Posting later than I wanted tonight. But it's another long chapter!
"You settled in over there?" Eddie asked after she finished helping the hospital orderly buckle Jamie into the passenger seat of the RMP. As expected, after an hour and a half, Jamie had shown enough improvement in his symptoms that the hospital had released him, but he was still drowsy and unsteady on his feet.
"Wrong side," he mumbled. "This's your side. 'm the driver."
"Well, you're not driving today, so get comfortable over there in the passenger seat," Eddie informed her partner.
"Got to drive. You don't… don't know where my place is," Jamie insisted.
"Do too," Eddie informed her partner as she pulled away from the hospital entrance. "I have your address, and a smart phone with Google Maps and street-level view. Big brick house on the corner, with white trim and wood columns. That's a nice place, Reagan."
"That's Dad's place. Not mine."
"Well, that's where we're going. The doctor says you need to be observed for the next few hours, and your grandfather's available."
Jamie sighed and slumped back against the seat. "Don't need them fussing," he muttered.
"Reagan, come on. Learn to appreciate that big family of yours," Eddied teased. "So, when did you first find out you were allergic to olives?" Eddie asked her partner, in an attempt to keep him awake.
"I was six. Almost seven."
"Six, really? I didn't think many kids that age even ate olives."
"I didn't," Jamie mumbled. "Ask Danny. His fault."
"Your brother Danny? What did he do?" When Jamie didn't respond, Eddie quickly glance his direction. Well she wasn't going to get any more info out of him – he was asleep again. But that also meant he couldn't complain about her driving. She stepped on the accelerator, bringing the car right up to the speed limit for the remainder of their trip.
==BB==BB==
Thanks to her speedy driving it wasn't long before she was pulling to a stop in front of the Reagan home. "Okay, Reagan. We're here." She lightly punched her partner in the arm to wake him up.
"I'm just gonna stay here and sleep," Jamie mumbled. "Too much trouble to get inside."
Eddie walked around the car and pulled Jamie to his feet. "C'mon, Reagan. I'm sure your grandfather has a nice sofa inside all set up for you to crash on." She led him up the front walk to the door, where Henry Reagan was waiting for them.
"Welcome, Officer Janko," Henry greeted them. "Right this way. I've got a sofa, pillow and blanket all ready for this guy."
"Wanna go upstairs to my bed," Jamie mumbled.
"And who's going to help you up those stairs?" Henry retorted. "You'll go lie down in the solarium." He moved to Jamie's side and helped Eddie lead him to the comfortable sofa he'd prepared. Despite his small protest earlier, Jamie offered no resistance to their lying him down on the sofa and Henry draping the blanket over him, and he was asleep again seconds later. "Now, Officer Janko, I insist you stay for a cup of coffee," Henry told the young officer as they headed back toward the front of the house.
"Oh, no, I couldn't," Eddie replied. "Got to get back to work."
"Nonsense. You've been working all afternoon. I bet it's time for a coffee break, and a homemade chocolate chip cookie."
"Well, if you have homemade chocolate chip cookies…" Eddie relented.
"I do. They're in the kitchen." Henry motioned for Eddie to follow him. A few minutes later, they were seated at the table in the cozy kitchen with mugs of coffee and cookies.
Eddie looked around the room. "This is a nice kitchen," she commented before taking a bite of her cookie.
"It's Francis' wife's doing. Mary remodeled it just a few years before she passed. She and my Betty spent many happy hours in here." Henry sipped his coffee.
"So, this is where Reag… where Jamie grew up?"
"Francis, Mary and the kids moved in when he was just a few months old. It's the only home he remembers."
"That must be nice, growing up in one house." Her own childhood had been spent moving numerous times from one house to a progressively larger and more extravagant house. Until that terrible day when her father's schemes had been exposed and it all came crashing down.
"These walls do hold a lot of memories," Henry commented.
"Speaking of that, how did you find out Jamie was allergic to olives? I asked him, and all I got out of him before he fell asleep was that it was somehow Danny's fault."
"Well, that came a few years later. It started when he was four. He was one of those children who liked to explore the world by tasting it, which led to him swallowing a variety of small objects…"
"Really?" Eddie interrupted.
"Oh, yes. Get him to tell you about that sometime. It's a talent that probably saved his life a few years ago. But back to the olives… One day, little Jamie swallowed his mother's pearl earrings and sent himself right to the hospital. After that, Mary tried to redirect Jamie's attention to things he actually should swallow by leaving small plates of fruits and veggies out for him. He'd gobble them right up; everything she left out."
"So, that's why he likes the veggies so much," Eddie commented. "That was his lunch today, you know. Salad."
"Hm. I'd heard he does that." Henry shook his head at his grandson's food choices. "Like I said, Jamie would eat anything Mary set out for him. Well, one day, Mary left him a plate of black olives slices, carefully arranged in a little smiley face. Near as we can tell, the boy chewed on a few of them, spit most of them right back out, and rearranged the smiley face into a frowny one."
"Did he have that allergic reaction then? That must have been so scary for a four year old!"
"No, that didn't happen for a few more years. Looking back, the docs said that was the initial exposure that set him up to have an allergic reaction the next time. He ate just enough of the olives for his body to realize it was allergic to the things. But that next time, he was six, I think… That was a scary day for all of the kids."
==BB==BB==
"Hey, Grandma's here!" Joe called out as Danny turned the car around the corner on the last leg of their trip home from school.
Jamie sat up straighter in the back seat and strained to see for himself. "Do you think she brought cookies today?" He loved days when Grandma came to visit, since she always brought something homemade and yummy, or helped Mommy bake something at home. They'd let him help sometimes, last year when he was in morning kindergarten and home by lunchtime. Grandma would give him one of the first cookies fresh out of the oven, or let him lick the cake frosting right off the beaters…
"Jamie, leave the seat belt alone until Danny stops the car," Joe reminded his little brother.
Jamie moved his hand away from the seat belt latch he hadn't even realized he was touching. But as soon as Danny turned into the driveway, he unbuckled the belt, grabbed his backpack and ran for the back door.
"Hi, Grandma!" Jamie called to his grandmother as he ran through the door into the kitchen. "Hi… Mommy?" his voice trailed off as he noticed his grandfather was there also and that they both had arms wrapped around his mother, and that she looked really upset. "Mommy?"
Mary pulled away and knelt down. "Come here, my boy." She hugged Jamie tight as soon as he got close enough.
"Mom, what's wrong? Grandpa?" Danny demanded from the door as the older Reagan children entered the kitchen.
"Jamie, your Daddy had a little accident at work this afternoon. He's at the hospital. I'm about to go see him and make sure he's okay, and Grandma Betty is going to watch out for you until we get back," Mary explained to her children.
"How bad?" Danny asked.
Henry fixed a look on his grandson, warning him to not ask too many questions that might upset the younger children. "Your father pulled a little girl out of the way of a speeding car this afternoon. They don't know for sure; he was either grazed by the car or hurt something jumping out of the way. I've been told it's not serious, but the hospital needs your mother there."
"I wanna come with you!" Jamie almost cried. "Please?"
"Yeah, me too," Danny chimed in. Erin and Joe quickly added their own "me too's" to Danny's.
"Jamie, you need to stay here with your Grandma," Mary told her son. She stood up and gently nudged him toward Betty. "Danny, Erin, Joe, the three of you also. You need to get your homework done and your dinner on schedule. Be good for Grandma, okay?"
"Yes, Mommy," Jamie mumbled between sniffles as he hugged his grandmother.
"Betty, I'll call when I know something." With that, Henry led Mary out the front door of the house.
==BB==BB==
"And that was just the start of Jamie's very bad afternoon," Henry concluded. "Danny, would you like to take over now and explain how you made your brother have an allergic reaction? He was here for the next part," Henry explained to Eddie.
"Oh, the kid's still blaming me for that?" Danny Reagan stated with a smirk.
Eddie looked behind her. "Detective Reagan! When did you get here?"
Danny shrugged "Couple of minutes ago. Came in the front door; checked on my kid brother. Smelled the cookies in here…" Danny grabbed up one of said cookies and stuffed most of it in his mouth.
"Manners, Detective," Henry scolded. "There's a lady present."
Danny swallowed the huge bite of cookie. "So, after Mom and Grandpa left, Grandma got us all settled in there," Danny pointed to the adjacent dining room, "working on our homework. Of course, Jamie, being a first-grader, only had one little math worksheet to do…"
==BB==BB==
3 + 5 = ?
Jamie stared at the numbers on the page until they blurred out as more tears filled his eyes. He scribbled down the number nine, then rethought that answer. It was eight. He knew that. Why couldn't he get any of the questions right today? He turned his pencil over and tried to erase the wrong answer. The damp paper shredded instead. In frustration, he slammed the pencil down hard. "This isn't working! I hate math!"
"Maybe if you'd quit blubbering and focus, you'd be done already," Danny snipped at his baby brother. The kid had no right to complain about simple arithmetic; not while he was over here trying to calculate the area of a cone for his geometry class.
"Danny, don't be mean to Jamie," Erin looked up from her history homework to scold her brother.
"Erin, don't try to be Mom," Danny snipped back at his sister.
"Can you two stop it already? You're just making everything worse!" Joe loudly snapped at both his older siblings. "Jamie's already upset…"
"Am not!" Jamie insisted. He crossed his arms on the table and put his head down on his arms so nobody could see him almost crying.
The ringing of the telephone interrupted the argument. As soon as they heard their grandmother answer it, the three older Reagan children quieted down and strained to hear what she was saying. Only a minute later, Betty stepped into the room, a small smile on her face.
"Grandma, did you hear from Mom or Grandpa?" Joe asked.
"Good news, children. That was you grandfather on the phone. Your father is going to be fine. The doctor says he pulled a muscle in his back that will heal up soon with a little medicine and a lot of rest."
"Are Mommy and Daddy coming home now?" Jamie asked hopefully.
"Sweetie, not just yet. The doctor wants your Daddy to stay overnight at the hospital, and your Mommy is going to stay with him."
"Oh." Jamie shoulders slumped. "I need Mommy to help me with my math."
Betty looked at Jamie's ruined math worksheet. Clearly, it wasn't just math that Jamie needed his mother for. "Jamie, why don't you help me with some math instead? I'm going to make some of your Daddy's favorite cookies, so he'll have them when he comes home tomorrow, and I could use an assistant to help with the measuring. Come along."
Jamie quickly hopped out of his chair and ran to his grandmother's side. "Okay!"
"Oh, and your grandfather is coming back home later and is insisting on bringing pizzas for dinner. He's going to call back in an hour to find out what toppings to get on it."
"Sausage!" Joe called out.
"Cheese and pepperoni!" Jamie added. "And nothing else."
"No, green peppers also," Erin threw in her preference.
"And black olives." Danny added.
"Ugh, no olives!" Jamie insisted.
"Yes, olives!" Danny insisted back. "At least on my pizza. Lots of olives."
==BB==BB==
"And that's why, a few hours later, I came home with one pizza that was half pepperoni and half sausage, and one that was meat and veggies. Including those olives Danny wanted," Henry added to the end of Danny's retelling of the story.
Danny nodded. "And little Jamie asked for a slice of my pizza, and you can probably figure out what happened next…"
To be continued...