A half minute later, I killed the engine in front of the garage, where Xander hovered over Dad, compressing his chest in rhythmic beats, pausing only to deliver rescue breaths.

I ripped off my helmet and let it fall, already running into the garage. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Xander asked, up on his knees with his hands locked over Dad’s chest.

“Why is he still in here?” God, I could still smell the exhaust even though the truck was clearly off.

“I can’t get leverage in that much snow.” Xander nodded toward the driveway.

“He can’t stay in here.” I quickly assessed the garage and moved, spotting a full length of plywood. It came free of the wood stack easily, and I silently thanked my dad for being a type A…whatever he was. It scraped the floor as I slid it toward Dad, then dropped it to cover a section of the concrete.

“Help me,” I ordered and crouched facing Dad’s head. His weight was inconsequential as I lifted him beneath his arms, and Xander got under his hips. We carried him onto the plywood, then each took an end without discussion and brought him to the fresh air.

The board broke the crust of last night’s snow as we knelt on either side of him. When Xander moved to start compressions again, I grabbed his hands. “Wait.”

“What?” he snapped.

I rested my fingers on Dad’s pulse and felt the beat.

“His heart is beating. You’ll do more damage than good if you keep compressions. He’s in respiratory failure, not cardiac arrest.”

“So breathe.”

“Breathe,” I confirmed as the distant beat of rotor wings reached my ears. “They’re almost here.”

Xander tipped Dad’s head back and continued rescue breaths as I scrambled to my feet and surveyed the terrain. The flattest area with the fewest trees was directly behind the house. Sure enough, a minute—maybe two—later, the helicopter appeared over the house, blowing a fine layer of snow into the air but not much more.

The snow from last night was too heavy to kick up.

They landed right around where I figured they would, and two EMTs rushed out, only to be immediately slowed as they were faced with snow up to their knees.

“He’s this way,” I shouted to be heard over the rotors, then led them around the house to the driveway. “He’s in respiratory arrest. My brother found him by the steps there, with the garage door cracked but not fully open and the car engine going. He’s fifty-eight years old, okay health, but has early-onset Alzheimer’s.”

“Got it,” the guy answered as he and his teammate dropped to examine Dad.

He wasn’t breathing. The situation in its entirety hit me. He. Wasn’t. Breathing.