Chapter 8: Folded Hands

The ambulance got there before we did.

Lawrence's car slid to a stop on the gravel behind the house, and we ran through the garden.

Snow lay thick on the beds and the stone benches.

Leona was on her back near the fountain, with her white coat spread out around her on the snow.

Two paramedics knelt beside her.

Constance stood a few feet away in a camel coat with her hands pressed together, perfectly still.

"Mother," Lawrence said.

"She went down all at once," Constance said. "I was in the kitchen. The nurse screamed."

"Where's the nurse?"

"Inside, being sick."

I walked up to the edge of the snow and looked down.

Leona's eyes were closed.

Her lips were slightly parted, and her chest rose and fell evenly.

Her hands were folded on her stomach, neatly, one over the other.

People who faint don't fold their hands.

"Ma'am, step back, please," one of the paramedics said.

"What's her pulse?"

"Eighty. Steady."

"Her pressure?"

"One twenty over seventy-eight."

I looked at him.

"Is that normal?"

"It's better than mine," the paramedic said.

He said it quietly. He didn't look at me.

Lawrence had gone gray.

"Is she conscious?"

"She's not responding, sir. But I'm not finding anything wrong. Sometimes a person has a panic episode and the body just checks out."

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