Part 3
Frank did not remember crossing the break room.
One moment he was holding a paper cup, and the next Jim was taking it from him before the coffee spilled. The county dispatcher waited on the office phone, speaking slowly as she explained that Helen had been found unconscious in the yard and was being transported to North Valley Regional Medical Center.
“Found by who?” Frank asked.
“A passing driver and his passenger.”
“How did they see her from the road?”
The dispatcher hesitated. “A deputy at the scene can explain. You need to go to the hospital now.”
Frank reached for his truck keys before remembering that his truck was at home. Jim took his coat from the hook.
“I’m driving.”
“I can drive.”
“No, you can’t.”
Frank started to argue, but his fingers would not close properly around the zipper of his coat. Jim guided him outside without touching him.
The mill lay seventeen miles north of the farm, and the hospital another thirty beyond that. Jim drove faster than Frank had ever seen him drive, though not fast enough to satisfy the pounding in Frank’s chest. Frank called Laura from the passenger seat.
She answered on the second ring.
“Dad?”
“It’s your mother.”
That was all he managed before his voice failed.
Laura reached the emergency department ten minutes after they did. She came through the sliding doors wearing slippers, jeans, and her husband’s coat over a work blouse. Her hair was still pinned on one side and loose on the other.
“Where is she?”
“They took her upstairs.”
“What happened?”
Frank told her what little he knew. Each sentence sounded worse when spoken aloud: Helen had been alone. She had collapsed outside. Strangers had found her. He had left without bringing in the firewood.
Laura pressed both hands against her mouth.
“You said she was fine there.”
“I thought she was.”
“You said the neighbors checked on them.”
“I was gone less than an hour.”
“And if nobody had driven past?”
Frank looked away.
Laura’s anger lasted only a few seconds. Then she saw what it had done to him and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
A cardiologist named Dr. Morales met them in a small consultation room. She was still wearing a surgical cap, and faint marks from a mask crossed her cheeks.
“Mrs. Whitaker had a major heart attack,” she said. “One of the arteries supplying the front of her heart was almost completely blocked. We’ve taken her to the cardiac catheterization lab to open it.”
“Is she going to live?” Laura asked.
“We’re doing everything we can. The fact that someone found her quickly matters.”
Frank gripped the arms of the chair. “How quickly?”
“We don’t know exactly when her symptoms began, but the ambulance crew transmitted her heart tracing before arrival. That allowed us to prepare the team while she was still on the road.”
Dr. Morales explained the procedure in broad terms. A small tube would be guided through an artery. The blockage would be opened, and a stent placed to restore blood flow. The next several hours would tell them how much damage Helen’s heart had suffered.
When the doctor left, Laura sat beside her father.
“Dad, she can’t go back.”
Frank kept his eyes on the closed door.
“She hasn’t even come out of surgery.”
“She was lying outside in the dark.”
“I know where she was.”
“She’s twenty-five minutes from help.”
“I know.”
“You’re working nights, and she’s hauling wood and feed by herself. That place is too much.”
Frank stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor. “I said I know.”
Across the waiting room, a young woman looked up. She sat beside a young man whose jeans were muddy to the knees. A county deputy stood with them, writing in a small notebook.
The young woman rose.
“Mr. Whitaker?”
Frank turned.
“I’m Nora Bennett. This is Caleb Price. We found your wife.”
Frank crossed the room and took Nora’s hand in both of his. “Thank you.”
“She was already on the ground when we got there.”
“You stopped anyway.”
Nora glanced at Caleb. “We didn’t know she was there.”
Caleb explained what had happened on the road. He described swerving around Mabel, the pig running toward the gate, and the way she kept coming back until they followed.
Frank listened without interrupting.
“You’re saying Mabel left the yard?”
“Yes, sir,” Caleb said. “She stood in front of the truck.”
“She’s never crossed that gate.”
Nora’s voice softened. “Maybe she’d never needed to.”
Frank sat down.
He pictured the red baling twine hanging loose from the post. He pictured Helen lifting logs because he had forgotten them. He pictured Mabel in the road, facing a moving truck.
Dr. Morales returned shortly before nine.
“The artery is open,” she said. “The procedure went well.”
Laura’s knees seemed to weaken. Frank caught her elbow.
“Your mother is stable,” the doctor continued, “but she’s not out of danger. The next twenty-four hours are important. For now, she needs rest.”
They were allowed to see Helen for less than a minute. She lay beneath a white blanket surrounded by wires and quiet machines, her face so still that Frank had to watch the monitor to reassure himself her heart was beating.
He touched two fingers to the back of her hand.
“I should’ve brought in the wood,” he whispered.
Laura stood on the other side of the bed. “She would’ve found something else to carry.”
Frank looked at his daughter.
“She doesn’t know how to stop,” Laura said. “Neither do you.”
Near midnight, Hank called to say he had fed the chickens and goats. Mabel had not touched her food.
Frank left Laura at the hospital and rode home with Jim.
The yard looked ordinary when the headlights swept across it. That offended him. He had expected the house to show what had happened—to lean differently, perhaps, or hold some visible scar.
Mabel stood at the gate.
She did not run toward the truck. She waited until Frank climbed out, then turned and walked toward the woodpile.
“Hank said you wouldn’t eat.”
Mabel continued across the yard.
The fallen logs remained where they had landed. The grass beneath them was flattened, and one patch of mud held the shallow impression of Helen’s shoulder. Frank crouched and touched the ground.
Mabel pushed something toward him with her snout. It was Helen’s left glove. Frank picked it up. The leather was wet, smeared with soil, and stretched along the cuff. Four crescent-shaped holes had been driven through it by Mabel’s teeth…
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