She wondered again how Claire was holding up. Not too well, probably, alone in that house with her abusive husband. Maybe she should have gone along with Jay, talked to Claire while he talked to Brian Lomax about the tree. But what could she say to the woman now? Words of comfort from a stranger usually rang hollow; that was a lesson she’d learned early on in her job.
She couldn’t sit still. Kept pacing back and forth, waiting for Jay to come back—animal in a cage. Her wineglass was empty; she detoured to the kitchen to refill it. What she really wanted was a martini, or a slug of straight gin without the trimmings, but she’d had two glasses of wine already and if she mixed in hard liquor this early—not even five o’clock yet—she’d be down and out fast. And getting wasted wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway, except to give her a hangover to deal with tomorrow. Alcohol was fine for dulling the edges of anxiety, but too much of it did more harm than good.
She’d been in a dull funk ever since she’d made her decision yesterday afternoon and confronted Jay with it. There should’ve been some sense of relief, of sadness and loss; she ought to be giving some thought to the future, to other decisions she’d be facing. But she seemed mired in that same cold emptiness she’d experienced in the car yesterday. Feeling a kind of bleak disconnection, too; her mind wouldn’t stay focused. Why? Because at some level she wasn’t convinced a divorce was the right choice after all?
Pace, sip wine, listen to the storm battering the cottage, watch the quivery candlelight and firelight to keep from watching the stationary darkness. She’d never wanted to leave a place more than she wanted out of this one, a feeling as irrational as her borderline nyctophobia. There was really nothing menacing or unpleasant about the cottage or its setting. It was just the wrong place at the wrong time, a symbol, a catalyst. No matter what happened in the future, she knew she would look back on her time here with a sense of loathing.
Rattling at the door, an inrush of wind and wet for a couple of seconds: Jay was back.
He came in breathing hard, jammed the door shut with his body and then threw the bolt. Under the brim of his rain hat, his face was a pale oval slicked with wetness. Shelby went to the kitchen for a dish towel while he shed his rain gear and gloves. The legs of his Levi’s were soaked almost to the knee, the rest of his clothing clinging from water that had gotten in under the oilskin.
“What did Lomax say?”
“Didn’t talk to him,” Jay said as he dried his face and neck. “Couldn’t get in past the gates. He had them closed, padlocked with a chain.”
“Can’t blame him, after what happened to Gene Decker.”
“I could’ve climbed over, but I didn’t want to risk it.”
“Illegal trespass,” she said.
“Yeah. Get my ass shot off.” He bent to pick up the sodden hat and coat he’d dropped on the carpet; his breathing was still labored when he straightened.
“Are you all right?”
He answered the question with a dismissive gesture. “Nothing any of us can do in the dark anyway, while it’s blowing like this. Have to wait for daylight.”
“You’d better get out of those wet clothes and into the shower. There’ll be hot water in the tank.”
“Okay.”
“Here, give me those. I’ll hang them up on the porch.”
He handed over the coat and hat. “I tried moving the tree with the car before I drove down there,” he said. “No use. Too big, and I couldn’t get any traction. I don’t think Lomax’s SUV can move it either. Chain saw’s our best bet. He’d better have one.”
“We’ll worry about that tomorrow. Go on, get into the shower.”
“Pour me a glass of wine while I’m in there?”
“Yes.”
He went off down the hall, carrying one of the candles. Shelby finished her wine as she poured a glass for Jay. Another glass? Might as well. Three glasses of inexpensive chardonnay should have had her feeling mildly buzzed, but not on this miserable night. The wine might as well have been tap water for all the effect it was having on her.
She relit another couple of snuffed candlewicks, then went to put a pair of logs on the banking fire. It wasn’t really cold in there, but she felt chilled just the same. Maybe she’d take a quick shower herself when Jay was finished. Once she’d have just gone in and joined him, to conserve the hot water, but that kind of intimacy was unthinkable now.
The fresh wood began to crackle, radiating heat against her back. But it didn’t take the chill away. Bone deep. A mound of blankets and comforters wouldn’t make her warm again tonight.
What was taking him so long in there?
Three minutes was his usual shower limit. And he wouldn’t use up what was left of the hot water, would he?
She picked up a candle, followed its light into the bedroom.
He was in there, not in the bathroom, dressed in dry trousers and a long-sleeved shirt and sitting slumped on the far side of the bed. The room was cold, very cold—the fire’s heat didn’t reach back here—but for some reason he’d failed to button the shirt. The candle he’d brought in was on the dresser in front of him; its trembling flame created a restless play of shadows across his face, so that the skin seemed to be rippling like dark water.
“Jay?”
He mumbled something she couldn’t hear over the wailing and whining of the storm.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?”
He winced as if with a sudden spasm, lifted a hand, and then let it drop onto his lap.
Shelby went around the bed, bent to hold the candle up close to his face. It was difficult to tell in the pale light, but his color didn’t look good. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. Cool, sweaty. And his respiration seemed even more labored.
Red flags. Alarm bells.
“Do you have any pain?”
No answer.
“Dammit, Jay. Do you have any pain?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He winced again, squeezed his eyes shut.
“Answer me. Where do you hurt?”
“… Chest. Left arm.”
Oh my God!
“Anywhere else?” she asked. “Radiating down your arm, into your back?”
“No.”
“Describe the pain to me. Sharp, dull, crushing … what?”
“Like a … hand squeezing.”
“How much trouble getting your breath?”
“A little.”
“Nauseous?”
“A little.”
“How bad was the pain when it started? Scale of one to ten.”
“… Five, six.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know … not as bad. Three, four.”
“Tingling sensation in your fingers?”
“Yes.”
“Lie back on the bed, knees up,” she said, and helped him into that position. She felt his neck—the veins weren’t distended. And there was no pedal edema in his feet and ankles. Quickly she got a blanket from the closet and covered him with it. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
She hurried to the utility porch, swept her raincoat off the hook, found the car keys, and ran outside with the coat draped over her head. Her jump bag was in the Prius’s trunk, where she always kept it for work and emergencies. She rushed back inside with it, stopping on the way for another lighted candle. In the bedroom she set the bag on the bureau, opened it.
Stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, pulse oximeter, bottle of chewable baby aspirin. She pulled the blanket down to expose Jay’s chest, listened to his lungs with the stethoscope. Slightly wet-sounding. She clipped the oximeter to his index finger, then took his pulse. Rapid, too rapid—125 beats per minute. Rolled up one shirtsleeve, strapped the cuff around his arm, pumped it up, read the pressure gauge by candle flame. 185 over 100. High. Checked the digital reading on the oximeter: 92 percent blood oxygen saturation. Low, on the edge of the danger zone.
“Am I going to die?”
he said.
“Not if I can prevent it.”
She buttoned his shirt, pulled the blanket back up under his chin.
“… Pills,” he said.
“I’m going to give you aspirin—”
“No … in my shaving kit. Prescription vial, little white pills.”
Prescription vial, little white pills. “Jesus, Jay—you’ve been taking nitroglycerin?”
“Yes.”
In the bathroom she rummaged through his kit, found the bottle of nitro tablets. The doctor’s name was Prebble—a name she recognized, a well-known South Bay cardiologist. Jay had been to see Prebble, had had heart medication prescribed, and hadn’t told her. Why the hell not?
Well, she knew the answer to that, didn’t she.
She gave him the baby aspirins first, to make the platelets in the damaged artery less sticky, minimize the threat of blood clot formation, and prevent further blockage. When he’d chewed and swallowed them, she shook out two of the tiny nitro tablets and put them under his tongue to dissolve. Then she pawed through her bag again. She had a large portable bottle of oxygen, a Jumbo D, but on a mask it would run at ten to fifteen liters per minute—half an hour at most before it ran dry. Might be better to put him on a cannula instead; it could run at two to six liters per minute, providing a smaller increase over a longer period of time to bring his O2 level back as close to 100 percent as possible. Depended on what the next blood pressure reading showed.
“How’s the pain now?”
“Better. Mostly gone.”
“Still having that squeezing sensation?”
“No.”
“Difficulty breathing?”
“Not anymore.”
“The nausea?”
“Gone.”
“All right, good. Just keep still.”
Shelby listened to his lungs again; the faint wetness was barely discernible. His pulse rate had slowed and steadied at 80. He wasn’t sweating any longer, but his forehead, cheeks, and neck felt even cooler than before. At her touch a shiver went through him. And when she ran fingers over his arm, she felt the goose bumps that had formed there.
She dragged a pillow off the bed, hurried with it into the living room. The fire had begun to bank; she fed it quickly, leaving the fire screen open. She managed to shove the heavy couch over close to the fire, then took three more logs from the wood box and set them on the hearth bricks close by.
Back in the bedroom, she asked Jay if he thought he could sit up.
“I can try.”
She helped him into a sitting position. “Any more pain?”
“No.”
“Okay. Let’s see if you can stand up and walk.”
“Where?”
“Out by the fire. You can’t stay in here—it’s too cold.”
She wrapped the blanket around him, holding it closed with one hand. Got him up off the far side of the bed without difficulty; training, all the running and working out she did, had given her the strength to move and support bigger men than Jay. He was a little wobbly, but he didn’t sag in her grasp.
“Light-headedness? Discomfort of any kind?”
“No.”
She told him to lean on her and take a step, then another. His knees didn’t buckle.
“Slow, now,” she said, “baby steps.”
Out of the bedroom, down the hall, across to the couch. She eased him down on it, arranged the pillow under his head, drew his knees up and tucked the blanket around him. Returned to the bedroom long enough to pull the comforter off the bed, pick up her jump bag and the oximeter and pressure cuff. She covered Jay to the neck with the comforter, leaving one arm exposed, then put the oximeter on his finger and the cuff around his arm and took the readings.
Blood oxygen saturation at 95 percent. Blood pressure at 160 over 80—the nitro tablets had lowered it some but it was still too high. Better go with the cannula. She took it and the Jumbo D and mask from her bag, set the bottle on the floor at the end of the couch farthest from the fire, at the same time running through the litany of questions with him again. The answers he gave were the ones she wanted to hear. She put the cannula on him and started the oxygen flowing.
Stable now—temporarily.
Shelby stood looking down at him, for the first time letting her emotions break through the professional mind-set. A whole conga line of them—cautious relief, compassion, sadness, anger, frustration, tenderness. Love, too, no use denying it. What else would make her eyes start to tear up the way they were now?
You poor damn fool, she thought—and she wasn’t sure if she meant Jay or herself or both of them.
S E V E N T E E N
MACKLIN HAD KNOWN HE was having a heart attack as soon as the pain started. He’d just gotten out of the shower, dried off, and was putting his shirt on over a dry pair of jeans. It wasn’t the hammer blow that would’ve taken him out right away, just that squeezing sensation and the increased difficulty in getting enough air into his lungs. The bed was as far as he got before the worsening pain and the other symptoms sat him down. He’d tried to call out to Shelby, couldn’t seem to raise his voice above a low, feeble cry.
He’d been scared then, still was after all of her ministrations, and yet, strangely, it was a dull, detached kind of fear. He felt disjointed, as if only part of him harbored the anxiety, while the other part was apathetic and resigned. I don’t want to die, he thought. But there was a lack of emotion in it, as though the thought had been: I don’t want to go out in that storm again.
He lay quiet on the couch, taking in oxygen in slow breaths, watching Shelby watch him. Feeling better now, the symptoms all mostly gone thanks to her. If she hadn’t been here when it happened, he’d probably be dead now. He’d never doubted that she was good at her job, but until now he hadn’t realized just how calm and skilled she could be under pressure, in a personal crisis. Quite a woman he’d married. A woman he was probably still going to lose, assuming he survived.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Shelby said, “but there’s no other choice. You need to be hospitalized ASAP.”
“Where’ll you go?”
“The Lomaxes. Ask Claire to come stay with you until I can get a medical response unit out here.”
“Those locked gates … he won’t open up for you …”
“Let me worry about that. If he has a chain saw, he ought to be able to cut away enough of the tree to let me drive through.”
“What if he doesn’t have a chain saw?”
Shelby said, “No more talking,” and went to quickly don her raincoat, tie the hood under her chin. “While I’m gone I want you to lie still, be as quiet and comfortable as you can. If the oxygen in the cannula runs out before I get back, use the D bottle on the floor there—you know how it works.”
He nodded.
“If the fire gets too low and you’re feeling well enough, you can get up long enough to toss on another log or two.”
Nodded again.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” she said, and in a brief slash of cold air, she was gone.
And he was alone.
He listened to the storm hurl rain on the roof, bludgeon the walls and windows.
The moan of the wind was like a woman in the throes of orgasm. Before long the sense of disjointedness left him and depression moved in in its place, bleak and black. He’d never felt more helpless. Or less of a man. Swaddled up like a baby waiting to be coddled, burped, and diaper-changed.
He almost wished the coronary had killed him—a sudden crushing blow, then straight out of his misery. But no, that would’ve been too easy, too quick. This way he was facing a future filled with hospitals, doctors’ offices, reduced activities, bland food, loneliness if Shelby went through with the divorce and a life of dependency whether she did or didn’t, and no worthwhile job prospect in either case because who’d hire a man with one foot in the grave? Months, years of suffering, causing suffering, until another attack took him out or he took himself out. He
ll, why not just get up and run around in circles naked until his heart quit beating from the strain, put an end to it right here and now?
Stupid thought. Selfish. He was a long way from the suicide stage yet; self-preservation was still too strong in him. More important, he couldn’t do a thing like that to Shelby. Not now, after all she’d done and was out there doing to try to save his sorry ass.
Bitterly he found himself thinking back to the week before Christmas. He’d had the arrhythmia and shortness of breath for a while before they finally alarmed him enough to do what Shelby’s urgings hadn’t—send him to his doctor, who had shuttled him on to the cardiologist, Dr. Prebble. A stress test confirmed the diminished capacity in his heart. So then they’d put him in the hospital overnight—he’d called Shelby and lied to her about an all-night poker game at Ben Coulter’s—and administered a bunch of tests, including an echocardiogram to determine the location of the blockage. There’d been some talk about “cathing” him—inserting a minicam in his veins and running it up into the heart to look for other blockages—but the cardiologist had finally determined that the procedure wasn’t necessary.
Diagnosis: CAD—coronary artery disease. How could a thirty-five-year-old man have CAD? That had been his first reaction. Age was no factor in heart disease, Prebble had told him; people of any age could have it. Usually it was genetic, but not always. His reaction to that had been the typically self-pitying one: Why me? Took a while to get over it and reconcile himself, but he’d managed it. Or thought he had until now.
His CAD required bypass surgery, double, triple, maybe quadruple, they couldn’t be sure until they opened him up and inspected the damage. Prebble’s dry, professional voice telling him this, and then explaining what the surgery entailed: ten-inch-long incision in the middle of his chest, his breastbone separated to create an opening to view the heart and aorta; connection to a heart-lung bypass machine that circulated the blood through his body during surgery; the possible use of the saphenous vein in his leg, or an internal mammary artery, or the radial artery in his wrist to create grafts around the blocked areas; then his breastbone reconnected with wire and the incision sewn up. Five to seven days in the hospital, the first few hours in ICU, and the balance of his recovery at home. Good as new in time … maybe. If he didn’t die on the operating table from traveling blood clots or immediately afterward from infection or some other post-op risk. Or end up having a fatal myocardial infarction despite the bypass.
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