May I: A Few Things

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang again. This time, Corbin stood there with a bag and a pink blanket in hand. “You might need this.” Slipping the bag over her shoulder, he handed her the blanket. “Good luck.” And for a second time, he turned on his heels and disappeared.

“Thanks.” Closing the door, Sophie grabbed the blanket and tried to hold both the blanket and doll in her hand, but the blanket ended up falling to the ground. Hearing her grunt to pick it up, she toddled around with her hands full.



It started to dawn on her that she was now really responsible for this little girl, who had happily started turning around in circles in her living room. And really, her smile was contagious because Gillian began abruptly laughing; coughing even harder than she had this morning.

Quickly dawning on her, she realized that with everything going on—that she had forgotten to take her antibiotics that she had gotten this morning. Getting up, she felt slightly light-headed as she stood, then went into the kitchen. Her hand shook as she grabbed a glass and filled it up with water.
At that moment, she was beginning to hate that Cal was right about Sophie deserving a mother that could always be there for her. Swallowing down the pill, she could literally feel her energy draining as she set the glass down and walked back over to the couch.

As she unzipped the bag, there was a change of clothes on top of some toys. Knowing that Sophie hadn’t changed since she had arrived, Gillian took her upstairs to change her. When they came back downstairs, she almost missed the muffled ring in her purse.

When Gillian checked the caller ID, she didn’t recognize the number, but she answered anyway. “Gillian Foster.” There was no response, other than the occasional words that she could make out from a TV in the background. “Hello?” When she was about to hang up, was when she got a response.

“Gillian. Hi, it’s Emily.” Gillian immediately picked up that her voice sounded distracted, although attempting to be upbeat. “How’s Sophie?”

Looking around the room, she watched as Sophie got into the bag that she had put down by the couch and was tugging at her blanket. “She’s good. Emily, is everything alright?”

“Yeah.” Emily offered. Her voice faltered with every word spoken. It was Gillian that she was talking to after all—and someone that she didn’t usually call very often. “Mom dropped me off at the office. She didn’t want me sitting at the house alone, but I would have been fine.”

“I’m sure you would have.” Gillian agreed wisely. “Though, I know for a fact that neither your mom nor dad would forgive themselves if something happened to you.”

“It’s okay now . . . since my parents divorced, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like having a brother or sister around. It’s kind of weird to think about some times. “I’m planning to go to college after I graduate high school, and all I can think about is how my dad’s going to be alone. Not that he doesn’t have you, and Ria and Eli—but sometimes I think he likes to scare them.”

“Your father has his own ways of doing things. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Emily said, in a more determined tone this time. “I brought my bag with me, so I can get some studying done.”

“You can come to me with anything, if you ever need to talk. You know that, right?” Gillian extended the offer gently.

“I know.” Emily shuffled on the phone. “Thanks, Gillian.” And then everything grew quiet. “I should go. I’ve got some studying to do, and a test that I have to take on Monday.”

“Okay. What’s your test on?”

“China, Egypt and Rome. So, basically everything that we’ve learned while in class. It counts as half of our grade for the semester. No pressure, right?”

“Something tells me that you will do just fine. So, if this test is worth half of your grade—how many questions are on the actual test?”

“I think Mr. Jensen said that there were a hundred questions on the test, as well as five bonus questions that would count towards the final score if we get them right; Which basically gives everyone a chance to miss five and still get a pretty decent score.”

“Sounds fair enough.”

“Yeah. I do pretty well in his class. So, I really shouldn’t be worrying as much as I am.”

“Emily, do you ever feel pressured to the point that you would consider something that you wouldn’t normally do?”

“Like what exactly? I don’t cheat, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Gillian took in a deep breath and her body shuttered as she turned away from the phone and coughed. “What I meant was, do you ever feel like you’re more pressured—“Reaching into the cabinet, she filled up the glass with water, in order to get rid of the tickle in the back of her throat.

“You’re sick, aren’t you?” Emily asked, matter-of-factly. “Is that why you and dad are fighting?”

“No.” Gillian answered weakly, choking out another cough. “I’m a little under the weather.” She admitted, putting the glass by the sink and went back into the living room. “Your father and I had a disagreement about a few things.”

“Well . . . yeah. Both of you think differently, so there’s bound to be disagreements. It’s just. . . I’ve never seen the two of you go your separate ways. He loves you . . . you know? He always refers to you as his best friend. And I don’t feel pressured to do anything. I guess it’s just something that I’ve gotten used to growing up.”

Gillian felt butterflies in her stomach as she recounted Emily’s words ‘He loves you, you know? They played over and over again in her mind.

“I know that my dad isn’t the easiest person to work with. “

“I’ll talk to him.” Gillian suddenly felt a loss of her voice as she sat down on the couch.

“He’s not the same. I know it’s only been a day since, but I can’t tell whatever is going on between the two of you is bothering him—a lot.” Getting the last word in, Emily concluded with. “Bye, Gillian.”

“Bye.” And the two of them hung up. Gillian scooped Sophie up and went into the kitchen to get both of them some lunch. She wasn’t sure if it was the sickness, or the fact that Emily just revealed that Cal was really in love with her, that was causing her sudden lack of hunger.

But she ate anyway, very slowly. After lunch, she put Sophie down for a nap and had some time to herself. She chose to lie down on the couch and closed her eyes. The only image she could see was of Cal sitting on the asphalt.

That whole night had been a blur: him holding her until the EMT arrived— to the time that she had been at the hospital. In fact, she would have fought them a lot more if he hadn’t been there beside her. She started to feel guilty, but her eyes fluttered closed, and she saw him again. He was cradling, almost rocking her—over and over again.

The dream focused on his facial expression that remained stalwart—like the two of them were being filmed for some horror movie and they had somehow been frozen like that. A scream emitted as the imaginary cameras pulled back to show her sobbing, but somehow the scream didn’t fit.

Was there another victim that she didn’t know about? Her thoughts began to pull together as she focused on looking around, or directing the dream around. She felt the darkness around her. Everything she saw was darkness. When she found herself sitting up on the couch, slightly disoriented . . . was when she started to wonder what had actually woken her.

Another scream, came from upstairs. And she knew immediately that the screams hadn’t been just another figment of her imagination. They had been coming from Sophie. She knew by the pitch that something was wrong as she got off the couch and walked quickly up the stairs into her bedroom.

Her fingers flipped the switch, with a burst of light in the room. Sophie was sitting on the bed; hot tears falling down her cheeks. Gillian’s first instinct was that she had experienced a really bad nightmare. But as she stepped closer to her, she could feel the radiating heat coming from her body. Sweat had soaked through her shirt and jeans and as she pulled her into her lap. Her hand absently went up to Sophie’s forehead, to conclude that she was feverish.

She wasn’t prepared to even deal with this now. She had no baby Tylenol, or anything to give her. Having Sophie at her hip, she checked the bag by the couch, for any kind of medicine. Instead she found nothing, and pulled out a spare grey shirt tucked away near the bottom of the bag.

Grabbing the thermometer from the kitchen, she checked her temperature and found that she had a fever of 101. Gillian considered calling her brother Sean for support, but the only one that she could think about from her sleep deprived thoughts—was Cal.