“Your father called my cell three times while I was driving over here,” Ethan said, his slow words heavy with the familiar weight of a man who spent his days squaring rough oak planks.
“Did Arthur need the refinancing paperwork again?” I asked, leaning my weight against the side panel of the car.
Ethan did not answer, but his fingers tightened on the door handle as he reached out to steady my elbow.
“You are burning up, Mal,” he said, shifting his bulk to block the midday sun from my eyes. “We are going straight to the clinic on Dodge Street.”
“I just need to sit in the cool air for one minute,” I said, my forehead resting against the hot glass of the window.
My knees dissolved into nothing before my hand could find the door armrest.
The sound of Ethan calling my name came from a great distance, thin and distorted, like a voice passing through water.
The ceiling of the ambulance was gray fiberglass, dominated by a plastic dial that read twelve liters per minute.
A paramedic adjusted a clear plastic mask over my nose and mouth, the cold rush of oxygen smelling faintly of dry rubber.
“Keep your head back, Mallory,” he said, his fingers pressing into the side of my neck to find a pulse. “Your blood pressure is eighty over forty-two, and your lungs are congested.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat felt as dry as paper dust.
“Mother,” I whispered, the word rattling against the plastic of the mask.
“Do you want us to call someone?” the paramedic asked, holding a black clipboard over his knees.
I tried to say her number, the four-zero-two area code that I had dialed every Sunday for ten years, but my tongue refused to touch the roof of my mouth.
