And then I would set him on the couch or in our bed. And he would just…pass out.
It got to the point where he would lose track of time. Forgetting whole conversations. And even what day it was half the time. His literal mode of living was eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work. Over and over with no end in sight.
The only thing Lincoln would tell me is that I am the one who motivated him to work as hard as he did.
And now he won’t wake up.
I shake him again, panic rising in my throat. Ice melting on his skin. Operator still talking in my ear.
“Lincoln!” I cry. “Please…wake up.”
His eyes remain closed, and I can hear the sirens in the distance. That sound, those rising, urgent wails, fills me with something close to hope as they draw closer. But Lincoln’s breath is still coming in those shallow, broken pulls, each one sounding worse than the last. Nothing about the way he’s breathing feels right. It reminds me of his heat exhaustion years ago, except… this time something feels wrong. Off. Worse.
The operator is still trying to keep me calm, but I can hear the edge in my own voice, the panic no longer hiding.
“Ma’am, stay with me,” the operator says. “You’re doing everything right. Keep talking to him. Keep his airway open. Help is almost there.”
“I don’t like the way he’s breathing,” I cry, my voice cracking. “I don’t like it, something’swrong. He’s not waking up! He won’t wake up.”
“Ma’am, you’re doing amazing. Just try to stay calm so you can monitor his breathing. Just stay with him. Help is on the way, okay?”
My vision blurs from tears. I keep touching his face, his neck.
He’s burning.
Burning.
My hands are shaking as I try to cool him down, ice melting against his skin. I keep saying his name, louder and louder, but he won’t respond.
Everything else becomes a blur.
I rush around the house. Morris is crying, weaving around my legs, confused and scared. I make sure he has water by turning the tap so it drips into his bowl, and I empty half a bag of food onto his plate. The whole time my heart is pounding like it’s going to explode.
Then I’m out the door, following the ambulance as they load Lincoln inside. My brain keeps chanting the same fear over and over:what if I get to the hospital and it’s too late?
What if this is just like my mother?
What if he dies and I never see him again?
Even if Lincoln and I were never getting back together, the idea of him dying, of losing him this way, is too much.
I can’t.
As much as he hurt me, my latent love for him still made me grateful he was alive out there somewhere.
At least when he is alive, I had the right to be angry. How the hell am I supposed to be mad at a dead man?
At the hospital, everything moves too fast and too slow at the same time. They rush him in, and when they ask me who I am, I don’t even hesitate.
“I’m his wife.”
And I don’t correct myself. It doesn’t matter. I’m family. I stay glued to the ER doors until they call me in.
Inside, they’ve already hooked him up to monitors. Tubes, wires, beeping machines. I stand at a distance, giving the doctors space. My hands feel numb. My body feels like it’s floating.
A doctor is working on his feet, carefully cleaning the blisters, some already popped. They mention swelling. Redness. Possible infection.
One of the doctors, Doctor Bashert, turns to me.
