She didn’t scream; she didn’t panic. “Ryan,” she said, very clearly and out of some kind of unholy calm, “call 9-1-1. Tell them your brother’s been hit by lightning. If our phone doesn’t work, go next door and use theirs, and give them our address. If the phone does work, make the call, then go next door to Mrs. Nebles. Take Jill. Stay there.”

“But Ma—” Ryan burbled, clearly terrified.

“Go now,” she yelled, fiercely, and then all her concentration was on the child who needed her. She ran across the living room and fell to her knees beside Rod. She put him over on his back, carefully, in case there was a spinal injury, feeling under his chin for a pulse.

No pulse. No breathing.

She had never done CPR except on a dummy, but it all came back to her now. She tilted his head back, made sure his airway was clear, covered his mouth and nose with her mouth, and breathed.

Once. Twice. Then pump his chest. She didn’t need to be too careful; he wasn’t so small that she’d crack his ribs.

Breathe. Pump. Breathe. Pump. Don’t forget to breathe for yourself, or you’ll pass out.

At some point, she heard sirens over the sound of the pouring rain and the thunder outside. She ignored them as she ignored everything else.

Breathe. Pump. Breathe—

Hands pulled her away; she fought them for a moment, until she saw it was the paramedics in their bright yellow slickers, then she let them take over, surrounding Rod with their machines and their expertise.

Other people came crowding in; firemen, Mrs. Nebles, the neighbor with Ryan and Jill. She couldn’t see Rod for all the bodies around him, but she heard the pure tone of a flat-lined EKG, then heard someone say “Clear!”, and then everyone pulled away.

She heard the snap of the fibrillator, heard someone curse. The flat tone continued.

She collapsed into the chest of whoever was holding her, sobbing as hysterically as her two remaining children. She would never forget that horrible, unwavering tone for as long as she lived.

They tried, over and over again, to get Rod’s heart started. But the tame lightning of their machines could not restart what the wild lightning had stopped.

Finally, they pronounced Rod dead on the scene, covered him up with a rubber sheet, and took him away, into the rain, in an ambulance, but one with the lights and siren dead. She rode in the back, with the paramedic holding her hand, awkwardly.