The Wrong Brother

Chapter 19

MONTY

It was late on Saturday evening when Iris finally convinced me to head home. I didn’t mind the chairs in the hospital waiting room. The military had me sitting around in more uncomfortable positions for years. I was willing to wait as long as she needed me to wait. She mostly kept us up to date with text messages, but a couple of times she came out to chat and get a bit of a break from sitting bedside.

I didn’t know much about meningitis. I knew we were given vaccinations for it before basic training, but I had no idea it was something a kid as young as Nia could get. The doctors were thankful that they caught it early. Nia’s prognosis looked great, but she would still need to spend a few days in the hospital undergoing some heavy-dose antibiotic treatments. After the testing confirmed what the doctors suspected, she was admitted to the hospital and moved into the intensive care unit. She was able to have visitors, but I stayed in the ICU waiting room and let Iris, Jade, and Iris’s parents visit.

Iris spent the night, but she begged the rest of us to head home. There was nothing we could do. Nia needed to rest and for the medicine to kick in. I did as she asked, but that didn’t stop me from waking up early this morning and heading back over to the hospital. With a box of goodies from a local bakery and some hot coffee, I made my way up to the third floor of the hospital and checked in at the nurses’s station. 

Iris was in the hallway speaking with somebody when I caught her eye. She smiled, but it wasn’t her full smile. She was exhausted. I’m sure she barely slept last night. I had a hard time sleeping and it wasn’t my daughter facing a serious medical condition. The woman gently squeezed her arm and walked away before I made it to the room.

“Hey, Monty, what are you doing here?”

I hold up the bag of pastries and the coffee, “Substinence.”

Iris grabs the coffee and takes a long drink, letting out a moan that could only signify how much she really needed the warm liquid. “Thank you so much, Monty. I feel like coffee is the only thing keeping me going and the stuff they have here isn’t that great.”

“Then just call me Mr. Coffee for as long as you need me.” I brush back her hair, kiss her cheek, and then hand her the brown bag. “You might want this too.”

She peeks inside the bag and grins, “Oh wow, these look so good.” Just then, her stomach growled, causing her to laugh. “I guess I’m hungry.”

“I figured you would be. I also didn’t know if Nia could eat or not so I got a few things just in case.”

“Do you want to come in the room?” She tilted in head to the closed door behind her.

“I don’t want to overstep or anything.”

“Trust me, you’re not overstepping. Jade mentioned you last night and Nia was asking for you.”

“She was?”

“Yeah, I think you made a good impression.”

I follow Iris to the door, making sure to reach around her and open it so she doesn’t have to. The room smells like a typical hospital room, but it is colorfully decorated including a full underwater mural on the front wall. Even the medical equipment was covered in color rather than the typical sterile white. As somebody who has had a few hospital stays over the years, I could see this making a scary experience a little bit better for a child.

“Hey, baby girl,” Iris whispered as she approached the bed. “You’ve got a visitor who wants to say hi.” Iris gently rubbed Nia’s arm until she turned her head just slightly in my direction.