“Denise! Carotid!”
The second nurse, Denise, moved to the head of the bed, pressing two fingers against the side of Jo Ellen’s neck.
The actions drew Kate’s eyes to a place she’d steadfastly avoided during all this—her mother’s face. Jo Ellen’s skin had gone the color of a cold, gray sky, her eyes closed, her body…finally no longer spasming but…still. So, so still.
The color. The stillness. The monitors.
She’s dying.
The thought slammed against Kate’s consciousness like a brick to the head. She knew this like she knew her name and the periodic table. She knew it because she’d watched her dad die—less dramatic, less unexpected, but the same color. The same stillness.
Kate was trying to register the orders and the movements, but nothing was getting through to her brain.
More calls for a code team. More numbers that just got lower and lower and lower. More frantic attempts to stop what had started.
She knew, deep down, that this whole thing had taken less than two minutes. It felt like an eternity. It felt like…the end.
Pain welled up in her chest like a living thing, biting her, twisting her heart.
“Mom,” she sobbed silently.
But Jo Ellen might already be gone.
“No,” she mouthed, determined to be quiet so they didn’t make her leave. She couldn’t leave. She had to see her. She had to watch. She had to…pray.
The order came from somewhere inside her. Like a voice she didn’t recognize and couldn’t really describe. But there it was…
Pray.
She had no idea how.
Kneel? Scream? Arms up? Hands together?
She pressed harder to the unforgiving wall and stared at her mother’s face.
“Please,” she breathed the word so the nurses didn’t hear her.
But maybe someone did. Something. Some…God.
“Please, please save her.” The words came out like air, from deep inside. “Please don’t take my mother yet. Please give her more time. Please. I will do anything. You probably don’t make deals, but I will believe anything you want me to believe. Just give her back. Take it from me. Take anything you want from me. Take my career. Take my mind. Take my hands. Take my doubts and unbelief. I don’t care. Just give her back. Please. Please.Please. Give her back to me.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, turning the scene into a watery blur. The beeps and ticks and monitors got quieter and quieter. The nurses moved with precision and caution. The ventilator sounded slower.
“Please,” she added once more, aware she was pressing a hand over her chest because it hurt so much.
“Forty!” Denise called out. “Keep pumping, Marcus!”
Forty what? The cardiac monitor? Kate looked up at it, blinking through tears as the slow ticks sped up.
“Forty-six. Fifty-two.” Denise called out the number like a quarterback, while Kate’s eyes found the number on the screen and read along.
“Sixty-one. Sixty-seven. Seizure is complete.”
Oh,God.
Kate watched the numbers reverse on the screen, making a small sound in the back of her throat.
The sat alarm slowed from the shriek to a steady tone to nothing. Oxygen saturation rising to eighty-eight. Ninety-one. Ninety-four. Heart rate climbed to sixty-eight, seventy-two, held.
