with a flushed face and
remnants of tears, she
insists on putting her sandals on herself.

i clutch her in my arms,
guiding my hands over hers
to ensure they get put on the right feet.

it is the least i can do to calm my nerves,
the doctor’s receptionist’s voice
(calm as daylight): “She needs to go to the ER.”

i drive fast but he is already calling
(one mile out) “Maybe the fever will go down.”
he reads the Internet article.

i ponder what we would ever do without it
simultaneously cursing the web for making
me question my decision.

cursing myself for not charging my phone,
i call my office number one, two, three times.
no one answers. i will be alone with her.

and i cannot allow myself to cry this time
because Bruce won’t be there to wipe
the tears from my cheeks.

i use his phone to call my sister,
my medical expert, the scientist,
the cancer survivor, the new mother.

she knows more than me, and
before we even hang up, i have unbuckled
her, am carrying her to triage.

i think how at our doctor’s office
we almost never wait (how interminably
long they make us wait here, the tears flowing).

i stay strong and hold her hands as the nurse
squeezes in the last bit of Tylenol, as the doctor
swabs her throat, as she shakes and screams.

later (a phone call home, an antibiotics debate)
the doctor returns with a giant purple popsicle
and she is all smiles (we have survived).

we walk out, both of us, her tugging at her wrist,
and with the tone of a much-older-than-three-year-old,
“I need this bracelet off now.”

she tears at it on the ride home,
anxious to shred all evidence of this horrid affair,
the tears (hers and mine) released now with relief.