Chapter 109
“Hey,” Benjamin said, kissing the side of her head.
A gurgling sound made her look toward Benjamin and down to see Micheal. “Hi, baby,” she cooed at their son, who gave her a big toothless smile.
Benjamin and she decided that he should head home to be with Micheal, and she would stay at the hospital with Jack.
“Mommy missed you, so much,” she told him as she picked him up, holding him to her. After getting her hug, she took off his jacket but kept him on her knee. She glanced at Benjamin, who was looking over Jack’s chart.
“Your dad said that he still has a high temperature but not as high as it was last night and they’ve been able to keep it down to a manageable degree.”
“Yeah, I see that,” Benjamin sighed, rubbing his face. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, looking pained.
“We talked about this last night,” she told him but he still looked guilty….
“I should have told the other doctors where to stick it the second they started to ask me to cover for them. I should have put you and the boys first. He…” Benjamin cut himself off and she knew that he was replaying last night.
They had just finished talking when Jack started having another bout of shivers like last night. Having been there for the first one, she jumped right up but Benjamin seemed unable to move for a few seconds.
Suddenly, he snapped out and launched into doctor mode only to be pushed back by another doctor who was taking over for Peter since he too couldn’t be directly responsible for Jack.
“We can’t change or do what–ifs, we already said we would talk to each other, just let it be,” she told him, hating to see him beating himself up.
Benjamin nodded his head and looked at her. “You look tired, do you want to go home for a nap? I’ll keep the boys here…”
She cut him off by shaking her head. “No, I am fine. Besides, you must be just as tired, if not more than I am.” She knew he must be. He had been living on less than five hours of sleep a night for almost eight weeks.
“Come over here,” Benjamin said, patting the seat next to him. She smiled and walked over. She sat down beside him. He picked up her legs and flipped them over his knees. They just sat holding each other, with Micheal between them as they watched Jack.
At lunch, she was able to feed both boys before she placed Micheal back down in his car seat to sleep. She moved closer to Benjamin, laying her head on his shoulder. It only took a few minutes for her to hear Benjamin’s soft snores, telling her that he was sleeping. She tried hard to stay awake, but his soft snores and heartbeat were like a lullaby that sent her to sleep, too.
Jack ended up spending six days in the hospital, before being sent home with a clean bill of health. His doctor and every doctor in the Parks family believed the shivers he had while in the hospital were only due to the high temperature.
They had also been advised to pay careful attention to him when he got his next set of vaccinations. As for nurse Leena, she had been fired from the hospital. She wasn’t fired just because of what she had done the night Jack was admitted; but also because Emily filed reports months ago against her causing the hospital to record all calls into the nurse’s station on the maternity floor.
It turned out the hospital had recorded over thirty calls where nurse Leena had not paged a doctor when needed. There were also calls where she had given out advice to patients, that she was not qualified to do. One of those cases resulted in a near death, not Just of the baby but the mother too.
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Chapter 109
That just happened to be the case when Benjamin was brought back into the hospital for the night Jack became sick. She was also the one who told the other doctor who was on that Benjamin had agreed to take over his shift.
The hospital board tried for a few days to get Benjamin to change his mind about his immediate resignation from the hospital but gave up when it became clear that Benjamin’s mind was made up, and they wished him well.
Today was the start of his new routine and the boys and Pandora were at the clinic, to take him to lunch. Despite it having been only four hours since he left this morning, she had missed him a lot and felt panicked and worried he was not home.
“You promised to give him a chance, stop thinking he’s going to let you down. Take a deep breath and chill,” she reminded herself. She did as the voice in her head suggested, closed her eyes, and let out a soft breath.
“Hey, boys,” Benjamin greeted, opening the door and making her jump. She looked his way and he gave her a big smile. “Sweetheart, he called as he got into the car. “I’ve got an hour and a half. I thought since it’s so nice outside, we could eat lunch at the park?
She nodded at him, unable to even close her mouth. “I told you things will be different now,” he whispered, leaning over and kissing her. As her mouth was open, he used that to his advantage to deepen their kiss.
She giggled as she pulled back. “You’ve only got an hour and a half, Doc, let’s not waste it kissing,” she teased.
“But I have to catch up on all those kisses I’ve missed out on,” he whined, pouting at her.
She shook her head and drove them to the park close to the clinic. Benjamin carried the boys in their seats and she carried their picnic basket and blanket.
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