Chapter 30
“Sawyer? Sawyer?” Kathy’s voice rushed at her over the phone line. “Oh, thank heavens, honey, is that you?”
Kathy sounded odd; her voice warbled in a way that made Sawyer’s stomach turn.
“I’ve been trying to call Charles at his office, but they told me he already left, so he must be on his way home to you…” She trailed off. There was a small choking sound.
“Kathy—what’s wrong? What’s going on?” Sawyer asked.
She heard Kathy make the choking sound again.
“Kathy, I’m here. Just take a breath and tell me when you’re ready,” Sawyer urged gently, but already her own heart was pounding and she could feel a cold tickle of sweat on her face and neck.
“It’s his father…” Kathy finally got out.
Ed had suffered a heart attack and gone into massive cardiac arrest.
“I did all the things,” Kathy half stated, half sobbed. “All the things they always tell you to do. I called 911, I did the rescue breathing, I got an ambulance, I got him to the hospital…but…”
“But what? But what?” Sawyer stammered, her limbs strangely light and bloodless, her jaw gone slack.
Kathy finally delivered the bottom line: It wasn’t enough. The doctors had confirmed it. His heart had stopped working for too long.
“I thought because he’s breathing, he’d be OK, but they say it’s only the ventilator doing everything…he’s not OK…they’re saying he’ll never be OK…he’ll never wake up…they’re telling me we’ll have to decide about the ventilator…”
“Oh, Kathy,” Sawyer said, barely able to push the words out, her throat was so tight.
Kathy proceeded to give Sawyer all the hospital information and a phone number for Charles to call when he got home.
“They promised he can dial that number and they’ll page me,” Kathy said. “I have to go…They just came up to me here at the nurses’ desk and they’re telling me I need to talk to someone and sign something. But I need to talk to Charles—you understand?” she said, letting out a muffled sob. “Oh, please—you understand. Can you tell him, Sawyer? Can you tell him to call me?”
Kathy sounded so small and young, like a lost child. Sawyer felt her own heart straining and wrenching in reaction.
“I understand, Kathy,” Sawyer reassured her. “We’ll get him on the line for you. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
The line went dead.
Sawyer stood there for a moment, still holding the phone to her ear, listening to the dial tone, utterly numb.
Eventually the phone began to bleat with a busy signal and Sawyer put the receiver back into the phone’s cradle.
The apartment suddenly felt empty. And quiet—tooquiet. Sawyer crossed the room in a daze and sat back down on the sofa, thinking. She let her gaze move around the space, not really seeing anything until her eyes landed on her suitcases, packed and waiting by the door.
She flinched, remembering everything that had come before Kathy’s phone call.
Then, just as abruptly, she heard Charles’s key in the door.
He came in carrying the mail. He looked up and smiled to see Sawyer sitting on the sofa.
“All right! Let the summer Friday begin!” he said cheerfully, tossing the mail on a console table and setting down his messenger bag.
“Charles…” Sawyer said. Speaking was difficult; her chest was like a vacuum; her lungs felt empty, airless. “Something’s happened.”