The Breakthrough

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “Maybe later,” Alfonso said. “We can all go somewhere.”

  “For ice cream?”

  “You got ice cream at my place,” Florence said. “Let’s just get your swingin’ in and get back, hmm?”

  She found a wood bench under a tree near the swings and sat fanning her face with both hands. Max ran toward the swings, but Alfonso called him back. “Let’s get some pictures for your mom,” he said, pulling out his cell phone. “Sit next to Aunt Flo.”

  Florence chortled. “There is no ‘next to Aunt Flo.’ You want the boy to disappear?” She opened her arms, and Max climbed into her fleshy lap.

  “You’re all hot and sweaty,” Max said.

  “I am that,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and hoping he would disguise how wide she was. Cameras were not her friends, especially phone cameras. “Now, Alfonso, I’m as dark as he is white. Can your phone handle that?”

  “We’ll see. Smile.”

  Alfonso showed it to her as Max wriggled for a view. Florence was stunned. She actually loved the picture. Max had pressed his head back against her chest at the last instant and looked as comfortable as a boy could be. They looked happy together. A sliver of sunlight through the branches made his hair look shiny white.

  “You got to send that to me. Can you do that?”

  Alfonso handed her the phone. “Sure. Just punch your cell phone number in there, and I’ll show you how to send the picture to your phone.”

  It took a few tries and some coaching from Alfonso. He leaned close and pointed to the keypad. “View pictures, select, share, text, send.” He looked up. “Done! Now you shoot one of Max and me.”

  “All right, if I don’t have to move.”

  Max joined Alfonso in front of Florence, and she shot a slightly crooked picture of them.

  “Haeley’ll love this!” he said, pushing a bunch of buttons. “And I’m copying you on it too, ma’am. Hey, Max, you want to see your mom and me just before I shipped out?” He pushed a few buttons and sat on the bench next to Florence. Max climbed in his lap and stared into the phone. One of the pictures stored in his phone was of him shoulder to shoulder with Haeley, and if Florence had to guess, she would have said their smiles hid the fear of what his overseas assignment could mean.

  Soon Alfonso was lifting the boy into a swing. He pushed Max higher and higher. “You be careful now, soldier!” Florence called out. “I got to answer for this boy, you know.”

  “I’d no more hurt him than you, ma’am! Max, you want to play tag?”

  “Sure! How?”

  Alfonso caught the swing in midair and brought it to a slow stop. “I tag you—like this—and run away. That makes you it. Then you catch me and tag me, and I’m it. Trees and my car are safe.”

  “You gonna be runnin’ all around?” Florence said. “I need to keep sittin’.”

  “We’ll stay in sight,” Alfonso said. “Won’t we, Max?”

  “Yeah!”

  “A’ight then.”

  But when Max and his uncle began scampering around the park, laughing and squealing and chasing each other, Max racing from tree to tree for safety, Florence worked herself up off the bench. The boy was getting redder by the minute and looked to be sweating more than she was. It was time to get back to the cool apartment and some Neapolitan. You’re never cooler, she told herself, than when you’ve been hot.

  “I’m not leaving her,” Boone told Jack as two EMTs, a man and a woman about his age, flew into the yard.

  “That’s fine; you go with her. We’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  “Can Margaret come with me?”

  “We don’t want to crowd the back of the bus,” the male EMT said.

  Jack flashed his badge. “You’re going to have the patient and two riders,” he said. “Let’s not spend one more second arguing.”

  9

  Gone

  Florence tried to stay in the shade as she shuffled along, working to keep Max in sight. He appeared to be having the time of his life, and she could hear his high-pitched laugh from way across the park. Apparently Alfonso was it, and Florence could tell he was running slowly after Max on purpose. He could have easily run the boy down with his strong, athletic stride. How nice for Max to have another uncle, especially one like Alfonso.

  The boy had bolted from the last safe tree and was running in the open now—heading toward Alfonso’s car. Florence was glad it sat on the park side of the street, but still she hoped Alfonso would know better than to let Max get too close to traffic. As soon as his uncle caught him, she was going to signal them it was time to head back.

  But it seemed the more she hurried, the farther away they got. Must be nice to be young.

  Now Max was cackling, looking back, pumping his little arms and legs, and heading straight for the Buick. “Not my car!” Alfonso cried out in mock fear. “The car is safe and you’ll have foiled me again!”

  Max proved he had a sense of humor too, because when he reached the Buick, he didn’t touch it for safety but stood near it, seeming to tease his uncle.

  “You rascal!” Alfonso called out. “Be careful or I’ll tag you!”

  Just as he reached the boy, Max touched the car. Alfonso collapsed to the sidewalk as if spent and defeated, and they both laughed and laughed. Alfonso stood and opened his arms and Max went to him. The Ranger lifted him and twirled him, making Max hoot even more.

  “But you know what?” Alfonso said, setting the boy down. “You’re it!”

  “No fair!” Max said and charged his uncle. Alfonso ducked out of the way at the last second, then deftly dove through the window of the car. Max followed, and as he got his torso in the window and pushed off the door handle with his foot—disappearing from sight—Florence heard Alfonso yell, “I’m safe in here! I’m safe!”

  Florence was within fifty feet of them now. She hated to interrupt their fun, but it was time for at least Max and her to get inside and cool off with some ice cream. Maybe a Ranger could keep running around in this heat, but not them.

  Then she heard the car start. “Hey!” she hollered. “No time for joy ridin’! Let’s go!”

  “I’ll just run him around the block!” Alfonso said. “Be right back!”

  “Make sure he’s buckled!”

  As the big old sedan eased away from the curb, Alfonso called out, “Buckled in good!”

  “He shouldn’t be in the front seat!”

  “I’ll be careful! Have our ice cream ready!”

  Boys.

  Boone kept enough of his wits about him to know how important it was to stay on the good side of the EMTs. Haeley’s life was in their hands.

  “We need to tend to the victim,” the man told him when Boone tried to pass along Dr. Sarangan’s number. “I can’t really talk to a doctor until we’ve got her on board.”

  “Let me put him on speaker then,” Boone said, dialing.

  As the doctor tried to walk them through the best procedure for keeping Haeley alive in transit, both EMTs kept saying, “Yes, sir; yes, doctor, we know; we know. Let us work.”

  “I have full confidence in you,” Sarangan said. “I’ll meet you at Sinai.”

  Boone found himself hovering, staring, straining to see any sign of life. Haeley looked ghastly. She had gone from pale to nearly translucent, and her lips were bluing. Her unseeing eyes never moved; she never blinked.

  Boone also watched for the responses of the EMTs as they grimly squatted beside her, the man checking her vitals while the woman traded out the blood-logged towels for sterile pads. Both seemed to be trying to appear merely focused, but Boone could tell they were as sobered and shaken as everyone else. He saw them catch each other’s eyes, and he could tell they were not optimistic.

  “You may not want to watch this, sir,” the woman said, as the other EMT brought a neck brace from the ambulance. “It will look strange.”

  “Don’t worry about him,” Jack said. “He’s a cop.”

  But the young woman was ri
ght. It did look weird for them to gingerly stabilize Haeley’s head while painstakingly applying the brace to keep her neck straight. The man took her long dark hair, now black and caked with blood, and held it free of the brace. He had to then change out even the latest supply of sterile pads collecting the blood.

  “Hurry, please,” Boone said, trying to mask his dread.

  “We need to get her to the ER fast,” the man said. “But we must not move her in any way that could make things worse.”

  He jogged to the ambulance for the wood board and straps that would convey her to the gurney inside the vehicle. Readying her for transfer to the board seemed to take forever, but finally they seemed satisfied. “We’ll need some help,” the man said. “We’ll handle her from the shoulders up, but could you and you”—he pointed at Boone and Jack—“keep her legs absolutely in line with her body as we move her.”

  The woman EMT cradled Haeley’s devastated head, gloved hands dripping, while the other worked his arm all the way under her shoulders. They directed Boone and Jack to each support her with one hand on her lower back and the other just below the knee. On a three count they moved her from the concrete to the board.

  “Now please give us room.”

  With one EMT at each end of the board, they lifted her to waist level and smoothly moved her through the back gate to the boxy truck, its back doors yawning. They slid the board directly onto a fixed gurney, and then the man climbed out, peeling off his gloves. He reached back in and deposited the gloves in a contaminated-waste receptacle.

  “I’ll pull out when I hear these doors shut,” he said, heading for the cab.

  “Whoever’s going, let’s go now,” the woman said, and Boone and Margaret clambered aboard. The EMT pointed to a narrow bench on one side of the gurney. Boone sat near Haeley’s head and Margaret slipped in behind him and draped an arm across his shoulders. “I’m praying,” she said.

  “Can I hold her hand?” Boone said as the woman reached to slam the doors.

  “As lightly as you can,” she said, deftly attaching monitors, an IV, and an oxygen mask. “If we sway or jostle, let her move naturally.”

  Boone took Haeley’s hand and lightly enfolded it in both of his. If not for the beeps from the monitor, he would have been hard pressed to believe she was still with him. “Is she going to make it?”

  Boone’s heart sank when the young woman hesitated and wouldn’t meet his eye. Finally the EMT sighed. “If you’re a cop, you don’t want any bull. Truth is, I don’t know, but we’re going to get her to where she’ll have every chance.”

  Margaret whispered urgently into her cell phone. When she was finished, she asked Boone for the number of Max’s sitter. “Better see if she can keep him a few days. I can pick up some things from your house and get them to her.”

  Boone showed her Florence’s number from his phone and turned back to Haeley.

  “I’m not getting an answer, Boone. What was the name of her building? I’ll leave a message with the desk.”

  It wasn’t like Boone to have to rack his brain for such details. He closed his eyes. “Something Arms. Bethune, that’s it. Bethune Arms.”

  As Margaret punched in 411, Boone couldn’t keep himself from wondering what the odds were of a man losing two wives within years of each other.

  Life had been too good.

  He hadn’t deserved it.

  The other shoe had dropped.

  Florence was on meds for blood pressure and sugar, and as she stood shaking her head at the idea of Max’s uncle taking him for a ride around the block, she couldn’t remember whether she had taken her pills that morning. Her breath came in short puffs, and her heart raced. “Gettin’ the dehydration, I bet,” she muttered. “Got to get me a drink.”

  Though she knew it was dangerous to wait and that water was more important than getting off her feet, she was about to drop where she stood. Florence looked for another bench. If she could only take a few minutes to slow her heart and get her breath, she’d find the energy to get back to her apartment.

  The closest bench was the cement one at the bus stop outside her building. That became her goal. It wasn’t a bad spot, either, for seeing when Alfonso got back with Max. She knew his uncle would take good care of him, but Florence was also prepared to scold that boy—veteran or not—for usurpin’ my authority.

  Suddenly the rotund old woman found herself sweating profusely. Perspiration dripped from her hair into her eyes and down her cheeks. Her arms sent rivulets into her hands. Well, that was good, wasn’t it? At least she wasn’t clammy and shaking like when her sugar was low. And if she was dehydrated, her body’s cooling system would have shut down; she knew that much.

  Still, Florence had to get off her feet and regroup, then get back to her lobby. If she was in trouble, Willie could help. But that bus bench, like Max and his uncle had done, seemed to get farther away the more she moved toward it. Florence wiped her eyes and her mouth with both hands, then stopped and rested her fists at her sides, arms akimbo. Breathe, she told herself. Just slow yourself down and breathe.

  “You okay, Big Mama?” A slender man in sagging pants with a bottle-shaped paper bag in his hand leaned close to stare into her face.

  He was one of the local alkies. “Hey, Scooter,” she said. “No, I don’t feel so good. Jes’ trying to get to the bus bench.”

  “Don’t you live right there? Where you goin’?”

  “Need to rest ’fore I go back up.”

  “I kin get you to that bench, Mama. You got any change on you?”

  “I ain’t payin’ you to walk me, Scooter.”

  “Come on now, I’m just sayin’ . . .”

  “Do I look like I got my purse with me?”

  “Just remember me next time you’re out.”

  “I’ll give you a couple when I see you. Now, you gonna help me or what?”

  “Calm yourself down and come on.”

  Scooter slipped a bony hand under Florence’s elbow and let her lean on him till he delivered her to the bench. “You gon’ be all right now?”

  “Mm-hm. Thank you, Scooter.”

  “You won’t forget me now . . .”

  “I’ll whip your tail you remind me again. I told you I would; now get on outta here.”

  “Kill a guy for helpin’,” he said, lurching away.

  Florence was relieved to be off her feet, but then she chastised herself for thinking it made any sense to still be in the sun. She should have just let Scooter get her to the building. But then he would have wanted five bucks. Now her pulse felt funny. Fast, then fluttery. Her breathing should have slowed from sitting, but because of what her heart was doing, she was huffing. Suddenly her priority became getting herself inside.

  Boone was desperate for any sign of hope. He didn’t want to distract the EMT, and Margaret was sitting there with her phone calls made and her head bowed. Boone took a modicum of comfort in that the sounds from the equipment were steady and regular. He’d been in enough traumatic situations to recognize when respiration or pulse were erratic. That was never good.

  Sarangan was probably right; Haeley was in a coma. She was going to need blood; that was sure. Boone started when the EMT tried to close her eyes. “Just don’t want them to get drier and more irritated,” the woman said. When she had trouble keeping the lids closed, she sprayed something into the eyes, and Boone was sure he saw Haeley flinch.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, it is. She’s not conscious, but she’s not entirely comatose, either.”

  The driver slowed almost to a stop before swinging into the ER port at Mount Sinai. A dip in the pavement made the ambulance sway, and the young EMT braced herself and held both sides of the gurney. “Let go your wife’s hand, sir, and you and your friend stay put until we get her out.”

  Boone and Margaret gripped the edge of the bench to stay upright until the vehicle settled. Boone was warmed to see medical personnel huddled under the overhang. As soon as th
e ambulance stopped, they rushed the back and swung the doors open.

  Several men and women in scrubs grabbed the gurney and waited while the EMT released the fasteners and arranged for the equipment to go with Haeley. As soon as they rolled her out, a woman with a clipboard began scribbling as the EMT called out pulse, BP, pulse-ox, and tried to describe the trauma. Boone heard neutral words like Caucasian, female, and twenty-nine. Then severe, cranial, hemorrhaging, nonresponsive, and grave—not one of those hopeful.

  By the time Boone and Margaret exited the ambulance, the ER team was far ahead, running with the gurney through doors held open by their colleagues. “You go ahead, Boone,” Margaret said. “Stay with her. I’ll find you.”

  But as Boone ran to catch up, an ER nurse stopped him in the corridor. “She’s going straight to the OR, sir.”

  “I’m going with her.”

  “She has the best chance if the room remains sterile. You don’t want to get in the way of this, Mr. Drake.”

  Of course the nurse was right. But the last thing Boone wanted was to sit in some waiting room for the same news he’d heard too few years before—news that had obliterated life as he had known it. The nurse pointed to a room. “Your friends, your pastor, and your doctor are on their way. I’ll send them to you as soon as they get here.”

  Margaret reached him and put her hands on his shoulders, steering him down the hall. “There’s nothing we can do but pray,” she said.

  He knew that was true too, and he hated it with all that was in him.

  10

  Limbo

  By the time Florence reached her building, she was afraid she was going to faint. She grabbed the handle of the glass doors leading into the lobby and forced herself to stay upright, despite how light her head felt. She just knew Willie was snoring in front of the TV.

  But no, here he came. Thank God.

  “Miz Quigley!” he said. “What’sa matter?”

  “Dizzy.”

  He was a wiry man, older than Florence, but she felt much better supported with his arm around her waist than she had with Scooter. “Let’s get you in here. You’re burnin’ up.”