When Mal pulled away—maybe five seconds later, maybe five minutes—his eyes were wild. They darted across my face, dropping from my half-lidded gaze to my swollen lips, dipping briefly to the swells of my breasts in my corseted top. I watched, in real time, as he regained reason.
“Um,” he said. “Sorry, I—”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that there was no need to apologize, that actually, kissing him had been better than I’d imagined, that I’d like to do it again, for longer, in a place with fewer prying eyes, but then a scream that wasn’t mine rent the air.
“Oh my god! Help!”
My body stilled, then chilled. Reflexively, I pushed past Mal, my gaze zeroing in on the scene at the base of the carousel.
Two kids under ten. The woman in the wide-brimmed hat, wailing, holding up the bald man by his armpits.
His eyes had rolled to the back of his head.
I gathered the layers of my skirts into my fists and ran.
Chapter Twelve
Jo
My first year of residency, I was paired with a burned-out third-year resident who spent most of the day with his feet up, watching football while I drowned under endless pages and phone calls. Most of the time I found him obnoxious and unhelpful. But whenever disaster struck and a patient we’d previously thought stable suddenly declined, he would appear in the room with a plan in place and tools in hand before I could think to call him for help.
“How do youalwaysknow when they’re about to crash?” I asked, exasperated, after the third time he’d come to the rescue.
“It’s the old Sick, Not Sick spidey-sense,” he said. “I promise. The whole point of residency is to help you grow one too.”
The man who had collapsed in front of the zoo entrances wassick, and not I-walked-around-all-day-in-the-hot-sun-without-eating-or-drinking sick, but maybe-about-to-die sick. I dropped to my knees in front of the family, slapping two fingers over his carotid before remembering to introduce myself.
“Hi. I’m Dr. Boateng,” I said. His pulse was thready. His breaths shallow. “Sir? Sir? Can you hear me?” When he didn’trespond, I looked up at the woman. “Can you please tell me what happened?”
“Y-you’re a doctor?” the woman sputtered, looking me over, and I barely held back from rolling my eyes becausereally? Was now the time for her to be having the revelation thatyoung Black women in fluffy pink skirts can be doctors too?
“Yes,” I said. The man still wasn’t responding, and I rubbed my knuckles firmly against his sternum. Nothing.Shit.Suddenly I was aware of his children, small, mopheaded, but old enough to understand that something was amiss. Moving automatically, I eased the man out of the woman’s hold to lay him on the cobblestones.
“What happened right before this? Did he complain of anything? Chest pain? Back pain? Shortness of breath?”
The woman started to shake, overwhelmed by my barrage of questions.
“Nothing, nothing,” she said. “A little aching in his leg. But he was fine. I promise, he was fine, oh my god, Craig—”
“Call 911 right now,” I told her, and she obeyed, whipping out her cell phone. I surveyed my surroundings for onlookers. Most people kept walking past like nothing was happening, but a few had stopped to stare. Too many others had their phones out, recording the incident in front of them instead of offering aid. I turned back to the carousel, where I’d left Mal, to find him nowhere in sight. Bewildered, I whipped around, searching for him... and then jumped when I found him kneeling next to me, hovering just within my blind spot.
“How can I help?” Mal said. His hands were folded expectantly on his lap, clenched, to keep them from shaking.
“Stay put,” I said.
I pointed to a group of women who were staring down at the scene and whispering among themselves. “You. Go get a defibrillator. It should say AED on it. Ask the staff for help if you’re having trouble.”
To the carousel attendant: “The zoo has got to have a paramedics unit, right? Can you call—”
The thrumming under my fingers stilled altogether, and dread coiled in my stomach. I moved to the man’s chest, placed one hand on top of the other, and began compressions.
The woman screamed again, the sound sharp as a spike through my eardrum. Someone took the phone from her and was speaking to the dispatcher—“Yes, we’re in Lincoln Park Zoo, between the Lion and Primate Houses, man collapsed”—but I focused on my work. The last time I’d done chest compressions was a year ago, in a controlled hospital environment with medications, a swarm of nurses swirling around me and a stony-faced critical care fellow at the foot of the hospital bed barking out orders. This time I was alone amongst chaos. I focused on the force of my compressions, the rhythm (to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”), the sensation of my knees scraping against the cobblestones.You’re not doing it right if it isn’t a workout, our Advanced Cardiac Life Support instructor had said when we were practicing on rubber dummies.If you feel something crunch underneath you, keep going.
“Mal,” I huffed, screening out everyone else around me to focus on the one person I knew I could count on. “I’m going to get tired soon. I’ll need you to tag me out.”
“Yes,” Mal said, already shuffling to the other side.
I walked him through the compressions—“Deeper than you think. Pick a song to go with, ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees is good. No, you don’t have to stop to give him a breath like in themovies”—and he listened attentively, and when the girls finally showed up with the AED, I swapped out with him.
