Chapter 12: Porch Only

June's fever started at two in the morning.

I knew before I touched her. She was too quiet, and her skin was too hot against my wrist.

The thermometer said 100.9.

She was twelve days old.

I had read the pamphlet from the hospital.

It said any fever in a baby under a month meant the emergency room.

"Kate!"

My sister came out of her bedroom in an oversized T-shirt and one sock.

"Get the van," I said.

She was already running down the back stairs.

She came back up in two minutes, pale.

"It won't start. I've been meaning to replace the battery for a month and a half. Of all the nights it could develop an opinion."

"Call a cab."

"The app says forty minutes."

I stood in the middle of the living room with my daughter against my chest and her breath coming fast and shallow.

On the notecard against the lamp, in my own block capitals, it said: Daniel is never alone with June.

It said nothing about the ER.

"He's seven minutes away," Kate said quietly.

I took out my phone.

He answered on the first ring.

"Lydia?"

"June has a fever. The van won't start."

"I'm coming."

He was there in six minutes.

The truck pulled up at the curb with its headlights still on.

Daniel jumped out in sweatpants and his county work jacket.

The car seat was already in his hands.

He didn't say anything about the rules.

He took the seat from the passenger side, and he checked the straps, and he held it open for me.

"Get in the back with her," he said. "I'll drive."

Kate climbed in beside me.

He took the corner onto Fulton Street too fast and then slowed, and kept slowing for every light.