“Hello, Pumpkin,” Brian said, using one of his many endearing nicknames for her. She didn’t respond or even move. “Camila said you weren’t feeling well. Can you tell me what’s wrong? Do you have a sore throat or is your stomach upset?” There was no response. “Camila said you had a chill, is that right?” Still no response.
Brian put his palm on Juliette’s forehead, and she felt warm to him. “How about coming back to the kitchen and we’ll watch something, whatever you want? We’ll watch it together. What do you think? Is that a good idea?” Juliette didn’t move or answer. He looked back at Camila, who shrugged her shoulders as if to say “I told you so.” Redirecting his attention back to Juliette, Brian said: “I want to take your temperature again. Should we do it here or in the kitchen?”
“I want my mommy,” Juliette whispered just loud enough for him to hear, and it melted his heart.
“I know you do, Pumpkin,” Brian whispered back. “I miss her, too, but Mommy is in heaven. I’m here and someone else is coming who wants to meet you. Are you okay with that?”
When Juliette didn’t respond or move, he gave her shoulder a squeeze just to make contact. “Okay, I’ll get the thermometer, and I’ll be right back.”
Chapter 21
September 1
Jeanne, Camila, and Brian stepped out of Juliette’s room, and all three hesitated at the top of the main staircase. Both Brian and Camila had been impressed with the creative way that Jeanne had managed to interact with Juliette and gotten her to talk. What she’d done was first engage Bunny as if Bunny was the one suffering, telling Bunny that as a little girl, she had a very similar rabbit friend who was so important to her that she’d brought her to America. Jeanne had then asked Juliette if she could hold Bunny, and to Brian’s and Camila’s surprise, Juliette had handed her the floppy stuffed rabbit.
“Oh, poor Bunny,” she had said, stroking its head. “No wonder she’s not feeling well. She’s missing one of her eyes.”
“But she can see fine,” Juliette responded. With that little exchange Jeanne had started a conversation and had been able to switch the topic to Juliette’s symptoms. Within a relatively short time she was able to get the child to admit to a sore throat, a headache, and an upset stomach.
“You certainly have a way with children,” Camila observed.
“Thank you,” she said. “I had a lot of practice being a school psychologist.”
“So, what do you think?” Brian asked.
“I do think Juliette is experiencing psychosomatic symptoms, but I’m a little concerned she might also actually be sick,” Jeanne said. “The fever issue is what bothers me. You say you confirmed her temperature is elevated?”
“I did,” he said. “I took it again just before you got here. It’s 100.8, which I guess is just over borderline. She has a fever, but not much of one.”
“Whether it’s a fever is beyond my expertise. I’m hardly a doctor, but tell me this: Is there any chance she might have been exposed to the coronavirus? I hate to say it, but there is a very slight chance she could have Covid.”
“Not while I’ve been with her,” Brian said. “And not here in the house.” He looked at Camila questioningly.
“Certainly not here in the house,” Camila said. “We haven’t had any visitors, aside from the medical personnel yesterday, and they were in full protective gear. And I can’t imagine when she could have been exposed on the few times she and I have gone out since Emma was hospitalized. On those occasions we only went to Emerson Playground or Isham Park, and she didn’t socialize and wore her mask. But you know, thinking about how she has been acting makes me think she hasn’t been feeling well for some time.”
“I agree,” Brian said. “Ever since my wife got sick, and Juliette saw her have a seizure, she hasn’t been herself.”
“Well, if we have learned anything over the last eight months, coronavirus spreads remarkably easily in certain situations,” Jeanne remarked. “My advice is that she should at least be seen by her pediatrician. Does she have one?”
“Of course,” he said. “Dr. Rajiv Bhatt on Broadway. Let’s go down to the office, and I’ll give him a call.”
Brian led while the others followed. As they filed in, he turned on the light.
“A nice touch,” Jeanne said as she glanced around. “I haven’t been in too many offices with a crystal chandelier.”
“It was a formal dining room that my wife and I turned into an office for our security business,” Brian explained as he gestured for Jeanne to take one of several side chairs.
“I’m going to get some coffee and then check on Juliette to make sure she is still sleeping,” Camila said. “Does anyone want anything from the kitchen?”
“I’m good,” Brian called out as he searched his contacts for Dr. Bhatt’s office number.
“Thank you, but I’m fine, too,” Jeanne said with a wave.
As the call went through, he looked over at his visitor, who was still dressed in her biking clothes. “You look like you are an avid biker,” he said. “My wife and I were, too.”
“It was the one sport my husband and I did together.”
Brian raised his hand to indicate his call had connected. He listened but didn’t speak, then quickly disconnected and put the phone down. “Busy,” he said.
“Camila seems very committed to your daughter,” Jeanne said.
“She is. Unbelievably so. I am so lucky to have her. We hired her because of her business background, but she ended up moving in with us because of the pandemic. Since then she’s become family in a very real way. I truly don’t know what I’d do if she were to decide to leave.”
“I hope you aren’t offended by my asking,” she said, “and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I’m intrigued by you saying that you and your wife had a security business. What’s your background to have that kind of expertise?”
“We were both New York City policemen,” Brian explained. “But more importantly we both were graduates of the Emergency Service Unit Academy and then served as ESU officers for a combined total of ten years, which is an extraordinary amount of law enforcement experience between the two of us.”
“Excuse my ignorance, but I’m not familiar with ESU,” Jeanne said.
“It stands for Emergency Service Unit. It’s like special forces with the military. Whenever the NYPD are confronted with someone dangling off a skyscraper or a bridge, an active shooter, a hostage situation, a mass casualty event like 9/11, or even serving a high-risk warrant, we were the ones who were called to take care of it.”
“You mean you were a member of a SWAT team?”
“Special Weapons and Tactics was just one small aspect of our role,” he said. “ESU training was really extensive and intense. We were cross-trained in multiple disciplines and immersed in SCUBA, negotiation tactics, jumping out of helicopters, EMT requirements, you name it. My wife, Emma, was one of very few women who took the training. It was very physical to say the least.”
“My word. It sounds to me like you are overtrained to do mere personal security.”
“That was the idea. We thought we’d be in high demand with our backgrounds. It’s just that the timing turned out to be problematic thanks to Covid-19.” He raised his phone. “Let me try the pediatrician again.”
Brian redialed and listened. He listened for longer than Jeanne expected without speaking and then let out a sigh of frustration before disconnecting. “Damn, he’s on vacation!”