The older woman was white as a sheet. The hand Michelle was holding was cold and clammy. “I’m...sorry,” Roberta bit off. Tears welled in her eyes. “He said it wasn’t...pure! He swore...! It was too...much...” She gasped for breath. “Don’t let Bert...get away...with it...” Her eyes closed. She shivered. The hand holding Michelle’s went slack.

The ambulance was in the driveway now, and a man and a woman jumped out of it and ran toward the porch.

“She said her chest hurt.” Michelle faltered as she got out of the way. “And she couldn’t breathe.” Tears were salty in her eyes.

Roberta had never been really kind to her, except at the beginning of her relationship with Michelle’s father. But the woman was in such pain. It hurt her to see anyone like that, even a mean person.

“Is she going to be all right?” Michelle asked.

They ignored her. They were doing CPR. She recognized it, because one of the Red Cross people had come to her school and demonstrated it. In between compressions one EMT ran to the truck and came back with paddles. They set the machine up and tried to restart Roberta’s heart. Once. Twice. Three times. In between there were compressions of the chest and hurried communications between the EMTs and a doctor at the hospital.

After a few minutes, one EMT looked at the other and shook his head. They stood up. The man turned to Michelle. “I’m very sorry.”

“Sorry. Sorry?” She looked down at the pale, motionless woman on the dusty front porch with a blank expression. “You mean, she’s...?”

They nodded. “We’ll call the coroner and have him come out, and we’ll notify the sheriff’s department, since you’re outside the city limits. We can’t move her until he’s finished. Do you want to call the funeral home and make arrangements?”

“Yes, uh, yes.” She pushed her hair back. She couldn’t believe this. Roberta was dead? How could she be dead? She just stood there, numb, while the EMTs loaded up their equipment and went back out to the truck.

“Is there someone who can stay with you until the coroner gets here?” the female EMT asked softly, staring worriedly at Michelle.

She stared back at the woman, devoid of thought. Roberta was dead. She’d watched her die. She was in shock.

Just as the reality of the situation really started to hit her, a pickup truck pulled up into the driveway, past the EMT vehicle, and stopped. A tall, good-looking man got out of it, paused to speak to the male EMT and then came right up to the porch.

Without a word, he pulled Michelle into his arms and held her, rocked her. She burst into tears.

“I’ll take care of her,” he told the female EMT with a smile.