Chapter 14: Two Squeezes

I held Winifred's head off the table with one hand and the phone to my ear with the other.

"She's breathing," I told the dispatcher. "Her face dropped on the left. She can't talk. It started two minutes ago."

Bradford walked into the hall to finish his own call.

The ambulance took eight minutes.

The paramedics weren't Cormac, and I hated them for it.

They let one person ride.

Bradford stepped up to the back doors before I could.

"Family," he said.

"I'm family."

"You're filing for divorce." He climbed in. "Get a cab."

The doors shut on Winifred's white hair and the oxygen mask and his good shoes.

Her driver took me in the Lincoln.

The neuro ICU was on the sixth floor.

Bradford was at the nurses' station when I got off the elevator with Margo in the carrier.

"Mrs. Kingsford's visitors are restricted to immediate family," the charge nurse said, reading off her screen. "Per her next of kin."

"I'm her grandson's wife," I said. "This is her great-granddaughter."

"Estranged wife," Bradford said. "There's a custody case. She was removed from my house by the police last month. You can check."

Two younger nurses looked up from their computers.

"I'm sorry," the charge nurse said. "It's his call."

"Is it?" I said. "Or is it hers?"

"She can't speak."

"I know she can't speak. I was holding her head."

Bradford buttoned his jacket.

"Go home, Clementine. I'll let you know about the funeral."

He went through the double doors.

They swung shut behind him and locked.

I sat down in the plastic chair right across from the nurses' station.

I didn't leave.

At six they changed shifts. The day nurses told the night nurses about me, and the night nurses looked at me, and I looked back.