me had finally broken.
“My daughter may die because of what your daughter did.”
My mother flinched.
Natalie whispered, “She was just supposed to sleep.”
I heard the words.
Just supposed to sleep.
My stomach turned.
“How much?”
Natalie looked at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“She was crying. I found the bottle upstairs.”
“What bottle?”
Silence.
I stared at her.
“What bottle, Natalie?”
She swallowed.
“The medicine.”
“Whose medicine?”
She didn’t answer.
Daniel looked toward the guest room.
Then he looked at me.
“There’s something on the nightstand.”
I turned.
A small plastic medicine bottle sat behind a lamp.
I couldn’t read the label from where I was.
Daniel stepped toward it.
My mother suddenly grabbed his arm.
“Don’t touch anything.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“Don’t touch anything.”
That was when I knew.
Something was wrong.
Not just the pills.
Not just Natalie losing her temper.
Something else.
Something my mother knew.
The ambulance siren grew louder outside.
Red light flashed through the curtains.
Two paramedics rushed into the house.
Everything became movement.
Questions.
Hands.
Equipment.
Words I couldn’t process.
“What did she take?”
“Unknown.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who administered it?”
“My sister.”
“Do you know how much?”
“No.”
One paramedic checked Rosie’s pupils while the other prepared equipment.
I stood against the wall, shaking so badly that my knees kept buckling.
Natalie was crying now.
Not because Rosie was unconscious.
Because the police had arrived.
Two officers entered through the front door.
One looked at the broken glass.
The other looked at Natalie.
“Ma’am, step over here.”
Natalie immediately pointed at me.
“She attacked me.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
It was one sharp, broken sound.
“She attacked you?”
“She came at me.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“She swung a bottle at her.”
Natalie glared at him.
“You’re lying.”
“I caught your wrist.”
My mother suddenly started crying.
Not quietly.
Loud, theatrical sobs.
“This family is falling apart.”
I turned toward her.
“No.”
My voice surprised even me.
“This family was already broken.”
The paramedics lifted Rosie onto the stretcher.
I grabbed her tiny hand.
“I’m going with her.”
One of them nodded.
I climbed into the ambulance without looking back.
But before the doors closed, I saw something through the open doorway.
My mother standing beside Natalie.
They weren’t looking at Rosie.
They were looking at each other.
And my mother was shaking her head.
Not in grief.
In warning.
The doors slammed shut.
The ambulance pulled away.
I held Rosie’s hand all the way to the hospital.
And for the first time in my life, I understood something terrifying.
Natalie hadn’t been improvising.
She hadn’t simply found a bottle and made a terrible decision.
Someone had been expecting Rosie to be upstairs.
Someone had known exactly where she would be.
And somebody had gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure I didn’t ask too many questions.
The emergency department swallowed us whole.
Doctors moved Rosie behind a curtain.
I was left standing in the hallway with blood from my forehead running down the side of my face.
A nurse tried to clean it.
“Ma’am, you need stitches.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’ve got a deep cut.”
“I don’t care.”
“My daughter is in there.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
I looked through the glass.
“That’s my baby.”
The nurse rested a hand on my shoulder.
“She’s being treated.”
Then a doctor came out.
“Are you Rosie’s mother?”
I stood so quickly the room tilted.
“Yes.”
“She has a pulse and she’s breathing with assistance. We’re doing everything we can.”
“Is she going to die?”
The doctor paused.
“We don’t know yet.”
Four words.
They destroyed me.
He continued.
“We’re running toxicology and blood tests. We need to know exactly what she was given.”
“I told them Benadryl.”
“That’s what you were told?”
“Yes.”
He looked at his clipboard.
“Do you have the bottle?”
“No.”
Then he looked toward the police officer who had followed me to the hospital.
“Someone should retrieve it.”
The officer nodded.
“I’ll handle that.”
My phone vibrated.
A message.
From Natalie.
I opened it.
There were only six words.
You don’t know what you found.
I stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
Ask Mom why.
My hands went cold.
I called my mother.
She didn’t answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Then the police officer beside me noticed my expression.
“What is it?”
I handed him the phone.
He read the messages.
His face hardened.
“Where’s your mother now?”
“I don’t know.”
He immediately made a call.
And while he spoke, I stared through the hospital window at my daughter.
Rosie hadn’t moved.
Her little hand lay motionless beneath a blanket.
I pressed my palm against the glass.
“Please wake up, baby.”
And somewhere behind me, my phone vibrated again.
This time, it wasn’t Natalie.
It was an unknown number.
The message contained a photograph.
I opened it.
My breath stopped.
It was Rosie.
Taken earlier that afternoon.
Not upstairs.
Not in the guest room.
In the backyard.
And standing behind her was my mother.
Holding the same medicine bottle.
Related Posts
