“If I wasn’t gone so much, and you didn’t have the responsibility of your mother, too…” her father began.
“It’s not your fault. I don’t want you to feel guilty. You know Mom would be very unhappy if you didn’t bring in the kind of money you do. Besides, it wouldn’t matter. She expects certain things of me, and that wouldn’t change even if you were home all the time.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m okay. Really I am. Now, let’s talk about something else.”
Ten minutes later, car parked, Sabrina and her father began to climb the hill leading to the flower gardens of the park, which was their favorite place to walk. The path was strewn with brightly hued leaves from the maple trees that lined the walkway. Sabrina took a deep, appreciative breath. She loved autumn. It was her favorite season.
“Did you hear about what happened to Shorty Carwell last—” She stopped in mid-question. “Dad?”
Her father had abruptly stopped walking and was gripping his chest.
“Dad?” she said more urgently. “What’s wrong?”
He grimaced. “Just…just a bit of…indigestion. Shouldn’t have had that second helping of dumplings.”
“Are you sure?” Sabrina didn’t like his color. Normally her father’s complexion was ruddy, but right now he looked pale. “Maybe we should go home.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m fine. It’s just indigestion. Walking will be good for me.”
“But—”
“It’s okay. I feel fine now.” Smiling, he held out his arm.
Although Sabrina took it, she couldn’t banish the kernel of anxiety that had knotted in her stomach. Maybe it was just her questioning nature—so valuable to a reporter—but his smile seemed strained to her. Yet he seemed determined to act as if nothing had happened, so she forced a lightness into her voice that she didn’t feel.
“What time is your flight tomorrow?”
“Noon.”
“So you’ll be leaving early.”
Her father always flew out of Cleveland rather than Akron, which was closer to Rockwell, because there were more flights to choose from. When Ben didn’t immediately answer, she looked at him sharply. Alarm caused her heart to lurch. His face was now a ghostly white, and beads of perspiration stood out on his upper lip, although the late afternoon air was chilly. “Dad! You’re not all right!”
“I—” He staggered back. Clutched his chest. His eyes met hers for one panicked moment. Then, with a strangled cry, he collapsed on to the walkway.
Sabrina lunged for him, but she couldn’t hold on—he was too heavy. With a calmness she later marveled at, she whipped out her cell phone and punched in 911, as she sank to her knees and put two shaking fingers of her other hand against her father’s carotid artery. She swallowed. There was no pulse. Dear God.
The moment she’d finished giving the emergency dispatcher the information that would bring an ambulance and EMT personnel to the park, she began CPR. Thank God she’d taken the lifesaving course only months earlier, as part of a series she’d done on emergency facilities in the area; otherwise, she wouldn’t have had any idea how to go about trying to revive him.
“Dad, please be okay. Please be okay.”
Over and over she pleaded with him even as exhaustion began to make it harder and harder to keep going. Again and again she went through the cycle she’d been taught. Fifteen compressions followed by two slow breaths into his mouth. Recheck his pulse. Fifteen more compressions, two slow breaths. Check the pulse.
By now she was sobbing with fright and frustration. No matter what she did, he still wasn’t breathing! Where was that ambulance?
Please hurry, she prayed. Please hurry.
Finally she heard the wail of the siren, faint at first, then louder and louder as it pulled into the parking lot below.
Within moments, three EMTs converged on her. Strong hands moved her aside, and the technicians took over.
The next ten minutes were a blur. Sabrina watched numbly as the EMT personnel worked on her father. When one of them—a stocky dark-haired man who seemed to be in charge—called for the defibrillators, Sabrina bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Please, God. Please don’t let him die. I need him.
She watched in agony, wincing each time they shocked her father’s heart.
And then, in a slow-motion moment Sabrina knew she would remember the rest of her life, the dark-haired EMT raised his head.
“It’s no use,” he said, looking at the other two.
“No!” Sabrina cried.
The female EMT turned to her. “I’m so sorry.” Her dark eyes were filled with sympathy. “There’s nothing else we can do. He’s gone.”
Sabrina stared at them. Her father couldn’t be dead. He was only fifty-eight years old. He was way too young to die. “Daddy…” Tears ran down her face. “Daddy.”
The female EMT stood, putting an arm around Sabrina’s shoulder. She led Sabrina to a nearby bench. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” she asked kindly.
Sabrina numbly shook her head. Her father had no family. His parents were dead, and he had been an only child. And her mother…dear God, her mother…
“Are you sure?”
Sabrina wasn’t sure about anything. “M-my mother’s in a wheelchair. I—I have to go there and…and tell her.” Oh, dear heaven. What was going to happen to them? How would her mother handle this?
“Is there any other family? Someone who can be with you so you don’t have to do this alone?”
There was only her mother’s brother Frank, but he was in poor health and retired with his wife in Florida, and her Aunt Irene, her mother’s sister, who lived with her family in Savannah. Sabrina bit her trembling lip. Casey. Casey would come.
“I—I’ll call a friend,” she finally managed. Casey Hudson had been her best friend since high school, the closest friend she’d ever had.
The moment she heard Casey’s voice, Sabrina broke down. Gently the EMT—whose name tag identified her as J. Kovalsky—took the cell phone out of her hand. In soft tones, she explained the situation. By the time Sabrina had regained control of herself, the phone call had been disconnected.
“Your friend said she’d be here in ten minutes.”
Sabrina sat numbly as the two male EMTs loaded her father’s inert body onto a rolling stretcher that they placed in the ambulance. “Wh-where will you take him?”
“To the morgue at County General.”
Because of her newspaper work, Sabrina knew that a death certificate would have to be signed, and that her father’s body would be kept at the morgue until whatever funeral home she and her mother chose would claim it.
Her lips trembled. Body. Morgue. Funeral home. They were such harsh words. Harsh and alien and final. Suddenly the numbness that had kept her grief in check evaporated.
Burying her face in her hands, she allowed the tears to come.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
Sabrina listened to the words