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The police officer comes to the window.
“Going a little fast there, buddy,” he says.
“If I don’t get my mom to the hospital right now, she’s going to die.”
The officer bends over and looks in through the window. When he sees my mom, he nods. It’s not hard to see she’s in a bad place. She looks like she might be dead already and my throat swells shut.
“I’ll give you an escort,” the officer says and jogs back to his car.
I reach for my mom and touch her neck, searching for a pulse. It’s there, fluttering faintly against my fingertips.
“Just hang in there,” I say, and when the cop comes past, sirens wailing, I fall in behind him and we speed through town.
When we pull up at the hospital, the nurses are ready with a gurney. They get Mom out of the car and on the gurney in record time and race into the building.
They take her into the ICU and I can’t follow, so I’m stuck in the waiting room, feeling like my whole world is collapsing around me.
My dad runs into the waiting room.
“Is she okay?” he asks, out of breath. His eyes are wide.
“I don’t know,” I say. “They’re still busy in there.”
“What happened?”
“She just stopped breathing.”
My dad pulls a pained face. “I shouldn’t have gone in. I knew I shouldn’t have. I told her it was better if I stayed at home, but she insisted, and I thought it might be nice to breathe—”
“It’s not your fault, Dad.” I grab him by the shoulders. “I was there. God knows what would have happened if I wasn’t.”
My dad clenches his jaw and nods without answering.
We settle on the plastic chairs, waiting for a doctor or a nurse to update us. The chairs are uncomfortable. I balance on the edge, elbows on my knees. I hope to God I got her here in time. That police escort might have saved her life. I should have called an ambulance. I panicked.
Dad looks like he might combust, his panic is so severe. He’s terrified he’ll lose her. I feel the same. But for the first time, I understand my dad’s fear. If it were Natalie…
“It’s going to be okay,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know!”
“Well, I hope,” I snap. “Because that’s all we have left. Fuck, dad, we’re trying our best here.”
Dad only shakes his head and falls quiet again.
Finally, after what feels like forever, a doctor appears.
We both jump up.
“How is she?” Dad asks.
“We pulled her through. She’s sedated right now; her body fought the tube. The machine is breathing for her. She’s going to need that transplant sooner than I thought. We’re putting her on the donor list.”
“How long will it take until we find new lungs?” Dad asks.
