Rob moved to the other side of the toilet to see how badly the cabinet had sliced her stomach. There was too much blood to see the size of the wound. He stroked her legs and leaned into her, placing his left hand on the source of the bleeding, like he’d seen doctors do for gunshot victims on hospital shows.

“We’re going to fix it. We’re going to fix it, babe.”

He took his hand off the wound and placed both of his forearms under Liz’s still-shaking torso so he could pull her body from behind the toilet and carry her through the house and out the front door. He made a quick stop in the living room to grab his keys and wallet from the coffee table. He kicked the front door closed with his foot, neglecting to lock it, and kissed the top of Liz’s head.

He held her against his chest like a baby as he opened the backseat of his old Audi with his free hand. Then he placed her down gently, her stomach bleeding onto his vinyl seats.

“It’s okay, babe,” he repeated as he hopped into the front seat and revved the engine.

The moment reminded him of all the movies he’d seen in which a man brings a panting woman in labor to the hospital. The radio had popped on loud, still tuned to the college station that on Saturday nights played a block of old-school hip-hop. Liz’s whimpering was suddenly drowned out by “Return of the Mack,” which played so loud that the car vibrated. “Fuck!” Rob yelled and quickly shut the stereo off. But then he turned it back on, lowering the volume, hoping that the music would calm Liz down. She always loved music. In her healthier days, she’d jumped around—almost galloping—whenever Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” came up on his CD player.

With that thought, he shut the radio off again and started singing the song, hoping she’d recognize it.

“Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night. Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.”

Not hearing much of a response from the backseat, Rob moved on to “Ballad of a Thin Man” and then “Are You Ready?” the song on Dylan’s born-again Christian album that always seemed to make Liz pant with extra enthusiasm, as if she were experiencing her own religious awakening.

“Are you ready to meet Jesus? Are you where you ought to be?”

Rob was not religious, but singing the lyrics caused his eyes to well up with big tears. It was all too ominous. He wondered if Liz felt the same way. He continued to sing, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his wrist.

In the rearview mirror he could see that Liz’s eyes were closed. The tiny movements in her chest told him that she was still breathing. Maybe she was sleeping. Or maybe she was listening to him. Rob decided to switch back to her favorite, “Hurricane,” and slurred the words like Dylan. He tried to match Dylan’s nasal tone.