"What is wrong with Blaine?" 10 years old and concerned Cooper asked to his very tired mom.

"I don't know!" Vivian Anderson answered, harsher than she intended to.

Cooper immediately stopped asking questions and returned to his drawing. Still, he was wondering why his 6 months old brother had been screaming and crying for the past two days, leaving the Anderson household exhausted and with raw nerves. While coloring, Cooper wondered why his dad was still away from the house and not back yet from his business trip. Charles Anderson always was good at making Blaine happy with silly faces and weird noises and Cooper knew his mom needed his dad right now.

Vivian looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. She had tried to call Charles' hotel several times and yet, she couldn't reach him. Worn-out and on the verge of tears herself, Vivian put Blaine back in the little bassinet they kept in the kitchen for when Vivian wanted to keep Blaine at sight but needed to do something else. She was running out of ideas. She tried to sing to Blaine all her repertory, to rock him in the chair she kept in the nursery. His diaper was clean and he refused to drink or eat anything. She even tried to make him sleep by driving for hours and spending half a tank of gas. But nothing was effective. All she knew was that Blaine still had a bit of a fever, Tylenol wouldn't work, and nothing seemed to soothe him. He still had cold hands and feet even if he was encased in a winter pyjama in the middle of July. Vivian didn't know what to do anymore.

When she finally resolved herself to go to the hospital, Cooper was kneeling near the cradle, gently petting his brother's head, talking and trying to calm him down.

"I would cry like that too if I had fell on my head..." Cooper murmured softly.

"What?" Vivian nearly screamed at her older son. Was Cooper really behind Blaine's discomfort or did he knew something that he was not telling his mom?

"It's just - Blaine - He - He has a bump on his head!" the boy stammered, scared of the nearly mad look in his mother's eyes.

This was it. She told Cooper to write a note to his father to let him know that they were leaving for Columbus' Child Hospital.  After that, Vivian ran all around the house, gathering all she needed to attend both her sons needs in the next few hours.  Diapers and bottles for Blaine and something to distract Cooper, maybe his Gameboy color. She also called one last time to Charles' hotel, leaving him a last message, telling him that they're going to be at the hospital and to meet them as soon as possible.

After a forty minutes drive from Marysville to Columbus, Vivian took restless Blaine in her arms and ordered Cooper to follow with the backpack she had given him earlier.

They entered the hospital, little Cooper worried for his brother and Vivian wishing her worst assumptions were wrong.

---

After hours in airports and planes, Charles Anderson was sitting in a taxi, rubbing his eyes. He hadn't sleep in nearly 36 hours. How could he? As soon as he learned that his youngest son was admitted in hospital, with what might me a deathly disease according to his wife, he cleared his agenda and took the first plane back in the United States.

He knew his wife and his boys wouldn't wait for him in the airport, as usual, and with a pinch in the heart, he took a cab, asking the driver to go straight to the hospital. He did not want to go home, to a empty house. He wanted to see his family, wanted to see if they were alright.

He quickly paid the cab driver quickly, wondering if he took out a fifty or a hundred dollars bill, and entered the hospital. He went directly to the front desk, not talking to anyone else, nearly making a maintenance man fall on the floor. He ask for Anderson with a nervous voice, praying that the nurse would not say that Blaine was in ICU. It would be too late for a visit. Unfortunately for him, this was exactly where Blaine was. The nurse told him that Vivian and Cooper were in a small waiting room, adjacent from the unit.

When he finally arrived with his crooked tie and his strained shirt in the tiny waiting room, he saw his wife, sleeping in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a corner, Cooper in her arms. Him too was asleep with his head on his mother's chest. For the first time since he left Auckland, he smiled a bit. More from relief than from happiness. He allowed himself to fall down on the chair besides Vivian and took her hand, careful not to wake her up, only to be reminded that Blaine wasn't even there with them, that he was being kept in a nursery under constant observation...

While stoking his wife's hand with his thumb, he seriously thought that they could get through this together.

---

After hours of waiting and countless numbers of tests, Vivian's fears were proved true ; Blaine was diagnose with a Meningitis. The infant was still in Intensive Care Unit ; the hospital didn't dare take a chance with him being so small with such a dangerous illness. Vivian and Charles were taking turns to be with him, even if he would not remember. Cooper, being underage, was not allowed in the ward.

After a massive amount of antibiotics, countless days in hospitals and several tantrums from Cooper who didn't want to leave the waiting room to go at his grand-parents house, Blaine's doctor went to speak to the Andersons.

Susan Mason was in her mid-forties and, apparently, she had seen everything and nothing was alarming enough for her to be afraid. With her boring tone, she explained that Blaine was now free to go home but that unfortunately, with him being only 6 months old, they could not measure the extent of the damage done to his brain. It could go from epilepsy to mental disabilities. Deafness was possible too. They had to wait and see how Blaine's development would go as he was growing up.

---

Time flew by and Blaine continued to grow up without any signs of seizures. At 18 months old, Blaine liked to play with his toys and with the cauldrons from the bottom left kitchen cabinet. He was a happy kid but both Charles and Vivian knew that something was not right in their child's development. They could never capture his attention in other ways than touching him. He wouldn't be mimicking sounds like Cooper was at this age. But still, they had to wait. He was still too young and who knows, maybe it was normal. Not every kid were developing at the same pace, right?

A year later, when Blaine was two and a half years old, the Anderson family had to go through another line of tests for Blaine. He still wasn't talking and this was causing trouble for him into communicating what he wanted. This was the worst part for the Andersons. Vivian and Charles wanted to help Blaine so badly but could not. Cooper was longing for a brother to play with but the twelve years old kid did not have enough patience to put up with Blaine. Anyway, he could not explain to him all the rules to his complicated games.

They had to see neurologists and audiologists and psychiatrists. The appointments were often delayed and occasional. They had a lot of mileage to do, trying to be sure to meet with the best specialists they could all around the State. Their mind was finally put at rest on what was going on with their son six months after the beginning of this second whirlwind. Blaine didn't have any intellectual disability, nor was he proven autistic. He wasn't suffering from epilepsy either.

The final verdict : Blaine was deaf. Even if this was kind of a relief to the Andersons, the worst scenarios having been rejected, another battle would begin.

---

"Can you pass me the bread, please" Blaine asked from his place at the table.

"Sure, there you go, honey!" his mom responded, handing him the basket containing the buns.

Even with his hearing impairment, Blaine was able to do all the things he wanted. At first, Charles and Vivian had been devastated to learn that it would never be able for Blaine to hear again, even with surgery or cochlear implants. Then they decided that they would work with him. From this moment, they tried to get him as many opened doors as possible. They never wanted him to go to a special school. They preferred to find ways to adapt school to him and it was working ; Blaine's grades were above average. Every teacher were giving Blaine an outline of the class he was attending. He also had some extra homework to do but he was keeping up with the pace. All the Anderson family was also grateful for Billie Hillard, a genius speech-language pathologist. Because of her dedication, Blaine was able to speak. She worked with the boy for years to finally make him able to talk out loud and also helping him to get over the shyness caused by the weird accent he knew he had. Of course, it was not his favorite way of communicating, mostly using it at home and with his teachers, but it was still something that Blaine would be grateful  to have learned later, his parents were sure of it. Blaine was more fluent  and at ease with the American Sign Language, since started attending workshops at the age of four. Lucky for him, Blaine was also able to read on people's lips and this was helping him to function in society. This ability, however, is something he developed easily, by himself. Eleven years old Blaine really was his parent's pride.