When we got there, Miley and Oliver were waiting for us on the couch. Both were wet, I'd figured they had been in the water while they were down on the beach, and both were munching on a large bowl of chips they'd gotten out of the cupboard.
"Where have you been?" Miley asked me when she noticed that Lily and I entered the house. "You've been gone for hours, and you didn't leave a note or anything."
I laughed, and handed Lily the bag of prescriptions before I tried getting into the kitchen, "Try an hour." I told Miley, taking a chip from the bowl, "And I'm sorry about not leaving a note, we might have been in a rush."
"A rush?" Oliver asked, speaking for the first time, noticing Lily holding the white bag and realizing that it was medicine, "What happened?"
I shrugged, and tried to get off the subject, "How was the beach?"
Miley took the bowl into her lap when I stole another chip and looked up at me, "It was good." She told me, eating a chip, and then handing it over to Oliver, "We went body surfing, and just hung out."
"Sounds good," I added before I went into the kitchen, got an apple and walked into my office. Keeping the door open so that I could hear what the kids were talking about.
Before I knew it, the time told me that I should start making dinner. I sighed, and got up from where I was sitting at my computer, and walked in on Oliver, Miley and Lily watching television and throwing chips around at each other, making a mess at where they were sitting. I walked up, into the throwing range and attempted to yell over the noise.
"What do you guys want for dinner?" I asked, getting at least Lily to pay attention. I tried again, "Oliver I think you should call your parents, are you staying over tonight?" Oliver stopped at his name, but hadn't heard the rest of the sentence, I had to try again. "Call your parents," I told Oliver pointing to the phone.
"Could we have pasta for dinner Mr. S?" Lily asked, once Oliver got up from the couch. I nodded, and walked away from the mess, hoping that Miley and Lily would clean it up for me.
I turned around, after I was done cooking dinner, and found that the mess wasn't much better, and that Miley and Lily had abandoned the area. I looked around, Oliver was still on the phone with his parents, and Miley and Lily were no where to be seen. Before I began to look into it even more, I heard giggles from upstairs and I knew they were up there.
"Could you tell them dinner's ready?" I asked Oliver once he was off the phone. Oliver nodded, hearing the giggles as well and running up to find the girls – appearing again a couple minutes later. "They'll be down in a minute." I nodded, and watched Oliver sit down and pick up a bowl of pasta, "May I start?" He asked, pointing to the bowl with a fork. I nodded, and Oliver thanked me before he dug in.
"Now were the girls talking about their time," I asked Oliver, grabbing my own bowl. "Or mine?"
Oliver shrugged, "I can't read their minds." I laughed taking a bite of my own pasta, Oliver started again, "What really happened this afternoon?"
I looked up at where Miley's room was upstairs, as if I could see through the floorboards and turned to Oliver again, "Lily had an infection." I whispered so that Miley couldn't overhear. "Just a small one, we got antibiotics and they should help."
Unfortunately for me, I was wrong. The antibiotics Lily was taking had given her an allergic reaction, worse than the infection had been. Two days later, I was woken up by Miley at 2 in the morning, because Lily was in pain. Miley didn't know why, but she knew that Lily was in trouble and didn't ask any questions.
"I'll be right there," I told Miley almost immediately as she woke me up. "Just give me a minute to get some things from the kitchen." Miley nodded, and ran away as fast as she could back upstairs.
When I met Miley upstairs in Lily's room the light was on, and Miley was at her side. I walked over to where Lily was, she was grasping for breath – her face and neck swollen to almost twice its normal size.
"She's having an allergic reaction," I told Miley, trying to calm her down to the point where she could call the ambulance without breaking down. "Call 911," Miley nodded, and ran the closest phone. By the time she came back, Jackson was sleepily coming into the room. I looked up at my son, who was rubbing his eyes to get rid of the sleep. "Can you take care of Miley while Lily and I are at the hospital?" I asked Jackson, who nodded, and sat down with Miley on the bed where I was currently holding on to Lily.
It wasn't long until the ambulance attendants walked into the room with a stretcher in tow. And by the time Lily was on the stretcher, Miley was begging in tears that she come with us to the hospital. Regrettably, I couldn't let Miley come, and I had to keep saying no.
Lily was wheeled out of the room quickly, an oxygen mask over her head, I leaned over to speak to Miley before I left, "I promise Lily will be okay." I told Miley in a rush to get into the ambulance. "We'll most likely be back before you get home from school, just go back to bed and get Jackson to drive you to school a little late if you want to." Miley nodded, and so did Jackson. "You don't even have to go to school if don't want to. But we'll be fine at the hospital." Miley smiled through her tears, and hugged me before I bolted out of the room to meet the attendants outside in the driveway where the ambulance was already set up, the lights already flashing red and blue over the house.