“Let me try.”
“Why don’t you put the phone on speaker? Don’t hang up, okay? I’m going to dispatch an ambulance.”
I pull on Gabe’s shoulder cursing myself for not joining a gym after Axl’s birth because he is damn heavy. It takes several tries, and I have to anchor my feet against the robust TV stand and push off that to get his inert body to budge.
“I have him,” I say, panting. “He’s on his back.”
“Okay, great. You’re going to start CPR, but I’ll need you to open his mouth. Tilt the head back and check his—”
“Airways. I know.” I’m already one step ahead of her and I begin compressions, counting my thirty beats and then covering his nose and blowing into his mouth for two shaky breaths.
My hands tremble, my entire body aches with every compression, but I persevere until my arms go numb, and the sound of sirens fills our street. I don’t miss a beat when the paramedics arrive, and I can hear both them and the operator talking to me. I answer their questions, but I don’t take any of it in because the man I love, the father of my child, and my soul mate isn’t breathing.
They put Gabe on a stretcher, and I follow the ambulance officers outside.
“Mommy!” Axl screams.
I turn and shake my head at Arturo, who’s holding my son tight in an effort to keep him from running to me. I notice I still have Gabe’s phone in my hand, and I hang up on the 911 operator and plead with Art to stay with Axl. Then I climb into the back of the ambulance and text Clem a 911 from Gabe’s phone as I stare at my husband’s ashen face and pray to God he doesn’t leave me a widow.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Lo
Three days. It’s been three days since I’ve been home. Three days since I’ve left this hospital. Three days since I’ve seen my child. Three days since I last saw him smile, or he hugged me good morning. Three days since my husband tried to kill himself.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Laurier,” Evelyn says. The sweet, heavy-set nurse sets a small basin down on the tray table and pulls the curtain closed.
“Hi, Evelyn. Sponge bath time again?”
“Yep.”
“You bring another washcloth?”
Her pale brows crease and she looks at me as if I’m speaking another language. “Oh, you don’t have to—”
“He’s my husband. In sickness and in health, right?”
“Of course. I need to get another basin of clean water anyway.” She hurries off and I rise and lay out the towel she placed on the tray table. I’ve seen them do this for him daily, and it felt wrong somehow watching someone else care for him, watching another woman run a washcloth over his inert body, no matter how perfunctory.
Evelyn returns to the room with a wash basin and hands me a fresh cloth. Then she moves to Gabe’s side, and proceeds to remove the gown to his waist. His tattooed skin is sallow, and he’s already lost so much weight from misuse. If it weren’t for the ventilator pumping air into his lungs, he’d just look like he was taking a nice, long nap. Gabe never could sit still, so if there’s any part of him that’s conscious and trapped somewhere in there, he’d hate laying around like this.
“Now’s the time to wake up Dash, because Evelyn and I are about to have our hands all over you. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Evelyn gives an awkward laugh and then presses her lips together in a tight line.
I stand back and study his face and body. “He’s really something, huh?”
“Mrs. Laurier?”
“He’s the love of my damn life and we still couldn’t make it work.” I trace my fingers over his stubbled jaw and cup his cheek. I just want to shake him. Tell him to wake up, but I’ve done all that and, true to form, Gabe is being his stubborn self.
Asshole.
I close my eyes as I fight back tears, and then I lean in and kiss his forehead. With the help of Evelyn, I wash his body with tender strokes, pouring as much love into each movement as I can. I tell him stories as I wash, about us, things I’d never told him—or could never tell him—when he’s awake. I cry at some of them, laugh at others, and at some point, Evelyn quietly steps out and leaves me to my own devices. I make sure to dry him carefully and I set the towels and washcloth aside, and then I trail my hands over the ropey muscles of his arms and hard abdomen. To anyone else, it might look as if I’m just massaging his limbs to prevent muscular atrophy, but for me it’s much more than that. It’s saying goodbye to my lover, the father of my child, my soul mate, and my best friend ... because I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to touch him this way again.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Lo