After going through what I did with my parents, I always said I’d give my own kids a real family. My childhood had been brutal. Parents who were in and out of jail ever since I was small, both dying of a drug overdose one day when I was at school. I was the one to find them like that, slumped in their chairs.
Somewhere in the post-mortem of my marriage, maybe I’d figure out what went wrong. Right now, I was bloody clueless.
A series of small spasms travelled along my back and arms before I realised I was sobbing.
Lilly wandered out onto the verandah and curled up on the uneven wooden planks, wrapping her arms around my ankles. It was a thing she did when she was tired and wanted my attention but couldn’t be bothered speaking. Lilly was economical with words.
I inhaled the chilled air, squeezing my eyes shut a couple of times to dry up the wet.
“Up you get, Lilly. Too cold down there.”
Her cheek felt hot against my arm as I picked her up.
Too hot?
Angling myself back, I studied her face. There were high patches of red in her cheeks, watery eyes.
I carried her into the kitchen and set her down on the kitchen table.
It was Evie who always took care of taking the girls’ temperatures when they were sick. I rifled through the medicine cupboard and found a thermometer.
Lilly grumbled softly as I pressed the button and held it inside her ear. It beeped at 40C/104F.
Okay, that was hot.
It was always Evie who made the decision about whether Lilly needed a doctor or not. Something about looking for other signs.
Lilly looked wilted.
Breathing faster than usual.
It was enough.
“Willow!” I turned and bellowed up the stairs. “Come down here, honey.”
The silence on the way to the hospital was unnerving. Normally, I couldn’t stop the girls from poking each other from their car seats or complaining that the other was making faces at her. But neither of them made a sound.
When we reached the emergency department, my heart sank as I saw that the chairs were three quarters full. A busy night. But the triage nurse took one look at Lilly and asked me to bring her straight in.
A different nurse took her temperature. “How long has her temp been at 40 degrees?”
“I’m not sure. The girls were watching a movie upstairs . . .”
“What about her breathing? How long has she—？”
Lilly collapsed on the hospital bed, a small, floppy doll suddenly without any bones.
The nurse yelled out something. Doctors and nurses came running. They rushed Lilly to another section of the emergency ward. Willow and I ran behind. I watched them lay her little body down on a bed to resuscitate her. She didn’t wake again.
Willow grasped my hand so tightly that her small fingernails were digging into my flesh. “Did she die?”
“No,” I told her firmly.
A nurse—or a doctor—I wasn’t sure which, turned back to me. “Has she had an asthma attack before?”
I looked back at her, stunned. “She doesn’t have asthma.”
“It seems that she does.”
“Is she okay?” She didn’t look okay but I wanted them to make her okay.
“She’s responding well. She’s getting enough oxygen now.”
When they’d stabilised her, they moved her to the children’s ward.
Willow and I sat beside her bed, watching her sleep.
I was still in a state of terror.
Lilly had asthma? She’d been checked for asthma. Three or more times. She’d been checked for all kinds of things. The doctors had said she just had wheezy lungs. Something she’d grow out of.
An hour ticked past.
Willow slipped into sleep on the chair beside mine. I could remember what it was like to be four, thinking that the adults were in control. When you became an adult yourself, it became scarily apparent how not-in-control the adults actually were.
I needed Evie here now.
There was only one way of contacting her.
Switching my phone on, I navigated to the companions website and logged in.
Evie, I wrote, this is Gray. Yes, it’s me and I know what you’ve been doing. We’re in the hospital. Lilly’s really sick. She stopped breathing earlier. You need to get back here.
Before I closed the page, I noticed a row of girls’ photos slowly scrolling across the top of the screen. A carousel of girls to pick and choose from for wealthy sugar daddies. One picture in particular caught my attention, s young, blonde girl with day-dreamy sort of eyes.
Where did I know her from?
I clicked on the picture, and then I remembered. The woman who’d come to the door looking for her daughter—this was the daughter. The daughter’s name had been Kara. She called herself Lilac Lolita on this website. Great name for an escort of what—seventeen? She was a kid. Was she trying to attract paedophiles with that name?