“She’s fine,” he says with a smile, but his voice is low, like he’s with a client, which would give me pause any other time, just not now.

“Something happened to Tom!” I blurt. “I think he had a heart attack. I think he’s dead.”

Jack sobers. “Where is he?”

“The potting shed. Margo’s doing CPR. I’ve called 911, but, God, how long do they take?”

“Not long. Do you want me to bring Joy home?”

“No, uh, not yet.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I finger my forehead and try to decide. “Uh, maybe. No. I don’t know.” Yes, I want Joy with me, but no, I do not. She was barely three when my mother passed and has no memory of death. Schoolmates have lost grandparents, one an estranged dad, but Joy’s emotional involvement with those was nil. This is immediate and personal, the darkest moment of life. I want to shield her but am not sure that’s right.

“How much of this should she see?” I ask Jack, and there is nothing rhetorical about the question. I need his opinion.

He is silent for a beat before offering a soothing, “Nothing yet. The uncertainty will be hard, and she’s happy enough here. Call me when you know more.”

With the crackle of tires on gravel, the Volvo appears.

Ending the call, I meet Anne, who races past me toward the potting shed. I’m picturing the scene inside, with Margo pumping on Dad’s chest, when a heavier crunch of gravel marks the climb of the ambulance up the bluff.

They do everything they can. When he doesn’t respond to CPR, they try defibrillation, and when that doesn’t revive him, they try an IV, even intubation.

Nothing.

We are a frightened trio, crowding at the door of the shed since there is no room for us inside, what with three large paramedics and their equipment. We don’t know any of the men; Margo and I have been gone too long, and if Anne knows names, she’s too upset to say. She knows the police, who were alerted by the 911 call, and start arriving, one squad car after the next, but she pays them little heed. Her focus is Dad. Repeatedly, she begs them to get him to the hospital, until Margo says a soft, “They’re doing it right.”

“But it’s not working!”

“They’d have to stop CPR to put him into the ambulance,” she explains in a tempering voice. “They don’t want to do that. Better to work on him here.”

“She’s right,” one of the cops says from behind us, to which Margo adds, “It’s protocol.”

But Anne is indignant. “How do you know?”

“Dan’s mother had a heart attack. This is what they did.”

“Like you were right there? You hate his mother.”