Does he sleep? Or does he just slide into that hallucinogenic middle-space, where dreaming and waking blend? It could be either: there's no difference, that night, between nightmares and reality.
All he knows for sure is that time passes. Maybe he sleeps or maybe he only blinks, but the next time he opens his eyes the sun is up and his lungs are empty.
Peter sits up. He doesn't want to; he wants to never move again. He wants to sink into the floor and disappear, because he has no idea how he is supposed to move forward after what happened last night—
(bad things)
—but he can't. Because as soon as he comes back to consciousness, Peter is bowled over by the worst asthma attack he's had since he was little. It' s worse than the wheezing episodes he used to have at Ben's; worse, even, than the attack he had at the Arlingtons. He can only draw in tiny shots of air, barely even a mouthful at a time.
So Peter sits up. He gropes along his bedside table for his inhaler. It isn't there.
There's only one other place it could be, only one other place he keeps it, but as soon as he realizes this, rather than get out of bed, Peter doubles over, closes his eyes, and tries to urge the air into his lungs by force of will.
His inhaler is in his backpack. His backpack is in the entranceway near the living room, where he dropped it last night when he went to help put the girls to bed. If he wants to retrieve it he will have to walk through the kitchen, where he can hear the tinkling sound of the girl ' s voices mingled with the deeper sound of Skip's.
He can't go out there.
Doubling over doesn't work. Peter stands up. He pounds on his chest, tries to cough. Goes to the window and opens it — sticks his head out, even stares down the long length of the fire escape. He would never make it. The air won't come.
Dizzy, his fingertips tingling, Peter stumbles out of his room.
It's the same scene he's woken up to every morning since he came to live with Skip: the girls at the table, sitting on stacks of cushions to reach their plates. Skip, standing over the stove and still wearing his pajama bottoms as he stirs eggs in the pan. Only this time Peter sees Skip ' s shoulders tense when he hears Peter come in. Skip doesn't turn around.
Lily, on the other hand, perks up in her seat.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," she says. "You're late, we already ate so much."
Peter can't respond. He's stalled out at the spot where the kitchen tile meets the hardwood, his vision blotting at the edges, his breath coming so thin now it's barely making a sound. He stands there, swaying and clutching his chest, until Lily's face falls. "Daddy?" she says, uncertain. Then, louder, higher, "Daddy!"
At last Skip turns around. For a second Peter swears there is a hint of disgust in his expression, and then he catches sight of Peter ' s face — lips blue, cheeks gray—and just like Lily his own face falls.
Skip starts forward and Peter staggers back. Skip freezes. On his face, unmistakable — an expression of remorse. He doesn't come any closer.
"Where's your inhaler?" he says.
Peter ' s next breath whistles. He points toward the entranceway.
Skip rushes off in that direction, and as soon as he's out of the kitchen Peter can't hold himself up any longer. He trips back toward the table and collapses into one of the chairs, folded over double, trying to stay calm because he knows panic will only make things worse, but that's the Catch-22 of asthma — not breathing causes panic causes not breathing and on and on—
(and there is a weight on top of you, it's holding you down, and there's a hand on your mouth and breath on your neck and you could have seen this coming because bad things just happen and you should have known you have to take care of yourself Peter you have to)
— and
just for a second, Peter wonders if it would be so bad if he couldn't take another breath.
If he just… stopped.
There is a hand on his back.
Peter flinches, but it's not Skip. It's Lily. She's gotten out of her chair and is standing next to him, eyes shining with tears, tiny palm on his shoulder. To his left, Emma stands just a little further away, not touching but looking just as terrified as her sister.
Peter takes Lily's hand.
Somehow, he smiles at Emma.
And then Skip is back.
He shoos the girls away. In place of Lily's hand, he gives Peter his inhaler. His throat is too constricted to allow the first puff of albuterol through, so Peter has to hold it in his mouth, letting it work its way into his lungs slowly, loosening his chest until he can take another puff, this one fuller.
With the first real lungful of air, Peter' s eyes start to burn. He forces the tears back—there's no chance he's doing this in front of Skip, and even less of a chance he'll do it in front of the girls — but Skip seems to see it anyway, even as Peter turns his head to avoid Skip's eye.
"Girls," he says softly, "go to your room."
"Is he okay?" says Emma.
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