Page 8 of Don't Go
Her eyes came up. "Is this a competition, Mr. Cross?"
"Maybe."
She set the glass down, put her hands flat on the bar, and leaned in. "Mmm…and what does the winner get?"
I leaned in to match. "Bragging rights. And?—"
That was when I heard a soft, deep thud.
Then a scream. It was high and broken, a sound you don't forget the first time it leaves a person you love. It came from the windows.
Sabrina and I looked at each other for one beat.
I turned.
The room had pulled toward the windows—bodies, suits, a ring of backs forming around a shape on the floor I couldn't see. People were moving in. Other people were moving back. A waiter was running with a glass of water. A woman near the front was on her phone with her free hand flat against her sternum.
I saw the shoe.
I pushed off the bar with both hands. The carpet under my feet felt thicker than it had a minute ago. The woman near the front got out of my way without me having to ask.
I went through the ring of backs.
He was on the floor.
My mother was on the floor with him. She had his head in her lap. Her hands were on either side of his face. She was saying his name over and over. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was open.
My brother, Cade, was already on the phone. He was kneeling. He gave the address in a low, hard voice—the ballroom, now—urgent, unstoppable, telling them like there was no time left to waste.
Suzanne was on the floor next to my mother. Her hand was on my mother's elbow.
I dropped to my knees.
"Dad." I said it out loud in a room with four hundred people, and I said it like a child.
He didn't move.
His mouth was open, and it was a shape I'd never seen his mouth in. I'd been looking at it my whole life. I knew his mouth. His mouth didn't do this.
The room got very far away.
I knew the sounds—Cade on the phone, my mother saying, “Henry, Henry, baby, Henry”—but they were behind glass. The ringing in my ears was louder than any of it. Somebody touched my shoulder. Suzanne, I think. I don't know.
It's probably because of the stress, the room, or the air-conditioning. He's been working too hard. He told me last week the new specialist had him on something that made him groggy. It's the medication or the alcohol on top of the medication. It's nothing.
It's probably nothing.
I wiped my palms on my trousers. I didn't know my palms were wet until I wiped them.
The paramedics came through the door at a pace I hadn't seen before that night. There were two of them carrying a board. They asked my mother to move, but she didn't. Cade put his hand on her shoulder, and said her name. Then she moved. They got him on the board, got the board onto a stretcher, then got the stretcher up.
One of them looked at me. "Your family?"
I nodded and couldn't make a word.
"You can ride. One of you."
Cade was already saying he'd drive us. He was already moving. He had his hand on my elbow and was steering me through the room toward the service door—closest exit, the door I wouldn't have thought of.
