Snowed Under (Aspen Peaks #2)

31. Cooper

W atching kids at a ski lodge—where there were hundreds of witnesses if something were to go awry—and watching kids entirely alone in your girlfriend’s house were very, very different.

It was like as soon as Madeline closed the door behind her, I became hyperaware of every sharp corner and potential height danger, and I was extremely curious as to where all her medications were and if they were locked up securely enough so the tiny raccoon wouldn’t find them.

But Mini Coop was here too, and watching a nine-year-old with a two-year-old felt slightly less daunting than watching Half-Pint on my own, knowing that if I escaped for two seconds to pee, there was a high chance she was climbing an un-anchored piece of furniture.

Luckily, in the last thirty minutes, there had been no attempts, and if anything, it was almost…boring. Mini Coop was focused on the TV, playing multiple rounds of first-person shooter games, and Half-Pint was on the far corner of the couch in a tightly wound-up ball.

I brought snacks, pulling out my Nanny McPhee bag that Madeline still liked to joke about. Charlie ran straight for anything sweet, chocolate granola bars, fiber brownies—because gut health matters—or the tiny gummy bear packs I had left over from passing out Halloween candy this season. Every year, I assumed we’d be flooded with children in our streets, and every year, I was greeted with teenagers far too old for this with zero costumes, and a visit from my next-door neighbor, Rhonda, who brought me squash bread. It was more like a lump of cat hair with a side of squash bread, but the gesture was all that mattered.

Next year we could take the kids to the lodge for trick-or-treating. I hadn’t gone in years since I never had a kid to attend with, and it felt odd for a thirty-year-old man to walk around an event entirely based around children. But it was all too easy to imagine next year. Madeline was the type to go all-out on costumes. I envisioned all of us in matching costumes. The Adams Family. Wizard of Oz. Oh, no, Star Wars–themed. I could be Anakin, obviously. A tiny Luke and Leia in tow beside us.

All of the “next year” events came flooding to me. After the New Year’s competition, we didn’t have a ton of events at the lodge for a while, but we could find something. Make up something if we had to. All I knew was it was so incredibly simple to sit here and picture what life would look like from here on out.

After Charlie rifled through my bag, stealing half its contents, I turned to Piper.

“Half-Pint.” I shook the bag her way. “You hungry? I’ve got Sham Jams. Oh, and those Cheez-its you liked last time. And—” I paused, because her face looked strangely pale, and she wasn’t looking anywhere near me. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she was sniffling so quietly that I could barely hear it over the TV. “Half-Pint?” I scooted a little closer, and because I had no idea what to do with a two-year-old, I patted the top of her blond head. “You okay?”

She shook her head in response, and my mind came out with a roster of things that could have gone wrong since Madeline had left. A brown recluse had bitten her, and the venom was kicking in fast. She’d stubbed her toe on the leg of the couch when I wasn’t looking. A bug had climbed into her ear, and she didn’t know how to tell me it was taking over her brain. That last one was far-fetched, but my anxiety over children’s health knew no bounds, apparently.

“Is it ’cause you miss May?” Charlie asked, using a more logical approach.

Piper shook her head again, and her hands kept circling her stomach, tightening her grip on herself and then shifting. The fact that she turned down a snack alone was scaring me, but now she was holding her abdomen like the favorite side character in action movies did right after you found out they’d been shot during the big scenes and they just never said anything.

“Hold on. I’ll call your aunt and ask her, okay?” I petted the top of her head a few more times and felt sickly when she just sniffled and nodded.

I called Madeline twice. Both times, it went straight to voicemail. I checked the time and winced. She was already in the testing area, and her phone was probably turned off and locked away.

“Okay, let me call my mom,” I mumbled and turned back to Piper, who was now curled into an even tighter ball, with her eyes shut, her sniffles converting into heavy panting and fast-falling tears. “I’m gonna call Lola, okay? She can help.”

Thanks be to God, Mom answered on the second ring.

“If you’re calling to borrow my copy of Beauty and the Beast again, I am not—who’s crying? Is that Piper?” She rushed out the last bit, and there was a sound of keys jangling in the background.

“Yeah, Madeline had to go take a test, and Olive is having her baby, so I was the next best thing and—”

“No, I was the next best thing.”

“Of course you were.” I rolled my eyes. Even in times of desperation, the woman always had to make a point. “Look, there’s something wrong with Half-Pint’s stomach, and I think she needs some kind of medicine, but I don’t know what, and Madeline can’t answer.”

Mom hummed and was quiet for a minute. “Try five milliliters of Tylenol and call me back in thirty minutes.”

I did as told, following Charlie to where the medicine was kept and getting a baby syringe out for her. Piper happily downed the Tylenol—thankfully, because I was not sure what I would do if she started flailing around and I was going to have to force it like I was wrestling a wild alligator.

Not even fifteen minutes went by, and Piper’s sniffled cries were now ear-piercing wails. I picked her up, cradling her like an overgrown baby, and rocked her back and forth, bouncing on my toes. We tried different movies, different toys. Snacks, games, songs. We did an entire dance routine at one point. Every single thing you could possibly pull out to cheer up a toddler, Charlie and I did.

“Does she do this often?” I asked him, winded from all the bouncing and rocking.

He shook his head. “Never. Not like with her stomach.”

I looked down to her face, scrunched up and red like she was in excruciating pain. I asked the one thing I really had no clue how to handle. “Do you think she needs to use the bathroom?”

Charlie shrugged. “I think she already did once this morning?”

I wasn’t well equipped with the knowledge of a toddler’s BM schedules, but twice in one morning felt like a lot.

Just then, Piper screamed out, unable to catch her breath in my arms, and the panic was settling deep inside me. This was wrong. Something was just…wrong. Not one bit of this felt right. Even that night that she had a fever and—wait, a fever.

“Where’s your thermometer?” I asked Charlie. His eyes widened when he realized that neither of us had even considered that. Then he darted to the kitchen sink cabinet. He pulled out a white first-aid kit and a newer-looking thermometer, tossing it my way. Only both of my arms were being used to hold a twenty-something-pound child, and I couldn’t catch for shit. So it fell to the ground, and the screen went haywire.

“Nice catch,” Charlie retorted.

“Nice throw,” I argued.

In a frantic haze, I called my mom again.

“This isn’t working. Something isn’t right.”

I could tell by her paused silence that she knew it too. Mom never freaked out. She was the most level-headed person I knew. But if something were to go wrong, you could always hear it in her hesitations.

“Okay, this is an odd request, and I highly doubt this is it, but it’s important to check.”

“Oh God, tell me I don’t have to put medicine in her butt.” That was a thing, right? I started sweating bullets. I needed to take my sweatshirt off, but I was too scared to even set her down.

Piper’s screams turned louder.

“No, nothing like that. I need you to ask her to jump. If she falls over in pain, we’ll go from there.”

“Uh, okay.” I looked to Charlie and set Piper down next to him. She cried, holding her hands held out to me, but Charlie covered by saying. “Pipes, look! Look what I’m doing.” He made a show of jumping obnoxiously up and down, and she refused, so I did the same thing. We were shaking the house entirely, but after a couple of moments, Piper did one single hop before reaching to her gut and letting out another wail.

I lifted my phone in an instant as I scooped her into my arms. “Okay, yeah. No, there’s no way she can jump. What does that even—”

“Go to Aspen Valley now.”

“Like…the hospital?” I swallowed the boulder in my throat.

“Yes. Now, Coop. No time to waste. Drive carefully, but take her to the ER. I’ll meet you there. I need to make a few calls. I have some connections up there and can get her a room faster than you might be able to. But go ahead and leave now. Do not speed. You understand?”

No…not me. I was not the driving to the hospital guy. I was the buy you a bubble blower wand and ice cream guy. I wasn’t—I couldn’t. My breathing started growing frantic, my rib cage shrinking three sizes too small. This wasn’t supposed to go this way. We weren’t supposed to—

“Cooper. Baby, listen to me. You have to focus on her right now. Get both kids to the hospital. I’ll meet you there, okay?”

I nodded and shook my head. Pull it together. Whatever is going on, you can’t fix it on your own. You’ve got to get her to a hospital. I hung up on my mom and started reaching for any essentials. When Piper’s screams only deepened, it hit me that there was nothing more essential than taking her to the ER. Now.

I looked at Charlie. “My keys are on the counter. Go start the car and get buckled in the back seat.” His eyes were watering, but I couldn’t find it in me to console us both other than to say a simple “Go, Charlie. Now.”

He nodded and ran out of the door in his pajamas.

“Okay, okay. Think. We need insurance cards—” Piper’s whole body was shaking against me. “No time for that. Uh…” I started looking around me for any kind of emergency item we’d need, and my eyes landed on the notepad Madeline had left, where she’d written her parents’ phone numbers. She wrote on the very top NOT UNLESS SOMEONE IS DYING, and considering I felt like I was, I ripped off the top paper and raced out the door to the car.

Charlie was buckled in the middle seat, right next to Piper’s car seat. My windshield wasn’t iced over, thankfully, so I was able to buckle her into the seat as fast as I could while Charlie cooed in her ear. “It’s okay, bug. Coop’s got us. We’re okay.” I felt like he was saying it every bit as much for me as he was for her.

I double-checked the tightness of the straps just like Madeline had taught me to and gently shut the door before rounding the car. The whole world felt like it was spinning. Like I was spinning. My blood was pumping. My heart felt like it was going to give out. My own stomach started twisting and turning, and when I could hear Piper’s pain-filled screeching outside the car, a wave of nausea hit me square in the gut. Two hands on my knees, I turned away from the car and emptied my stomach right on the driveway, pissed at myself.

I’d once said I thrived on adrenaline. Turned out I was wrong.

I jumped in the car right after, not bothering to waste any more time and speeding out of the driveway despite my mother’s directions. Good news was Aspen Valley was only fifteen minutes, and traffic was light. If I pushed hard enough, I could make it in ten.

My foot forced the gas pedal to the floor as we crossed our neighborhood. I made the mistake of glancing in the rearview mirror once at the two blond kids in the back of my car. Charlie had his hand over the car seat, making shushing noises and rubbing the snot and tears from her bright red, almost purple, face. “It’s okay, bug. We’ll be there soon.” I watched in horror as tears freely fell from his own face and then realized they were dripping down mine too.

I overestimated myself. Madeline did too. I couldn’t do this. My stomach lurched like I was going to throw up again, but I had no time. I had to get her there. And if it meant throwing up in my car, which I really hoped it didn’t, then so be it.

Seven minutes later, I whipped into the ER parking lot, ignoring the Do not park here signs and running around the car to the back seat. I unbuckled Piper and scooped her into my arms, asking Charlie to grab the note with their grandparents’ numbers on it and my keys. I owed that kid a lot of thanks when things settled down, but for now, I was too busy running.

I raced inside at full speed, and my eyes met with my mom’s as she stood there, talking to the receptionist.

“Here they are,” she announced. There was such panic in her voice that it only drew mine up higher.

“Mr. Graves, follow me. We have a room right back here for you.”

I followed the older woman in blue scrubs to a curtained-off area and sat on the bed with Piper in my lap as she dug her face into my neck. The cries from her never stopped, never let up. They only grew deeper and louder. Enough that the other two nurses that quickly popped in both were wincing.

“We need to know if she’s allergic to anything,” one mentioned as she started taking her temperature.

“No. Wait, I don’t know. No food allergies but…” I looked to Charlie, and he shrugged, unknowing. “I can call her grandparents and ask.”

I handed Piper off to my mom, who was gently rocking and shushing her on the crisp white bed while I typed in the nine digits and hit Call.

“If you’re trying to sell me a car warranty, you can go to—”

“Mrs. Sage!” I shouted. “Does Piper have any allergies?”

“What? Who is this?”

“Madeline’s boyfriend. Does Piper have any allergies?”

“Uh, latex, I think? Tom,” she shouted. “Was it Piper who’s allergic to latex?” Some silence fell. Well, not total silence, because our baby was still screaming, and the nurses were throwing out medical terms left and right with my mother.

“Latex,” I told the nurse. “She’s allergic to latex.”

“Okay, we need to get her to a scan immediately,” one announced, and Mom stood up, handing Piper over to me.

“Scans?” I asked.

“Scans?” Mrs. Sage yelled into the phone. “What is going on—”

I growled in the back of my throat and shouted into the microphone. “Your granddaughter is sick, and I’m working on it. If you care about these kids, then show up to Aspen Valley and quit asking questions.” I hung up, wishing I could have thrown a handful of curses into that sentence but figured I’d get there soon.

“Why do we need scans?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“It’s rare, I mean, less than 10 percent rare, but we think she may have appendicitis.”

I threw up again, this time on my mother’s white tennis shoes.