The Last Day

SEVENTY-EIGHT

Natasha stared into her husband's open eyes through a veil of warm tears. His pupils were fixed and dilated.

“Oh, Ward, don't leave me,” she called, cradling his bloodred face between her wet hands.

“Is he dead?” Alice asked.

Natasha eased Ward's head down and began giving him chest compressions. After a dozen, she put her fingers to his throat and felt a faint pulse, then nothing.

“No, he's still alive.”

Natsaha gathered her thoughts. “Alice, on top of the refrigerator-bring me the black case!”

Alice tossed the gun to the couch cushions, ran, and returned in seconds with the case in her hands. Natasha opened it with bloody hands and turned on the defibrillator, purchased after her son's death.

“Now, look under the sink and get the trash bags. In the utility room there's a roll of duct tape in the cabinet over the washing machine. Bring those to me,” Natasha ordered in as calm a voice as she could manage. “Can you do that?”

“Sure I can,” Alice said, rushing from the room.

Natasha felt the blood flowing freely from Ward's open wounds, but she had to get his heart beating, and it might, at least until he had lost so much blood that his heart was starved.

“Oh, Ward, please stay with me. Please don't leave me.”