It was time for me to give that gift away to others who needed it.
“Thank you,” the frazzled mother called out to me as I backed away, a newfound resolve invigorating me.
I simply nodded and placed my hand over my racing heart, feeling as though I should be the one thanking her.
When I lost sight of her behind the wall of first responders and Nosy-Nellies, I turned on a toe and headed back to Lucas’s stroller.
Only to come to a screeching halt less than a second later.
He wasn’t there.
I scanned the area, assuming I’d gotten turned around during the chaos. But, after a few seconds, it hit me. Something was wrong.
Terribly, earth-shatteringly wrong.
“Lucas,” I called as if my six-month-old were going to answer me.
He didn’t.
In fact, no one did.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and my pulse skyrocketed. The world moved in slow motion around me as I spun in a circle. My mind reeled with possibilities of where he could be. But, even in that moment of terror, I knew with an absolute certainty that I’d left him right there, buckled safely into his stroller, only a few yards away.
“Lucas!” I yelled, my anxiety soaring to immeasurable heights.
With frantic movements, I jogged over to the slowly dispersing crowd.
I caught a woman’s arm before she could pass me. “Have you seen my son?”
Her eyes startled, but she shook her head.
I scrambled to the next woman. “Have you seen my son?”
She too shook her head, so I kept going, grabbing people and begging they would finally nod.
“Green stroller. Navy Trim?”
Another headshake.
My vision tunneled and my throat burned, but I never stopped moving.
He was there. Somewhere. He had to be.
My heart slammed into my ribs as yet another rush of adrenaline—and what I feared was reality—ravaged my body.
“Lucas!” I screamed.
My thoughts became jumbled, and I lost all sense of rationality. I raced to the first stroller I saw. It was pink with white polka dots, but he could have been inside.
“Hey!” a woman yelled as I snatched the blanket off her baby.
Her baby. Not mine.
“Lucas!”
Bile burned a trail of fire up my throat. With every passing second, my terror amplified. I raked a hand into my hair as the paralyzing helplessness dug its claws into me and threatened to drag me down to my knees. I forced myself to stay on my feet.
For him, I’d do anything.
“Lucas!” I choked one last time, a wave of trembles rolling through me.
One word.
It had worked for her. That other woman. When she had been desperate and at risk of losing her son, I’d given him back to her.
Someone would do that for me.
They had to.
“Help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
One word.
And then my entire world went dark.
* * *
“Daddy?”
Yeah, I thought, but I was too deep in sleep to force the words out. It had been weeks since I’d gotten any real rest. Between work and the kids, I was beyond exhausted.
“Daddy?”
Right here, baby.
“Daddy!” she yelled.
I bolted upright in bed, groggily searching the room.
She stood in the doorway, her long, chestnut hair in tangles, and the silly Hello Kitty nightgown she’d insisted on sleeping in every day for the last week brushed the hardwood floor.
“What’s wrong, Hannah?” I asked, using the heels of my palms to scrub the sleep from my eyes.
“Travis can’t breathe.”
Three words that birthed my nightmares, haunted my dreams, and lived in my reality.
Slinging the covers back, I flew from the bed. My bare feet pounded against the floor as I rushed down the hall to his bedroom.
Hannah had started sleeping with him weeks earlier. Her big brother acted like it was a cruel and unusual form of torture, but secretly, I thought he liked having the company.
And, while she was three and a half, it still made me feel worlds better that someone was with him on nights like this.
Pushing his door wide, careful not to rip the Minecraft poster we’d hung up earlier in the day, I hurried to his bed only to find it empty.
“Trav?” I called.
It was Hannah who answered. “He’s in the bathroom.”
I kicked a box of Legos out of my way and opened the bottom drawer on his nightstand to retrieve his nebulizer. Suddenly, an avalanche of empty Gatorade bottles tumbled down from the top bunk.
As I rushed from the room, a bolt of pride struck me. That was my boy. Sick as hell, stuck in bed for the last week, and he’d somehow managed to find the energy to booby-trap his room.
“Hey,” I whispered as I turned the corner into the hall bathroom.
My stomach knotted at the sight. His thin body was perched on the edge of the tub, his shoulders hunched over and his elbows resting on his thighs. He was drenched in sweat, and his color was off. Deep, labored breaths not making it to his lungs rounded his back with every inhale.
“Please…no,” he heaved.
I knew what he was asking, but I was in no position to promise him anything.
“Shhh, I got ya.” I rubbed the top of his dark buzz-cut hair and did my best to fake a calm as I frantically went to work setting his machine up.
He’d been on antibiotics all week, but the infection in his lungs wasn’t budging this time. Months ago, Travis’s nebulizer had been nothing more than an expensive paperweight that collected dust. But, over the last few weeks, it’d gotten so bad that we’d had to buy a spare to keep in his room.
I’d thought it was bad when he couldn’t make it through the day without at least one breathing treatment, but now, we were up to three.
My son was eleven. He should have been out playing soccer and being a little shit, pulling pranks on the girls he liked—not waking up at three in the morning and struggling for survival. And, with every passing day, as he slipped further down the inevitable slope, I became more and more terrified that, one day, I’d lose him.
His lungs rattled as he sucked in so hard that the wheeze could have been heard throughout the house.
The familiar buzz filled the room as the nebulizer roared to life.
“Calm down, and try to breathe,” I whispered, my heart shattering as I placed the mouthpiece between his lips, his pale, shaky hand coming up to hold it in place.
Jesus. This was a bad one.
I sank to the cold tile floor at his feet, my heart in my throat, and draped my arm over his thigh. My boy was a fighter, so I couldn’t be sure if my presence helped him, but the contact did wonders for me.
I timed my breathing with his, and within minutes, I was lightheaded. I couldn’t imagine how he was still upright.
Please, God. For as many times over the last three years that I’d bargained with the Lord in exchange for Travis’s health, I should have been a priest.
A vise wrenched my chest. The breathing treatment wasn’t helping. At least not fast enough.
A wave of dread rolled in my stomach. He was going to hate me. But I was the parent; it was my job to make the hard choices—even if they destroyed me. His pain and struggle coursed through my veins, too. This wasn’t only his fight. It affected us all. If anything ever happened to him, I’d have to carry that hole in my soul for the rest of my life.
I’d promised him that I’d take care of him. I hadn’t promised him that I’d be his friend while I did it. “Hannah, can you go grab Daddy’s cell phone?”
“No!” Travis choked.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his shoulder. “Buddy, I’m sorry.”
“I’m…not…going,” he wheezed.
I swallowed hard to pack the overwhelming emotion down. I had to be strong enough for all of us—regardless that parts of my heart were crashing to the ground.
I couldn’t go through this again.
But I couldn’t not go through it again, either.
“You have to go, Trav.”
On weak legs, he shot to his feet, but his balance was off and it sent him stumbling forward.
Lurching up, I caught him around the waist before he cracked his head on the vanity. The nebulizer clattered against the floor and the buzzing droned on as he fought against me.