Ninety minutes later an EMT named Corey responded to his last call of the day. The Garden District. A heart attack, seventy-three-year-old male. The patient’s wife let him and his partner in wordlessly, and then had leaned on the doorway to the bedroom, watching them work, until she finally deposited herself on the couch in the living room. Stone-cold ice queen. Her eyes bulging, frog-like. A row of creepy-ass clocks clicking above her head. So many diamonds on her hands and neck. He subconsciously stroked the two diamond studs in his right ear, one a gift from his ex-wife, the other for which he had saved scrupulously.
Before they left, patient in tow, Corey told her the name of the hospital where they’d be taking her husband. He could not get a verbal acknowledgment. She simply continued to stare. He waved a hand in front of her face. He was low on patience. He never got enough sleep. The last thing he needed was to have to take her in, too.
“Come on, lady,” he said.
Finally she let out a massive exhale and then began gasping for air. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear she’d been dying and had just come back to life.
2
Alex, in bed but not sleeping. Feet flexed. The air conditioning blasting for no reason. Yoga pants, soft, fluttering T-shirt, and cashmere socks, which were a birthday gift from four years ago, when she was not yet divorced and a man still wanted her to feel good. Laptop at twenty-nine percent, resting on her stretched-out thighs. Open to a brief, in which she ceaselessly typed, as if the pure intensity of her fingertips would somehow make this a winnable case, which it was not.
Alex, with the monstrously large brown eyes, unblinking, and the thin, serious, taut lips, and the delicate membrane of grief she regularly nudged up against, nearly stroking it; because of its familiarity, it now felt good to engage with the grief. There was no good or bad; there was just sensation.
Alex, alone this summer, in a house on a cul-de-sac in a subdivision of a town forty-five minutes west of Chicago, while her daughter spent it away from home, with her ex-husband. On the night table, a mug of Valerian tea, which she drank every night, even though it never worked as it should. Like she sleeps. Come on. She’s wired like a ceiling lamp, bolted and secured. But it’s habitual, this tea. Maybe someday it will knock her out.
The phone rang. It was her mother, with whom she spoke rarely, except for the occasional grim conversations. Basic life facts exchanged. She had given up on her parents years ago. Things would never be honest between them. So why bother with any relationship at all? She answered anyway. No one ever calls with good news this late in the evening. If she didn’t answer, she’d only stay up all night wondering what it was. Better just to know.
Barbra sounded frail and tender, a gravelly and sweet quality to her voice. “I have news,” she said. Alex’s father was in the hospital. Probably he would die. Alex gasped. “That’s what I said,” said her mother, and it was a good line—Barbra was sometimes funny, Alex flickered on that—but Alex didn’t laugh. Anyway, her mother would like to know: could she come to New Orleans immediately?
“I need some assistance,” her mother said. Barbra, who had never asked for anything except that her daughter be pleasant, and, sometimes, that she be quiet—both unrealistic expectations, Alex had always thought.
“I’ll come tomorrow,” said Alex.
Deeply, almost erotically, she was stirred. Now, this is happening. Now, things could be different.
Now, she’ll never fall asleep.
3
In Griffith Park, with a direct, intense gaze, Gary watched the sun set over Los Angeles. Seeking clarity as his heart rate slowed. He’d been walking every day since he’d arrived, between whatever meetings he could get, a difficult task, especially in late August. Every morning he strode determinedly in a loop around the reservoir in Silver Lake, early, when it was still cool, and every afternoon he took a more leisurely hike in Griffith Park, ambling through the land on dusty trails and then up to the observatory. Making his way around cheerful packs of tourists stopped in their tracks, cameras held aloft, trained to hide all the bad angles. He never got to stretch his legs at home in New Orleans, not like this. As he walked