Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,25

condition, even if the slipcovers were flowered print. She had curtains to match, which seemed a bit much to Webster, but which solved the problem of the open windows. His father fixed a leaky faucet, spackled and painted over large holes in the wall, and checked the electrical outlets, putting new covers over them. Webster’s mother had brought bedding, declaring that Webster’s old sheets and blanket weren’t fit to bring into a new home. She and Sheila made the bed together, and when Webster caught a glimpse of them in the bedroom, his brain filled with white noise.

Too fast, too fast.

He couldn’t imagine what Sheila was thinking. Would she feel that they’d been invaded? Would she be glad that she’d been welcomed?

Sheila and his mother opened cartons—mismatched dishes, glasses, a toaster, all unearthed from the Webster basement—while Webster and his father each had a beer. Webster thought his parents’ kindness a sign of acceptance. Maybe his mother had won the previous night’s argument after all.

When his parents left, Webster and Sheila stood at the counter, looking at the stack of Tupperware his mother had brought, all filled with parts of a meal and a coffee cake for breakfast. They shook their heads, bewildered. Two weeks ago, they’d had each other and nothing else. Their time together had been a secret. Webster was afraid that something precious was in jeopardy now. Their relationship was public, subject to scrutiny. He longed to be back in that moment in the B and B, stroking Sheila’s arm before she woke up.

“What did you say when they left?” Webster asked.

“I said ‘thank you.’ What did you think I’d say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your father glances at me when he thinks I’m not looking. As if I might be going to steal something.”

“He came to help.”

“Yes, he did.”

Webster put his arm around the woman he’d slept with, who was his girlfriend, who would be the mother of his child, who might, one day, be his wife.

“Can we crack these open?” Sheila asked, pointing to the food in the Tupperware. “I’m starved.”

Attention, Hartstone Rescue. We need a crew on Deertrack Road, number forty-five, suspected stroke, male, seventy-two, wife present at scene, blurred speech, apparent paralysis of left side.”

“Let’s go,” Burrows said.

In the rig, Burrows got on the radio. “Car sixty responding. Can you say when symptoms first occurred?”

“Approximately fifteen minutes prior to our call. Can I have your ETA?”

“Six minutes,” Burrows said and signed off. “It’ll be twenty minutes down when we get there. You know where you’re going?”

Webster was pretty sure he knew where Deertrack was. He’d once had a girlfriend who’d lived out that way. He nodded.

“You know the guy?” Burrows asked.

“No, do you?”

“Not really.”

At the destination, Webster made a U and backed expertly up the driveway of number 45. Each carrying their usual equipment, the EMT and the medic opened the front door and walked in. The house was old, built around the 1920s, with a lot of dark molding and small rooms stuffed with furniture.

They found the man still slumped in his recliner, the wife trying to hold him up.

“I know who you are,” she said, recognizing Burrows. “You’re that nice medic who helped my daughter’s son with his asthma.”

Burrows was a lot of things, but nice was a stretch.

Burrows checked the airway and applied the high-flow oxygen. Webster whipped out his pad and pen. “I’m going to have to ask you some questions,” he said to the woman.

While Webster took a history, Burrows dealt with the patient.

“Sir, can you tell me your name?” Burrows asked.

The patient answered, but his speech was garbled. Burrows asked the man to lift each leg. He could lift only the right one. Webster wrote that down along with the garbled speech. Burrows then asked the man to smile. The left side of the smile drooped.

Diagnosis confirmed. Injury to right side of the brain.

“I’m going for the stretcher,” Burrows said to Webster.

“Ma’am,” asked Webster, “can you help your husband sit upright? You can put your hand here on this left shoulder. I need to examine him.”

The man said something else in garbled speech.

“What’s he saying?” the wife asked, beginning to panic.

“I don’t know, ma’am, but it’s a good sign that he’s trying to talk.”

When Burrows returned, Webster reported: “BP two sixty-two over one twenty-eight. Pulse ninety-two. Respirations twenty-four. We need a line in. Sir, can you squeeze my fingers?” he asked the patient.

Webster felt something, but he wasn’t sure he was getting a good response. He needed to know the