BY TWOo’clock, Ollie had serious regrets about forgetting his cell phone in his work locker. He couldn’t check last night’s baseball scores, and he didn’t have2048orAngry Birdsto distract him while he waited for Lucy to return from whatever errand she was on. Not that he should be playing phone games—he was supposed to be watching out for signs someone was going to attempt a robbery—but you could only maintain vigilance on small-town streets for so long before your brain started longing for physical death to go along with the lack of stimulation.
They were parked outside their five hundred and twelfth stop of the day, a pawn shop in Holton. Ollie had one eye on the mirrors and one on Lucy for trouble, and was going through the alphabet making a list of the most absurd fake ice-cream flavors he could think of in order to keep himself awake.
It was possible that the fact that the air-conditioner in this truck was still only half working had an impact on his activity of choice. Ollie was desperate for a Popsicle.
He’d made it to G for the second time—Georgia Peaches, Pralines and Cream—when the dormant part of his brain noticed a change in Lucy’sbody language. Ollie snapped to attention as she finished up her exchange with the shop manager and used her key to open the passenger door.
“Here.” She shoved her phone at him. “I’m going to put this in the back and then we can go.”
Blinking, Ollie looked down at the phone, which seemed to be mid-call from a number Lucy didn’t have stored. He raised it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Ollie, holy shit. Finally. Where are you? Why haven’t you been answering your phone? We’ve been calling for an hour.”
The stress in Cassie’s voice went straight to Ollie’s blood pressure. “I’m at the pawn shop in Holton. Working. I accidentally left my phone in my locker. What’s going on?” Something awful occurred to him. “Oh God, are Mom and Dad okay?” They might not be talking right now, but he didn’t want anything bad to happen to his parents. If they got into an accident while they weren’t speaking to Ollie—
“They’re fine. Well, everyone’s fine now, just worried aboutyou—”
“Cassie.” If it wasn’t his parents, that meant—“What happened?”
“Theo got stung by a bee.”
Ollie’s chest went hollow, and her words rang in his ears.
“—a couple of bees, actually, I guess. They had to use his EpiPen. The school couldn’t get hold of you. I guess they had to send him to the hospital.”
Miraculously, Ollie didn’t drop Lucy’s phone. “And he’s—Theo’s—”
“He’s freaking out about being in the hospital, but he’s fine otherwise, Ollie, I swear.”
He swallowed and tried to will his heart to slow back to a normal rhythm. “Okay. Okay. Thanks. Uh. Wait, we’ve got—the trucks all have radios. Nobody tried to call the office?”
Cassie made a derisive noise. “Wealltried to call the office. Nobody picked up.”
The news did not improve Ollie’s blood pressure. “Okay. Um. I’m going to—we’ll have to go back to the depot so I can switch cars, but can you let them know I’ll be there as soon as I can?”
“Of course.”
A moment later Lucy climbed back into the cab. “You need me to drive?”
Obviously Cassie had briefed her already. Ollie’s hands shook. “Uh. Would you mind?”
Lucy did not mind, so Ollie spent the drive back to the depot with his eyes closed, concentrating on his breathing and trying to convince himself Theo was fine. He would recover, though Ollie would be beating himself up for forgetting his phone for years to come.
He practically bolted out of the truck when they arrived. He went inside long enough to retrieve his phone, brushed off his manager’s pointed question about why they weren’t still out on their run—“Sorry, my kid’s in the hospital, I gotta go, Lucy will fill you in”—and drove to the hospital on autopilot while nightmare visions of Theo, alone and scared, competed for his attention.
He couldn’t believe this had happened. He’d worked so hard to be a good father, to try to make sure he was always there when Theo needed him. Now he felt like the world’s biggest fraud. He’d failed his kid. Maybe his parents were right about him needing more help.
Somehow he held it together enough to ask someone at the nurses’ station how to find Theo’s room.
The hospital hallways stretched out before him like an effect from a horror movie, but finally he found 218. The door was open. He stuck his head in.
Theo was asleep, his chest rising and falling steadily in a way Ollie would never take for granted. He was hooked up to a pulse-ox monitor, but no IV. All his stats were normal. His color was good. Aside from his sweat-matted hair, he looked perfectly healthy, none the worse for wear. The relief of it almost took Ollie out at the knees, even as guilt welled up in the place anxiety had vacated.
He was supposed to be there for Theo, and he’d let him down. He’d been in the hospital with no one to comfort him—probably scared as well as alone—
“Oh, Ollie—thank God. Did Cassie finally get through to you?”
Ollie turned around.
