Leslie stepped up to the plate. “I’m her mother, and this is one of her guardians. Where is she? I was told she was brought from her school on an ambulance.”
The nurse nodded. “With me. She’s being looked over by a doctor before she’s admitted.”
“Ma’am, I want your best people on this. None of us are leaving until we have an official diagnosis as to what’s going on. And I expect her to be in a—”
The nurse held up her hand. “Sir, I don’t know who you are or why in the world you think you can speak to me this way, but I can assure you that we are doing the best we can—”
I cut her off and pinned her with a glare. “Let me be very clear about this: I respect this hospital and its establishments. But, we were here for tests a month ago, and we thought we had this figured out. So, now we’re back because apparently, that’s not what happened, and that means that you can either have this hospital get their best staff on this case, or I can fly my own doctors in to take over and do the job this establishment should have done a month ago. Your choice.”
Because if Aurora died from this hospital’s inability to properly diagnose her when I had access to the best of the best, I’d sue the damned thing into the ground.
16
Leslie
Istared up at Trey like he had lost his damn mind, but I felt something warm growing in my chest. The way he took charge and put the staff of this hospital in their place was kind of hot, if not completely rude at the same time. I felt conflicted, though. On the one hand, Aurora wasn’t his daughter; she was mine. I was the one who needed to be laying into the doctors with all of my teeth bared.
But, on the other hand, he did make a hell of a guardian…
It’s almost like he cares what happens to Rori.
Everything happened in such a blur after that confrontation that it almost spun my head out of place. Rori had to be admitted again, so per Trey’s demands, we were whisked back into one of the top rooms the hospital had to offer. Another battery of tests had to take place, and most of them scared my poor little girl to death. But, with me holding one of her hands and Trey standing guard, making sure the doctors didn’t hurt her any more than necessary with the needles, she began to relax a little bit.
Until she started gagging.
“Mo—oh, no.”
The second Rori opened her mouth, I heard her gagging. Her face turned pale as I raced to get her hair out of her face while Trey shoved a small bowl right up against her chin. She doubled over in bed, tossing the sheets out of the way as her petite little body shook and quaked with a fury I’d never seen before.
“Just let it up, don’t fight it,” I whispered.
Trey rubbed her back. “We’re right here, but you gotta get it up, Aurora.”
After vomiting twice, her gagging stopped, and I helped her lay back down. Trey set the bowl off to the side and ran to get a washcloth before he started cleaning off her lips. And as I watched him dote on and take care of my daughter, I saw a completely different side of him that I would have never thought existed.
In some ways, he was better with my daughter than I was. “You need anything?” he asked.
Rori shook her head softly. “No. Just some ice, maybe.”
He nodded. “You sure you don’t want any water? It’s pretty good here. The hospital has gigantic sterilizers that filter the water before it even comes out of the tap.”
My daughter paused. “Maybe just a little bit? But, not in the ice.”
Trey grinned. “A cup of water and a cup of ice, coming right up.”
He ruffled her hair softly before Aurora hunkered down in bed, and I resisted the urge to go over there and check. I settled onto the couch, allowing Trey to take care of my little girl while she watched his every move. It was nice, having help like this. It felt really good not to be dealing with this alone, for once. However, one question remained.
What in the world was triggering all of this shit with my child?
A soft knock came at the door, and it caused both Trey and me to say “come in” simultaneously. And when the door opened, an older man in a bright-white coat came slipping in.
“Well, well, well. You must be my patient, laying here in this massive bed.”
Rori eyeballed him but didn’t say anything. So, the older man with salt-and-pepper hair walked over and perched on the edge of her bed.
“I’m Doctor Dale. What’s your name?”
Rori looked over at me, and I nodded, which caused her to speak back. “Aurora.”
