It was close to the end of the year and the room grew colder with each passing day. Being young and naive, I wasn't aware that the weather contributed to this fact. It was mid november and Evelynn was almost a year old. I couldn't believe a year of listening to her cry, watching her learn the ways of "men", and giving me new smudges on my glass, had passed!
I could hear the excitement throughout the house getting ready for, what I now know to be, Thanksgiving. I heard the doors slam, voices laughing and yelling, watched kids chasing each other while running in and out of the room, and smelled a variety of amazing smells that I had never smelt before. Although it was an interesting experience, that was quite a lonely time for me. Not a lot of people came in the room and there was no one to entertain my purpose.
Close to the end of Thanksgiving day, Mommy was preparing Evelynn for bed. Evelynn was screaming at the top of her lungs, a sound I was used to, yet somehow that seemed different this time.
"What is wrong, Sweetie?," Mommy asked in a concerned voice.
She plopped Evelynn on the changing table and went to work on the grotesque task. Suddenly, I heard a gasp. Mommy had Evelynn's legs up, and was focused on something.
"Dan, can you come in here for a second?"
Daddy walked into the room, eating some leftover turkey.
"What's up?"
"Look at her back. That doesn't look like diaper rash. It found it on her neck too."
Mommy turned the screaming Evelynn on her side and showed Daddy the red marks.
"That looks serious." Daddy said with wide eyes, now oblivious to the turkey in his hand.
"Get a bag for her together and we will take her to the emergency room.," He said in a worried voice, as he rushed out of the room.
Mommy placed the howling and purple-faced Evelynn in her crib while running about the room, throwing things in a bag, tears flowing. I watched her do this for a while in confusion, before I realized Evelynn wasn't crying anymore. All I heard was the sound of raspy, weak, breathing. Mommy must have noticed too, because she flew across the room, lifted Evelynn out of her crib and made a face that I will never forget.
"DAN! DAN, HER LIPS ARE TURNING BLUE!," she screamed through her sobs, "OH MY GOD, SHE CAN'T BREATHE!"
She ran out of the room with the gasping Evelynn in her arms, leaving the bag behind, and leaving me to wonder why I felt heartbroken, when I didn't have a heart to begin with.