The Men Who Walked Out novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Hallway

Elliot had the phone out before the teacup finished breaking.

"Nine-one-one. A man in his fifties, chest pain, conscious. The Brightside Café on Westminster Street."

He had Dad flat on the floor with his jacket under his head by the time I got down beside them.

"Stay with me, Dr. Bradstreet. Talk to me."

"I'm fine, Elliot."

"You're grey. Don't argue."

My mother stood over us, with her bandaged hand at her throat.

"Gerard," she said.

He didn't look at her.

He looked at me.

"Daph. Don't let her sit with me in the ambulance."

"I won't."

The paramedics pushed through the crowd quickly, and I rode beside the stretcher with his wallet in my hand.

He had pushed it into my palm in the café, the folded edge and all.

"Hold that," he'd said. "Don't open it."

I held it on my knees all the way to the hospital, with my thumb over the middle fold.

They took him through double doors, and a nurse made me sit in a plastic chair.

Elliot came in ten minutes later, out of breath, having parked somewhere illegal.

He sat down on the chair next to mine and didn't say anything, which I was grateful for.

A doctor in green scrubs came out at one-fifteen.

"Bradstreet family?"

I stood.

"It was a mild heart attack," she said. "He has a blocked artery."

"We'll put in a stent this afternoon. He'll be fine if he rests."

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