Page 4 of Meet You Half Way
Fuck. How I missed him.
It was only after I had allowed myself to mope for half an hour in my depressing thoughts that I realised I had left my phone at work. Honestly, I was such a headcase these days it was a wonder I still remembered to complete my nightly skincare routine.
I also knew I wanted to Uber in for dinner tonight especially if Rob wasn’t going to be around. It was only a short drive from our cottage back to the little office just off the high street of Esperance where Dante ran his architect firm.
Fortunately, the tourist season was over so I was able to find a park right out the front of the building. It was one of those new arty builds with lots of black cladding and exposed red bricks, kind of indicative of Dante’s design style really.
The front door was cracked open and I felt a momentary stab of panic that I had forgotten to lock up when I had left earlier. It wouldn’t have exactly surprised me given the state of my mind but I felt a welling of anxiety. Dante kept a whole heap of expensive equipment in the building and I would hate myself if I was the cause of anything being stolen.
I pushed through the front door, eyes scanning the space to ensure everything was where it was meant to be. The high-tech computers were still on their desks and the heliographiccopiers and 3D printer were right where they were meant to be. I felt my heartrate settle when I couldn’t see anything amiss but I did another slower check just to make sure.
I’d just cast my eyes over the kitchen at the back of the building when I heard it, a soft wheezing sound that had me stopping to cock my ear. I heard it again, just the slightest wheeze but so out of place in the quiet office. I stepped further into the kitchen, eyes pitching to the floor before my heart plummeted to the ground.
“Dante!” I cried, instantly at the older man’s side where he was hunched on the floor, clutching his arm as he wheezed out a sequence of short breaths. His skin was pale and clammy, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “I’m here,” I told him, clutching onto his shoulders.
“Mat…teo,” he wheezed, a shaky hand reaching out to clasp mine.
“I’m calling an ambulance. Wait here,” I told him, leaning him back gently against the fridge.
“No. I’m … fine.”
“The hell you are, uncle,” I said, panic clawing at my chest. I rushed back out to my desk, grabbed my phone and thanked the universe for my absence of mind for being the reason I was here at all as I dialled emergency.
“You have dialled emergency triple zero. Your call is being connected.” I waited a breathless moment before the line clicked and I was connected to an operator. “Police, fire or ambulance?”
“Ambulance,” I all but shouted down the line.
“Where are you calling from?”
“Esperance, South Coast.”
“What is the problem? Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“I think my uncle is having a heart attack.”
“Is your uncle conscious and breathing normally?”
“He’s mostly conscious but he’s struggling to breathe.” The operator kept barraging me with questions while I made my way back into the kitchen, putting the phone on speaker as I knelt back beside my boss. My friend. Myfamiglia. I clutched onto his hand, his grasp weaker than it had been only moments before.
“It sounds like your uncle may be having a cardiac arrest,” the operator told me. “I have a team dispatched to your address but in the meantime, I’m going to walk you through the steps for CPR.”
“I did a first aid course last year,” I told her. Not that I had ever expected to put into practice what I had learned.
“That’s excellent. Can you roll your uncle onto his side to open his airway?” I did what she asked and then rolled Dante onto his back. “Okay, I need you to start chest compressions now. Thirty hard and fast compressions. Count them out loud for me.”
I did as the operator told me, completely forgetting my first aid training as I just listened to her voice as she talked methrough the cycles, thirty compressions, two rescue breaths, her calm tone keeping the panic at bay.
“You need to hurry,” I told her, trying to remain calm for Dante’s sake but knowing I was close to panicking. His eyelids were flickering shut and I could see he was close to losing consciousness as I kept him settled as best I could. “He’s losing consciousness.”
“The team should be there very soon. Stay calm now and I’ll stay with you on the phone until the paramedics arrive. Keep doing those compressions with me. Let’s keep counting.” I didn’t know who this person was but I loved her right then, this calm, steady voice talking me through and keeping me from spiralling.
It felt like a painfully long time before I heard the wail of sirens and then the flash of blue and red lights filled the building. I continued administering CPR at Dante’s side as the paramedics arrived, two of them stepping into the room. Instantly the loneliness of my situation faded as the comforting presence of these experts who knew exactly what to do enveloped me.
One of the men came up beside us, kneeling right alongside me as the other paramedic placed an oxygen mask over Dante’s face.
“You’re doing a great job for your friend,” he said as he took over the CPR for me, his words so kind I almost sobbed into his broad shoulders.
“Dante,” I told them, nodding in his direction. “His name’s Dante.” He looked so small and weak lying there on the kitchen floor, his usual larger than life personality minimised into almost nothing.
