The Helper’s Harmony EP4
Chapter 4: "The Colic Conundrum"
Sarah’s Rule #4: If the Wi-Fi dies, assume the universe is testing you.
The microwave hummed like a spaceship, its turntable spinning a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream into a soupy galaxy. Lily pressed her nose against the glass. “It’s science, Mom! Phase changes!”
Sarah stared at the mess, Noah’s feverish whimpers syncopating with the rain. Her phone buzzed—a calendar alert: TODAY: Submit grant proposal by 5 PM.
“Tom!” she barked toward the living room, where flashlight beams danced to Lily’s improvised weather report. “Did you back up my files?”
“On it!” he called back, laptop balanced on a stack of cookbooks. “Though ‘backup’ might mean Lily uploaded them to her volcano YouTube channel…”
May hovered in the doorway, sterilized bottles clinking in a mixing bowl. “I can watch Noah if you need to work.”
Sarah hesitated. The last time she’d left Noah with May during a deadline, she’d returned to find them napping together in the laundry room—May’s nursing textbook pillowed under his head. “It calms him,” May had explained. “The heartbeat diagrams.”
A notification blared: NOAH’S PEDIATRICIAN – 3 PM. Sarah groaned. “I have a client call at 3:15. Can you—”
“I’ll take him,” Tom said, squinting at his shattered phone screen. “If I can Uber a carseat.”
“No, I need you fixing the Wi-Fi!” Sarah massaged her temples. “May—do you have your Myanmar driver’s license?”
May froze. “I… drove a hospital van. Once.”
Lightning flashed. The clock read 2:47 PM.
“Perfect,” Sarah lied.
3:12 PM: May parallel parked outside the pediatrician’s office with the precision of someone who’d dodged monsoon-season traffic in Yangon. Noah giggled in his carrier, mesmerized by windshield wipers.
“See? Natural talent,” Tom said from the backseat, untangling himself from Lily’s homemade seatbelt harness (a.k.a. jump ropes). “Better than Sarah’s parking.”
May checked the clinic’s address against three conflicting notes:
- Sarah’s text: 45 Maple Rd
- Tom’s scrawl: 54 Maple?
- Lily’s drawing: Castle w/ doctor flag
“This is 45,” May confirmed, eyeing the building’s non-castle-like architecture.
Inside, the receptionist frowned at her clipboard. “Chen… Chen… Ah, here. Lily Chen? Allergy consult?”
Tom paled. “No, Noah—Wait, Lily had an appointment?”
May’s stomach dropped. Sarah’s calendar screenshot on her phone clearly showed NOAH – 3 PM. But the clinic’s screen displayed LILY CHEN – 3 PM: PEANUT CHALLENGE TEST.
“Reschedule!” Tom lunged for the desk. “Our daughter can’t eat peanuts, that’s why we’re here!”
“Actually…” The receptionist squinted at her monitor. “Dr. Kapoor ordered this to rule out allergy progression. You confirmed via text.”
Tom pulled up his messages. A reply from Sarah’s number read: YES PROCEED.
“That wasn’t me!” Sarah’s voice crackled through Tom’s speakerphone. “I’m on hold with IT—wait, Lily’s at school!”
A wail pierced the chaos. Across the room, Lily sat clutching a cookie, her teacher rubbing her back. “She said it was a ‘science snack’!”
May moved before her brain caught up—years of ER triage surging through her veins. She snatched the epinephrine pen from Lily’s backpack (always in the left pocket, per Sarah’s rules) and checked the label. Expired.
“New one!” Tom tossed May his keychain—a mini EpiPen Sarah had insisted on after the kimchi incident.
Later, no one could agree on what happened next. The teacher swore May backflipped over a chair. Tom claimed he channeled his inner action hero. Lily would forever insist the cookie was “only half peanut.”
But when Dr. Kapoor reviewed the security footage, she noted two things:
- May administered the Epi with clinical precision.
- Tom’s “emergency chocolate” had melted into his shirt pocket.
5:33 PM: Sarah stared at her submitted grant proposal—a chaotic masterpiece emailed from Tom’s spam account. The Wi-Fi had resurrected just in time to auto-send her half-finished draft titled URBAN FARMING????.
May’s voice drifted from the nursery, singing a Burmese lullaby. Noah’s cries had softened to drowsy gurgles.
“She saved Lily,” Tom said, handing Sarah a wineglass full of grape juice (their one unbroken cup). “Like, actually saved her.”
Sarah watched May through the baby monitor—now inexplicably broadcasting a telenovela. “Why didn’t she tell us she’s trained for emergencies?”
“You didn’t ask.”
They sat in silence, listening to May’s song intertwine with Lily’s commentary: “...and then May did this ninja move! Can we take her to show-and-tell?”
Sarah pulled up the Helpertask website Tom had bookmarked weeks ago. Create recursive schedules… Share housing rules…
“We need to stop,” she whispered.
Tom raised his juice. “To May?”
“No. This.” She gestured to the fridge, where overlapping Post-it’s fluttered like sad confetti. “We’re drowning her in paper.”
May appeared in the doorway, Noah asleep on her shoulder. “It’s okay. I made a system.”
She opened her notebook to a color-coded chart even Sarah’s project manager heart admired:
- Green = Medical priorities
- Blue = Lily’s school needs
- Red = Sarah’s “universe collapses” tasks
“I based it on hospital shift plans,” May said. “But maybe… digital would be better?”
Sarah’s phone buzzed. A calendar alert: LILY’S SCIENCE FAIR – TOMORROW 10 AM.
Another buzz: NOAH’S 6-MONTH CHECKUP – TOMORROW 10 AM.
Another: CLIENT PITCH – TOMORROW 10 AM.
“Or,” Tom said, snatching the phone, “we could all use the same damn calendar.”