Chapter 6
I woke up on my dad's couch with the light coming in flat and gray through the blinds. My chest still felt tight, like a rubber band was still around it, but I could get air in without that awful whistling. The blue inhaler with the clear spacer was on the coffee table next to the ER discharge papers, right where Dad had left it.
Dad was already in the kitchen with his phone, his dark blue shirt from the night before still on but untucked. He had his back to me and his voice low.
"I know it's early," he said into the phone. "I needed you to hear it from me before school."
That was Mom. I could tell by the way he stood up straighter when she answered.
He didn't make it dramatic. He just laid it out exactly the way it happened. He said we were at the restaurant for my birthday dinner, I told him I needed my inhaler, and his girlfriend took it from my backpack and threw it across the room. He said I couldn't breathe for more than a minute and he had to go get it off the floor. He said we went to the ER after and they documented a moderate asthma attack made worse by the delay. He kept his hand on the counter the whole time, not moving at all.
There was a pause and then Mom's voice got louder, enough that I could hear it from the couch. She wasn't yelling at him, she was just sharp. "She threw his prescribed medication?"
Dad looked over at me and then looked away quickly. "Yeah," he said. "I got it back. He's stable. They gave us a written plan. I'm going to email the school nurse this morning."
After he hung up, he came and sat on the edge of the couch. He checked my breathing the way the nurse had shown him, counting my breaths with his hand light on my back.
"How are you feeling right now?" he asked.
"Better," I said. My voice was still a little hoarse.
Mom called back on video a few minutes later. Dad handed me the phone and went into the kitchen so I could talk to her alone. Her face filled the screen. Her hair was pulled back and she was sitting at her own kitchen table with her coffee getting cold.
"Hey, buddy," she said. She tried to smile but her eyes stayed serious. "Your dad told me what happened. Are you okay to talk about it?"
I nodded. I was holding the inhaler even though I didn't need it right then. Just holding it helped.
She asked me what happened before Dad got the inhaler back, and I told her my chest had started hurting at the table and I didn't want to ruin the dinner. I told her I reached for my backpack and then the woman in the red dress put her hand over mine.
Mom listened without interrupting. That was new. Usually adults jumped in.
Then I said the thing I'd been holding in since last night. "She said I always need attention," I told Mom. My throat got tight again but not from asthma this time. "That's why I waited. I thought maybe she was right and I was just pretending."
Mom's face changed right away. She leaned closer to the camera.
"Listen to me," she said, quiet and clear. "Needing air is not attention. You were right to ask your dad. You were right the first time you said it. Do you hear me?"
I nodded and my eyes got watery. I didn't want to cry on the phone.
"You did nothing wrong," she said. "Nothing."
After that, Dad came back and Mom talked to both of us. She said she was glad he took me to the ER and that she wanted the three of us to sit down together, just us, without his girlfriend, to go over the action plan. Dad said yes right away. He didn't argue for the girlfriend or make an excuse for her. He just said, "Absolutely. Just us. I'll make time tonight or tomorrow."
While I was eating cereal, Dad sat at his little desk and wrote the email to my school nurse. I watched him type it slow and read it out loud before he sent it to make sure it was right.
He wrote that I have asthma and use a blue inhaler with a spacer, that I'd had a moderate attack the night before that needed emergency care, and that the doctor wanted me to keep the inhaler on my person at school instead of in the locked office. He wrote that I should be allowed to carry it in my backpack and use it without having to ask permission or wait for an adult to unlock a cabinet. He didn't write anything about the restaurant or the woman. He just wrote "due to medical need for immediate access." He hit send and showed me the sent message.
A few minutes later his phone buzzed. The school nurse had already replied. She said thank you for updating her, she had put a note in my file, and she would talk to my teacher about me keeping the inhaler with me and not in the office. She said to send a copy of the doctor's plan when we had it.
I felt a little lighter after that, like maybe I wouldn't have to worry about raising my hand and waiting while I couldn't breathe.
Dad's phone buzzed again almost right after. It wasn't the nurse. He glanced at it and his jaw tightened. It was a text from his girlfriend. He didn't read it out loud but he turned the screen just enough that I saw the preview. She wanted to do the birthday dinner over, like redo it this weekend, same restaurant.
Dad didn't answer it. He put the phone face down on the counter.
May you like
Mom was still on the video call, watching. "We will figure the rest out later," she said to Dad. "You keep that inhaler where he can reach it."
Dad nodded. He picked the inhaler up off the coffee table and put it gently back in my dark teal backpack, zipped it, and set the backpack right next to my shoes by the door so I wouldn't forget it.
