“Ben!”
I caught his shoulders as his weight collapsed sideways against the wainscoting. Chloe let out a sharp, terrified scream, stumbling backward onto the hall runner.
“Chloe, go into the kitchen! Right now!” I commanded, my voice sharp with emergency adrenaline.
She hesitated for half a second, her face stark white, before turning and running toward the kitchen.
Ben’s body was locked in a violent, convulsive spasm. His head was thrashing against the drywall, his teeth clicking together, a thin line of foam and saliva gathering at the corner of his lips. This was not the rhythmic, localized chorea I had seen in Dr. Mercer’s office; this was an acute neurological storm, an electrical tempest tearing through his depleted, overstressed nervous system.
“Ben, breathe! Look at me!” I shouted, rolling him onto his left side to protect his airway, just as he had taught me years ago when we discussed surgical first aid.
His hazel eyes were unfocused, vibrating rapidly from side to side in severe nystagmus. His left arm was clawing at his chest, his fingers digging into his gray sweater over his sternum.
Cortisol spike.
Dr. Mercer’s words flashed in my mind: Fighting the movement only increases the cortisol spike.
Between the confrontation at the clinic, the emotional collapse with Chloe, and months of severe sleep deprivation and starvation, his brain had simply short-circuited.
I scrambled across the floor, grabbed my purse, and dumped the contents onto the runner. Keys, lipsticks, and receipts scattered across the wood until I found what I was looking for: the yellow slip of paper Arnold had given me. On the back, Arnold had jotted his private cell number.
I dialed with trembling fingers. It rang once.
“Clara?” Arnold’s voice answered instantly.
“Arnold, he’s having a seizure or a massive choreic crisis!” I screamed into the phone, holding it between my ear and shoulder while keeping Ben from hitting his head against the baseboard. “He collapsed in the hallway! He’s rigid, his eyes are rolling, he’s thrashing!”
“Listen to me carefully,” Arnold’s clinical tone took over, cutting through my panic like a blade. “He’s not having an epileptic seizure. It’s an acute choreic paroxysm triggered by extreme emotional distress. He has a rescue medication in his leather briefcase. In the front zippered pouch. It’s a sublingual dissolving tablet of tetrabenazine and lorazepam. Did you bring his briefcase home?”
“Yes! It’s right here!”
“Get the blister pack! One tablet under his tongue! Do not put your fingers between his teeth, Clara! Slide it inside his cheek! I’m leaving my house now. I’m ten minutes away.”
The line went dead.
I dropped the phone and lunged for the leather briefcase on the floor. I ripped open the front brass zipper. Tucked inside a small velvet pouch was a foil blister pack with blue lettering. I punched out a small white oval tablet with my thumbnail.
I crawled back to Ben. His thrashing had slowed, but his breathing was wet, ragged, and shallow.
“Ben, let me in,” I pleaded, gently squeezing the hinges of his jaw with my left hand while keeping him tilted on his side. “Ben, it’s Clara. Open your mouth.”
For a second, his jaw remained clamped tight. Then, through the haze of terror in his unfocused eyes, a spark of recognition flared. The tension in his facial muscles gave way by a fraction of an inch.
I slipped the tablet between his lower gum and cheek.
“Swallow the saliva, honey. Don’t choke. Just let it dissolve.”
I pulled his head onto my lap, stroking the damp, sweat-soaked hair away from his forehead. His skin was burning hot, his pulse hammering at his carotid artery like a trapped bird.
From the kitchen doorway, Chloe crept back into the hall, clutching a glass of water in both hands. Her lower lip was trembling violently, but she didn't cry.
“Is he breathing, Mom?” she whispered.
“Yes, baby,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as humanly possible while my own chest felt like it was breaking apart. “He’s breathing. Bring me a towel from the bathroom, okay? A cool, wet towel.”
She nodded fiercely and sprinted down the hall. Even at eight years old, she had her father’s instinct: when things are falling apart, you find a job and you do it.
Within five minutes, the sedative took hold.
The violent jerking in Ben’s limbs softened into low, sporadic twitches. His breathing slowed from frantic gasps to a deep, rasping rhythm. His eyes fluttered shut, his head growing heavy against my thighs.
When the front door burst open six minutes later, Arnold rushed in, his overcoat unbuttoned, carrying a black medical emergency bag.
He dropped to his knees beside us, pressing two fingers to Ben’s neck and flashing a penlight into his pupils.
“Pulse is one-ten. Pupils are reactive,” Arnold breathed, letting out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. He looked up at me, his face grim. “You got the rescue dose in just in time. If the paroxysm had lasted another five minutes, he would have gone into rhabdomyolysis.”
Arnold sat back on his heels, looking at Ben’s limp, sleeping form, and then at Chloe, who had returned with a damp blue hand towel and was gently laying it across her father’s burning forehead.
“This is what you’re facing, Clara,” Arnold said, his voice dropping to a harsh, sorrowful whisper. “This wasn't an isolated incident. As the basal ganglia deteriorate, these episodes will become more frequent. The medication can only blunt the edges. In six months, he won’t be able to walk up these stairs alone. In a year, he’ll need full-time nursing care.”
He leaned closer, his eyes pleading with me.
“His plan—the trust fund, the Swiss facility, the quiet exit—he didn't do that out of spite. He did it because he knew what this would do to you and Chloe. He wanted to spare you the nightmare. If you take this on, Clara, it will consume your life. You have to decide, right now, what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
I looked down at Ben’s sleeping face.
Stripped of his professional armor, stripped of his pride, he was simply the man who had held my hand in hospital waiting rooms, who had built a life with me from nothing, who had loved our daughter with every breath in his body.
I looked at Arnold.
“I’m not sacrificing anything, Arnold,” I said, my voice ringing clear and unbreakable in the quiet foyer. “I’m taking my husband back.”
The story isn’t over yet. Select “Next Part” below to see what happens next.
