Chapter 12: Nine Minutes

I was out of bed before Bridget finished the sentence.

"Put me on speaker," I said. "Is he awake?"

"His eyes are open. He's, like, wheezing. Oh my God, Leah."

"Bridget, listen to me. I need your voice, not your panic."

Maxwell was already pulling on jeans.

He took my phone from my hand, dialed 911 on his own, and held it out.

"Give them the address."

I recited it from memory: the apartment on Fifth Street, the second-floor landing, the buzzer that stuck.

"Man, twenty-seven, short of breath, known heart condition," I told the dispatcher.

My voice came out flat and clear.

It was the voice I'd used a dozen times in the worst nights of my other life.

"Stay on the line, ma'am," the dispatcher said. "Help is nine minutes out."

Nine minutes.

I switched back to Bridget on the other phone.

"Is he lying flat?"

"Yes, he fell, he's on his back."

"Sit him up. Prop his shoulders against the wall. Don't let him lie down."

"Okay, okay, I'm doing it."

"Loosen his collar and belt. Unlock the front door so they can come straight up."

"Done. Done."

"Does he have his medicine on him?"

I heard her rummaging, a rattle of plastic.

"There's a pill bottle in his jacket. It says something... Carvedilol?"

"Don't give him anything yet. Is he talking?"

A rasping breath came through the phone, wet and shallow.

Then Calvin's voice, thin as paper.

"Leah?"

"I'm here," I said.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to say sorry."

"Don't talk. Breathe slow. Look at Bridget."

"I got the appointment," he wheezed. "I went. They found something."

"I know. Breathe, Calvin. In through your nose."

"I'm scared."

"I know that, too."

I closed my eyes.

The same hands that had held his through eleven hospital stays were shaking around the phone.

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