I had planned to take her to daycare, but an unexpected, urgent summons from my firm forced me to rush out the door. My husband, Mark, a man whose handsome, reassuring smile had been my anchor for seven years, smoothly took my frantic energy in stride. He poured his coffee, kissed my cheek, and offered to handle the morning drop-off.
“Don’t worry,” he had said, his voice a soothing baritone. “I’ve got her. Go save the corporate world.”
I kissed Ava’s sticky forehead, promising her we’d stop for chicken nuggets on the way home. It was the absolute last promise I ever made to my little girl.
Three hours later, the frantic phone call from her daycare teacher shattered my reality. Ava had collapsed. The ambulance was already rushing her to the emergency room. By the time Mark and I sprinted through the sliding glass doors of the hospital, the doctors were already fighting a losing battle.
They couldn’t bring her back.
The head pediatrician, his eyes heavy with a sorrow he had clearly seen too many times, explained that Ava had suffered a catastrophic, acute allergic reaction. Anaphylaxis.
