Chapter 2 - The Intensive Care Unit
The waiting room at Chicago Med was a sterile, freezing purgatory.
Noah had been rushed straight into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. They had to intubate him. The asthma attack had been so severe, and the delay in medication so prolonged, that his little lungs simply couldn't push air anymore.
I sat in a hard plastic chair, my hands covered in my own dried sweat, staring blankly at the double doors.
"Rachel!"
Mark’s voice shattered the quiet. My husband came sprinting down the hospital corridor, his tie undone, his eyes wide with panic. "Rachel, where is he? What happened? My mom called me from the back of a squad car crying hysterically! She said the police attacked her!"
I stood up slowly. The sight of Mark—my partner, the man I loved, instantly defaulting to his mother’s defense—ignited a cold, calculating fury in my veins.
"Your mother," I said, my voice dangerously low and steady, "confiscated Noah’s rescue inhaler when he started wheezing. She locked it in her purse because he supposedly 'talked back.' She watched him suffocate, Mark. She watched him turn gray and told the cops he was throwing a tantrum."
Mark stopped dead in his tracks. All the color drained from his face. "No... no, she wouldn't do that. She can be strict, Rachel, but she wouldn't try to kill him. It must have been a misunderstanding. She probably didn't realize it was a real attack."
I stepped into his personal space, my index finger jabbing hard into his chest.
"Noah called me, Mark. He used his smartwatch to call me because she wouldn't give it to him. I heard him begging for his life on speakerphone while she complained about kids today lacking manners. If I had been five minutes later, our son would be in a morgue. He is on a ventilator right now because of her."
Mark stumbled back as if I had shot him. He ran his hands through his hair, pacing in a tight circle. "A ventilator? Oh my god. Noah... but, Rachel, she's in jail. My mother is in a holding cell. I have to go bail her out. She's claustrophobic, she can't be in there."
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The sheer absurdity of his words hung in the air.
"If you bail out the woman who just put our son on life support," I whispered, the finality of the statement ringing with absolute clarity, "do not ever come back to our house. I will bury you both."
