The greatest love

THREE

Allison

Allison alternated between sitting and crying and pacing the waiting room in the hospital. Her husband had his head in his hands. He had dropped off Timothy at his sister's place earlier. His sister was the only person outside the family who could take care of Timothy. It had been over an hour since Maddie was brought in and they were still waiting while the doctors worked on Maddie. They told her they were neutralizing the poison inside her stomach, but there hasn’t been any updates since.

Allison tried her best to answer the doctor's questions. No, she did not know how many pills Maddie had taken, but she thought the bottle had been at least half full. No, she did not know how long ago Maddie had taken the medicines, but it could not have been more than an hour and a half. Yes, Maddie was alone in the house and she knows where the medicines are kept, but she was a responsible kid and she was never left alone for more than two hours. Allison felt wrecked with guilt. She had no idea that her daughter had problems or was feeling depressed. Is it possible for an eleven year old to feel depressed? Did she leave her alone too much? Maddie looks and acts grown up, but maybe she is still a child inside.

Out of nowhere, Jonah suddenly stood up and spoke loudly.

“Why did she do it, Allie? Is she having problems at school? Is she being bullied? Are you sure she never said anything? I read about this once, you know, it said that nowadays bullying can start as young as six year olds.”

“I don’t know why, Jonah. I wish she had told me about what she was going through. But you know Maddie, every time I asked her questions about school, about her friend, she just said it's fine, everything is fine. I wish I had pushed her more, but I never thought anything like this could happen to our girl.”

Jonah shook his head. “You never should have left her alone for so long, every single day.”

“That is not fair and you know it. I can’t possibly take Maddie to Timothy's therapy every day. She wouldn’t want to come anyway. She has school work, study groups, playdates and whatever. And she could have done this at night when everyone was sleeping and we wouldn't have found her until morning,” retorted Allison.

“Ehm, excuse me.”

The doctor who had been treating Maddie showed up in front of them. They didn’t realize they had been shouting at each other and felt embarrassed to have been witnessed. Immediately they both turned to the doctor.

“Yes, doctor. How is Maddie? Is she okay?”

“She is stable now. We managed to pump out most of the drugs from her system. She is still unconscious now. We put her to sleep because her body is still recovering. We will wean her off the medication slowly from tomorrow morning. She would be starting to come to in the afternoon. And she might be feeling dizzy or nauseous for a while. It’s all perfectly normal. Please be gentle with her when asking her questions. Full recovery will take about two days.” After a pause, he said, “She is very lucky you found her when you did. Another half hour and it could have been fatal. She ingested more than five times the maximum dose at any one time.”

After the doctor left, Allison and her husband hugged each other. The fight seemed to have left them. They cried in relief that their daughter was going to be okay. What is most important is that they were going to be there for their daughter from now on and help her get through this, whatever she was going through.