The dispatcher keeps talking while I keep saying Lore’s name over and over, as if the force of my voice can pull her back.
Twelve minutes. It takes twelve minutes for the paramedics to arrive. It is not long at all but it feels endless.
They rush in and I scramble out of their way.
Everything becomes motion. Gloves. Equipment. Quick commands. I grab Agnes from her carrier and hold her as she screams against my chest.
“Pulse is thready. Oxygen low. Start a line. Prep for transport.”
“Any medical history?” one of them asks me. “Allergies? Conditions?”
“She has none,” I say. “She is healthy. She was fine yesterday.”
They place an oxygen mask on her face, secure her to the stretcher, and wheel her toward the door.
“We’re taking her to Central,” one tells me.
“She works there. I’m coming with you,” I say.
He looks at Agnes in my arms. “You should follow us in your car.”
I nod because he’s right. They need to focus on helping Lore, not her crying baby.
The ambulance pulls away with lights and sirens filling the whole street.
I strap Agnes back into her carrier, my hands trembling so badly that I miss the buckle twice before it finally clicks into place. She is still sobbing, her little hands curled into fists, her face red. I feel like a failure as a father for not being able to calm her, not being able to keep anything together right now.
Thankfully she falls back into a tired sleep two minutes into the drive. I call Dad while I’m on the road, my voice breaking, the words stumbling over each other, and he tells me to keep my eyes forward and get there safely. He says he and Mom will meet us at the hospital.
So, I drive.
And I pray.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lorelie
I wake up knowing exactly where I am.
The steady beep beep. The antiseptic tang in the air.
It all hits me at once, familiar in a way that makes my stomach dip. Hospitals were supposed to be where I worked, not where I ended up.
I groan softly and squint at the light. The overhead one is mercifully off, but the others are still sharp enough to stab at my eyes. My mouth feels like sandpaper, my tongue thick and useless. My limbs ache in that heavy, floaty way that tells me I’ve been lying still for too long. My fingers tingle, pins and needles racing under my skin. My head throbs behind my eyes, a deep pulsing pressure that makes thought slow.
Dehydration. Low blood sugar. I know the signs as well as I know my own name.
But how the hell did I get here?
I twist my head toward the call button, ready to press it, when the curtain swishes aside and Patrick steps through.
He looks exhausted. Hair a mess, eyes swollen and rimmed red. He’s holding papers in his hand and glancing down at them absently as he walks in. He barely registers me at first, then his face snaps up and freezes.
He looks at me again, like he can’t trust the first blink.
A tear spills immediately down his cheek as he crosses the room in three long strides. His hand cups the side of my face, trembling, and he bows his head to my forehead. His lips lingerthere longer than necessary while he breathes in these quiet, shuddering breaths that shake his shoulders.
I can’t remember the last time I saw him this broken.
