Page 128 of Someone to Watch Over Me

“Josie, get the kids and take them upstairs,now.” Christy’s no-nonsense tone is one I’ve never heard before.

The paramedics come rushing into the house and are led to the patio where Tom, my Tom, is having some sort of crisis.

“I need to be with him.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“I need to know…”

“Give them a minute.”

She never leaves my side, keeping her arms around me as my mind runs the gamut from worst case to best case.

“Is he dead, Iris? Please just tell me if he is.”

“I don’t know, honey. Try to stay positive until we know what’s going on, okay?”

How do I stay positive just over two weeks since he survived a widow-maker heart attack?

Gage comes rushing into the kitchen. “He’s awake and asking for you, Lex.”

It takes a few seconds for his words to register, and then I get up and run for him, through the door, down the steps and into the scrum of people surrounding him on the EMS stretcher.

He reaches out when he sees me coming. “I’m okay, baby. I fainted. That’s all it is, but they want to take me in to make sure there’s nothing else. I was feeling hungry and a bit light-headed before it happened. It’s nothing. I swear.”

I fall on him, sobbing.

He runs his hand over my back.

“We’d like to transport him just to rule out any complications after the cardiac incident,” one of the EMTs says.

I hear him, but I’m not ready to let Tom go yet.

“It’s okay,” Tom says again. “I promise, I’m fine. I got light-headed, and the next thing I knew, I was looking up at EMTs.”

“We’ll get you to the hospital, Lex,” Iris says as she helps me up.

“I’ll go with her,” Joy says to Iris. “You stay and feed the people, Iris. Hopefully, we’ll be back soon.”

I’m moved along to Joy’s car and buckled in. Like before, I feel removed from what’s happening around me as we follow the ambulance to Inova. Déjà vu all over again.

“He fainted, baby. He’s fine. Probably has nothing to do with the heart attack.”

I cling to Joy’s reassurances, but I’m unable to form words or thoughts or feel anything other than panic. Right when I started to get comfortable with him, with the idea of a future with him… That it could be ripped away from me in a single second is too overwhelming to process. At least with Jim, I had some warning that he would leave me. I’m not sure how to cope with the possibility of Tom leaving me suddenly.

What if we get to the hospital and he’s gone?

I wish I never looked up the meaning of the widow-maker. That was a huge mistake.

My hands are shaking so hard that I tuck them between my knees to control the trembles.

Joy has both hands on the wheel as she tries to keep up with the ambulance. “Talk to me, Lex.”

“Don’t know what to say.”

“He fainted. He’s fine. He said so himself.”

“Why did he faint, though?”

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