Chapter 16: Lexington

Jeb had her on her back on the elder's floor before I got around the table.

Two fingers on her neck. His ear by her mouth.

"She's breathing," he said. "Mama, call it in. Tell them Easterly said cardiac."

His mama was already dialing.

The kids got hustled out to the porch. Somebody kept saying, "Lord, Lord."

I knelt in the broken glass and held Granny's hand.

It was cold and light as a bird.

Her eyes came open once and found me.

"Don't you let them cut my good cardigan," she whispered.

Then she went away again.

***

The ambulance took forty minutes to find the hollow.

Jeb's volunteers had her on oxygen by then, and the old man was sitting by her head with his hand on her hair.

I rode in the back.

Jeb followed in his truck the whole way to Lexington with his hazards on.

At the hospital they took her through two doors I wasn't allowed through.

Then there was a hallway, and a row of plastic chairs, and a clock.

I'd sat in that exact kind of chair three months ago.

I'd called Bentley six times.

This time, Jeb sat down in the chair next to me without asking and put a cup of bad coffee in my hand.

At one in the morning the cardiologist came out.

She was young and tired, with her mask pulled down under her chin.

"The valve's too narrow to keep up anymore," she said. "We can replace it through a vein in her leg. Tomorrow morning, first case."

"And if you don't?"

"Then she won't see the fall."

"What are the odds?"

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