A Father's Day Tale

(Fair warning: do not read at meal times or if you have a weak stomach)

Today I sit alone on the wrong side of the world. But I was not alone two years ago on Father’s Day.

Jill, Ava, and I had arrived the previous evening at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, a few days into our epic road trip across the American West. We drove towards the chasm in the late afternoon, when the sun’s rays shine at that perfect angle and life is all radiance. Arriving just before the sun sank over the horizon, we saw the canyon’s grandeur in the light of an impressive sunset, and all was right with the world.

When the light left, we found our hotel in nearby Tusayan and proceeded to seek sustenance. There were very few options between fast food and overpriced steak, so we settled for a middle-priced buffet at a neighboring hotel, the Best Western Country Squire. The food was third-rate. Jill had the shrimp.

The next morning, Father’s Day, I awoke to the sound of Jill becoming sick in the hotel bathroom. The next few hours saw no improvement in her condition, although Ava was her normal bubbly self. Check-out time approached, and Jill was still near-comatose on the bed. Then came a knock at the door and an overweight middle-aged man appeared, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he informed us that we had to leave. He accepted no excuses, and so, thinking that Jill could lay in the car as well as she could lay here, I helped her as far as the hotel side exit, where she lost more of the previous evening’s meal.

Incensed at the behavior of the hotel employee, I carried Jill as far as the car, then stormed the front desk, not leaving until the room was comped and a hotel stay was arranged at a different hotel for that evening (it was clear by this time that we would not be hours down the road by dusk). Jill thought she was a little better, and so we moseyed up the road to the Rim, where I left Jill nursing a Gatorade while Ava and I took in the views.

It was only a few minutes before I got a call. “Come” was the only word spoken, and I obeyed. I found Jill slumped at the curb, her Gatorade on the pavement. At this point I knew I had been foolish for pressing ahead with the sightseeing and corrected course toward the emergency clinic.

After the obligatory wait and some form-filling, they took Jill to a little room, leaving me with Ava. Some time later they called me back to visit Jill. She was propped up in bed, sipping ice chips, and seemed fine although a little weak. I was asked to help move her to a sitting position, which I did, and as we did so, she became limp and slumped down, seeming to me stop breathing. I did not know how to react, and the extreme calm of the doctor did little to assure me that there was not something very wrong. In the moment, the thought struck me that Jill was dying. Everything moved in slow motion and the doctor’s assurances were unheard, as though I were deaf. In the next few moments, I did nothing rash, no doubt frozen. And then Jill came to, and my world started turning again.

Once my pulse receded to its normal rate and my ears opened and I knew that Jill was okay for the moment, I realized that the nurses who had kindly agreed to watch Ava for a moment probably needed relief. I made sure Jill was comfortable and truly alive, then headed out with a still-healthy Ava to grab some food, for somehow it had gotten to be mid-afternoon and neither of us had eaten a thing yet that day. We found the nearby McDonalds, and just as I pulled away from the drive-through, I looked back and my heart sank: Ava was losing her entire evening meal all over herself and her brand-new carseat. I did what any young dad would do: I panicked. At least internally. Ava was crying in a manner that told me exactly how bad she felt. I had nothing with me to clean up the very large mess other than a few baby wipes. I was alone with her among strangers, who all seemed to be rapidly walking away. I briefly thought of yelling for help, but nixed that idea; I thought of going inside to grab paper towels, but couldn’t because I would have had to leave Ava alone. So I simply pulled her out of her seat, took off her sodden clothes, and cleaned her up as best I could. A small miracle appeared in the form of her old car seat, still in the back of the van. I installed it, installed another outfit on her, dropped her in the seat, and headed back to the clinic.

No sooner had we hit the road then I once again looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that same awful sight. Ava had actually not emptied her stomach earlier and was finishing the job fully, this time in the other car seat. There was little to do besides hurry to the clinic and beg for help there. Our second patient was graciously accepted by the kind nurses, who no doubt recognized the panic and confusion on my face. A few minutes later she was comfortably resting in a room near her sleeping mother.

Knowing they were both well-cared for at the moment, I devoted the next hour to disassembling both car seats completely and washing them out. As it happens, the only sink available was in the emergency room of the clinic, so that’s where I was. Before the job was finished, Jill had joined me in the room, still in a semi-comatose state, her condition having not improved dramatically despite the four liters of fluid they had injected into her. Soon the staff was speaking in low voices to me about a possible ambulance trip to the nearest hospital, and I was making frantic calls to our insurance company trying to determine if that would steal our house downpayment. Thankfully, Jill rallied enough to qualify for parole just before closing time, and she leaned on me heavily as we staggered to the car.

That night in the hotel room, Jill had energy enough only to moan once in a while from the bed. Ava, on the other hand, had made a miraculous recovery and was dashing about the room in very high spirits. The only remnant of her sickness was the occasional pause followed by a dramatic dirtying of her diaper, the likes of which I have not seen before or since. Amongst all the day’s unpleasantness, the moment I came nearest to joining the festivities was on the changing of that diaper. But grace was sufficient and I finished the job with only olfactory discomfort.

Not too long later, both of them were sound asleep and I was wearily eating my first food of the day: an eight-hour-old McDonalds Southern-style chicken sandwich. I ate it with as much thanksgiving as I have any meal, watching my girls, thankful that they were alive and with me.