I can’t say it. I can’t think it as I begin to shake her by the shoulders.
There’s no reaction at all.
“Fuck, oh fuck.” I press my finger to the pulse in her neck, then her wrist because my shaking fingers can’t find one. My phone—where the fuck is my phone? I pat my pockets frantically, the same time as I arrange her flat on her back.It’s in my jacket pocket.I almost go and get it as my hands hover over her chest, thoughts shooting lightning quick through my head.
Wasn’t there something about apartment’s smart system being able to dial for the emergency services? Voice activated?
I don’t remember—I can’t fucking concentrate as I reach over her prone figure and knock the landline phone from the nightstand and input the digits. On my knees still, I press my left hand to the center of her chest, interlocking my right fingers over it.
“Nine, nine, nine,” says a voice from the phone. “Which service do you require?”
“Paramedics. Quickly. My girlfriend isn’t breathing.” With straight arms, I use the heel of my palm to push on her breastbone as I play that stupid Bee Gee’s song over and over again in my head.
Staying-alive-staying-alive-ah-ha… again and again.
Tension lives between my shoulder blades, sweat standing on my brow, running own my face and mingling with my tears. Abject fear fills my heart, the motions of my chest compressions happening without real cognizance. As the eldest of seven children, I relish peace. I enjoy periods of solitude. But I never want to feel this alone ever again.
I hear voices in the apartment. The concierge from downstairs and a woman’s voice. “In here,” I shout. “Fucking hurry!”
A woman in a noisy green and yellow jacket appears by my side.
“Mush up, my love. I’ll take it from here.”
“She’s not breathing,” I move to the floor by her head. I’m not going far. “Please, for the love of God, just fucking do something.”
“What’s her name, my love?” The woman, the paramedic, is about my age.Jesus, shouldn’t she have a doctor?
“I’m here first, so I’ll have to do,” she says without rancor as a companion arrives to continue the same pattern of compressions, and she gets fuck knows what out of her huge bag. “Name?” she repeats.
“Mimi. Amelia. Amelia Valente.”
“Mimi, my darling, can you hear me?”
I drop my head to my hands because I don’t think she can.
* * *
I hate hospitals, but who doesn’t? Maybe people who love their jobs, I think, watching women in scrubs and porters in navy uniforms pass along the corridors. Some smile, some laughing. They’re entitled to what fun they can glean because I wouldn’t do their jobs for all the money in the world. Deal with death and heartache on a daily basis? I find myself shaking my head in denial, catching my reflection in the window. I look like a case of care in the community. My hair is a mess, and I’m muttering to myself.
Please, God, let her be okay. Casting my eyes to the ceiling, I bargain with the big fella, not for the first time today.
It felt like we’d been alone on that floor for hours, when it could only have been minutes before the critical care paramedics turned up with their portable defibrillator. They shocked Mimi—twice—before she regained a pulse.
She was dead. She was the lack of energy I felt, and I never want to experience that again.
Dead and they brought her back. How fucking amazing is that? And now she’s in a coma; an induced coma is still a coma, whichever way you look at it. She’s lying in a hospital bed, just feet from me, on a respirator.
A door opens, and my head jerks up. I wish it hadn’t when I spot a distraught family being led out. A husband and a wife, maybe, clinging to each other. Other people follow, grief etched into their faces.
How can anyone do this job? Numbers makes sense. Death does not. Not for someone as vibrant as Mimi. Elbows on my knees, I drop my head between my shoulder blades because I feel so fucking helpless.
No. I’m not doing this, I think, sitting upright again.
She’s not dying. I won’t let her. Except…
If they lead me to that room, I’m not going in, I decide. Fuck that and fuck this, she isnotdying.
The plastic chair squeaks a protest as I control the things I can, pulling my jacket from where it’s draped over the back of it. I fish out Mimi’s phone from the pocket—I’d grabbed it from the bed next to her case as she was stretchered out to the waiting ambulance. I input her code, not sure how I know it.
