Page 57

She tilted her face up to mine. "I love you too."

She kissed me as we moved through the ice, her mouth warm against mine, my arm steady on her waist.

After a few laps her grip started to loosen. Her strides got longer. She was still leaning into me, but less because she had to and more because she wanted to. I matched her pace and let her lead without telling her she was doing it.

By the last lap she was gliding. Her hand had moved from my forearm to my hand, her fingers laced through mine, and we were skating side by side in the quiet, her shoulder against my arm, the ice smooth under us, the city bright and still around us.

She looked up at me. "You promised you wouldn't let me fall."

"And I haven't."

We returned the rental skates and walked back toward Hanover Street. The Christmas market was lit up ahead of us, wooden stalls selling ornaments, candles, and mulled cider, the air thick with pine and sugar.

Janine spotted it first. A small porcelain piggy bank at a stall selling hand-painted ceramics, white with tiny blue flowers and a gold stopper on the bottom. She picked it up and held it out to me.

"We did promise."

I was reaching for my wallet when I heard the sound.

A gasp, then a heavy thud. Twenty feet from us, an elderly woman had collapsed beside a stall. She was on the ground, her hand clutching her chest, her face gray, and the vendor beside her was frozen with his mouth open.

Janine looked at me. She set the piggy bank on the stall counter and we were both running.

A small crowd had already gathered around the woman. I put my hand up. "Boston Fire Department. Give us some room."

They stepped back. I knelt beside her. She was conscious, one hand pressed to her chest, her breathing shallow. Her purse had spilled across the pavement. A bag from one of the stalls was still in her other hand, a wrapped ornament poking out the top.

I eased her up so she wasn't flat on the cold ground, one hand behind her shoulders, and propped her against my knee. I loosened her scarf and unbuttoned the top of her coat so her chest could move.

"My name is Alex. I'm a firefighter. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I was just standing here." Her voice was thin, frightened. "I got dizzy and then my chest..." She trailed off and gripped my arm.

"I've got you. Can you tell me your name?"

"Rose."

"Rose, do you take any medication for your heart? Nitroglycerin, anything like that?"

She shook her head.

"Are you allergic to aspirin?"

"No."

I looked up at the crowd. "Does anyone have aspirin?"

A woman in a red coat dug through her bag and handed me a bottle. I shook one out and put it in Rose's hand.

"Chew this for me. Don't swallow it whole."

She put it in her mouth and chewed. I kept my fingers on her wrist. Her pulse was rapid, irregular, thready.

"I was buying presents for my grandchildren." She was looking at the bag she'd dropped. "It's almost Christmas."

"We're going to get you to your grandchildren. I need you to keep breathing with me. Slow. In through the nose."

I pulled my jacket off and draped it over her shoulders. The cold hit me through my shirt but she was the one on the ground.