Duke sat on the curb alongside the elementary school, unsure of what to do. Gabriela came jogging up to him. Breathing hard, she said, “Come on. Let’s go. Did you drive? Do you know what hospital they’re going to?”

He pointed to his car, across the street. “That’s mine. They went to University.”

“Give me your keys.”

He handed them over mutely. “I’m gonna need you to help me walk.”

As she wove them dangerously through traffic, honking and yelling at drivers, his wrecked ankle burned. It was in the background, though, against the fervent prayers he was saying for Jose. He couldn’t forget how the boy’s small body had felt, flopping against him as he ran as fast as he could toward the ambulance. He’d felt Jose shudder and buck, trying to breathe. Duke would have ripped out his lungs that very second, would have given his own life, if it would have helped Jose.

When they drove into the hospital’s emergency bay, Gabriela let out a small scream.

They saw the parked ambulance, the back doors flung open. Jose’s gurney was being rushed through the doors—with Angel straddling his small body, counting, as she repetitively compressed his chest. She was performing CPR.

Angel’s arms and chest ached after ten minutes of compressions. She didn’t know how emergency responders did it, keeping up the hard, measured pushing as often as they did on those long ambulance rides.

When Jose had quit breathing, and then his heart stopped, Angel scrambled on top of him without a second thought. She was grateful the EMT didn’t stop her; instead, he took off Jose’s oxygen mask and replaced it with a bag, pumping out the breaths on her count. The driver had driven like the tires were on fire, but Angel simply hooked her feet into the swaying cot’s rails and used her ankles and thighs to stay in place, wishing only that the ambulance could go faster.

Now, standing aside as the doctors worked over him in the emergency room, she felt her heart calm. Her brain slowed. She found peace. She knew what she was going to do.

She was going to kill herself. If they couldn’t bring him back around. The instant they pronounced him, she was going to slip into a maintenance closet, find a bottle of Drano, and make sure she followed him into the light. If her baby had to go, so would she.

“Got him!” a bald-headed doctor crowed.

She heard Jose, on the gurney, take in a large breath, then cough, then gag. It was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard, the singing of angels.