He dressed and walked out to the kitchen. Nevvie started preparing their breakfast and had the newspaper spread out on the counter.
Nevvie didn’t care what Tyler said, he would go see Dr. Aston today, like it or not. His skin looked grey under the bright kitchen lights.
She turned to mix their scrambled eggs, and then something made her turn back to him. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Tyler started to speak to her and lost his train of thought. She looked at him and said something. He realized he couldn’t hear her.
That’s when the crushing pain enveloped his chest, driving the breath from him. He had enough time to register this as his eyes locked on Nevvie’s before his world went black.
Nevvie watched as Tyler swayed on his feet, looked at her, and then collapsed.
“Tyler!” She dropped to his side, trying to wake him. “Tyler!” He didn’t respond. “Mom!” she screamed. “Mom, come quick!”
Peggy raced into the kitchen. “What—oh my God!” She dropped to her knees next to Nevvie. “What happened?”
“He just collapsed!”
Peggy leaned in close, listened, then checked his pulse. She ripped his shirt open down the front, popping the buttons off, and leaned over him. “Nevvie, call 911.” She started chest compressions, then tipped his head back and blew into his mouth.
“What?”
She resumed chest compressions. “Dammit, call 911! Get an ambulance!”
Nevvie scrabbled backward, in shock, trying to get out of the way and process what happened.
911?
“What’s wrong—”
“Nevvie!” Peggy screamed. “Call
now
, dammit!”
The older woman’s frantic tone finally broke through Nevvie’s shock and spurred her into action. Nevvie dove for the phone, her fingers shaking as she made the call, trying to relay Peggy’s answers to the operator’s questions without crying.
Heart attack?
Not her Tyler! Please, no!
“Nevvie, go open the front door,” Peggy panted between compressions and breaths. “Then go get your shoes, your purse, his wallet, and your cell phones.”
Nevvie’s feet felt anchored to the floor. Peggy glanced away from Tyler for a second. “Dammit sugar,
go!
” she screamed. That shattered Nevvie’s paralysis and she started moving.
Peggy tried to focus on her task, her arms and shoulders killing her. She was too old for this shit. Nevvie looked close to panic. Peggy knew she had to keep her head at least until the paramedics arrived.
“Dammit, Tyler,” she muttered under her breath. “You can’t leave them. C’mon, sugar. You can make it. Goddammit, don’t you leave that boy without a father.”
She paused to take his pulse, didn’t feel one, and immediately resumed CPR.
Nevvie heard the sirens as she opened the front door and left it standing open. She then ran to the bedroom to do as Peggy ordered, returning to the kitchen as the first EMT rushed into the house.
Peggy was sweating and red in the face, trying to update the EMT as she maintained a rhythm. In a carefully choreographed swap, she rolled away from Tyler while the EMT took her place without missing a beat.
Nevvie felt numb, frozen. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a bad dream.
Peggy caught her breath on the kitchen floor and then looked at Nevvie. “I’ll take care of the baby. You ride in the ambulance with him.”
Nevvie nodded, still not comprehending. More paramedics rushed into the house, two with a gurney. Nevvie tried to stay out of the way, but as the severity of the situation sank in it was hard to remain calm as she watched the events unfold before her. Tyler was lying unconscious on the floor, the EMT still giving him CPR as the others worked on him. They put a tube down his throat, applied chest leads and prepared a defibrillator. Peggy answered questions and gave them information about Tyler.
When they had what they needed from Peggy, she stood, walked over to Nevvie and put her arm around her.
“Do y’all have your paperwork here?”
“Huh?”
Peggy gently shook her. “Paperwork. Insurance, medical power of attorney, that stuff?”
“Tommy’s office. Top file drawer. Red folder in the front.”
“That’s real good, sugar. Give me your keys.”
Nevvie numbly handed them over.
“I’ll bring Adam to the hospital after I get the paperwork and get him ready, okay?”
“Okay.” Nevvie couldn’t pull her attention from Tyler. She willed him to open his sweet blue eyes and look at her.
The paramedics were ready. One of them looked at the defibrillator unit. “Clear,” he ordered.
The EMT giving chest compressions sat back and held his hands up, waiting. Tyler’s body jumped. That’s when Nevvie’s composure shattered and she sobbed.
The men working on Tyler watched the screen for a moment. One said, “Okay, let’s get ready to transport.” Another prepared an IV and inserted it in Tyler’s arm.
Peggy kept an arm around Nevvie’s waist. “Go with them. We’ll call Tommy once I’m there.”
Oh God, Thomas!
Nevvie stared. Peggy’s voice grew stern, breaking through her foggy haze. “Nevvie, sugar, I know you’re upset but you have to hold it together for him. They’ve got him back—”
Back?
“—and they’ll take good care of him.”
She glanced at the clock. Only ten minutes had passed from when he collapsed.
Only?
“Mom, is he going to die?”
“Don’t you
dare
think like that, missy,” Peggy scolded. “He’s young and he’s got a family he loves more than life, every reason to fight. Do you think he’s going to up and leave you three like that?”
Nevvie shook her head. The EMTs had Tyler loaded on the gurney and were rushing him out the door.
“Go,” Peggy shoved Nevvie toward the door. “I’ll be there soon.”
With leaden feet, Nevvie followed the gurney. She climbed into the back of the ambulance when she was told, tried to hold back her tears. When the paramedics asked her questions she nodded or shook her head, unable to speak. Her eyes never left Tyler and she prayed, silently begging him to open his eyes.
* * * *
Peggy grabbed one of the firemen, who’d responded in a truck with the ambulance. “Where y’all taking him?”
“Tampa Community. Do you know where that is?” She shook her head and he gave her quick instructions.
“Thanks, I’ll find it.” After the ambulance pulled away, Peggy raced inside. Adam lay crying in his crib, his face red and fists balled up.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, her composure finally shattering as she picked up her grandson and cradled him. Her momma hadn’t raised no fool. If Tyler wasn’t Adam’s father, she was George W. Bush.
“Daddy’ll be okay, darlin’,” she whispered, rocking him. “He’ll be okay.” She cried, praying it would prove true.
She allowed herself five minutes to be upset before gathering enough things to take care of the baby for the day. Nevvie would need her to be strong, and so would Thomas. She located the folder in the file drawer and found a sweater in Nevvie’s closet to take to her. She might need it in the hospital waiting room. With a final check of the kitchen to turn off the coffee pot and make sure the stove was off, she pulled out of the driveway in Nevvie’s car fifteen minutes after the ambulance had left.
Please let him live
, she prayed.
Please don’t take that boy from us.
Chapter Six
Nevvie tried to stay out of the way, tried not to cry. Peggy’s words echoed in her ears. She had to be strong.
At Tampa Community, the ambulance pulled into the ER entrance. When they opened the back doors, Nevvie climbed out and stood to the side. She tried to follow Tyler’s gurney into the bowels of the ER when a nurse intercepted her.
“Please, let me go with my husband.”
“Ma’am, you can’t go back there with him. The doctors have to get a look at him. We need you to fill out paperwork. They’ll probably take him to the cath lab.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, they’ll check him to see what’s wrong with his heart, to see if he needs surgery—”
“Surgery?” Nevvie gasped. That’s when she lost it. Her knees buckled. Sobbing, she sank to the floor as the nurse tried to get her to her feet and into a chair.
She couldn’t even tell him she loved him.
Another nurse and an orderly came over to help. They steered Nevvie into the admitting cubicle. Through her tears she fumbled with Tyler’s wallet, trying to choke back her sobs as she struggled to get the requested items out. She finally handed it to the nurse to pull out his driver’s license and insurance cards.
“You’re his wife, ma’am?”
“Yes. My mother-in-law is bringing all our other paperwork with her, and our son…” Nevvie sobbed again. The nurse, obviously used to dealing with upset family, handed Nevvie a box of tissues and let her cry for a few minutes. They finished the admissions paperwork and Nevvie had almost composed herself again when another nurse poked her head around the corner.
“Mrs. Paulson?”
Nevvie nodded, her soul chilled, certain the nurse would break the worst news possible.
“We’re taking your husband to the heart cath lab. You can see him for just a minute if we go back right now, but he’s not conscious.”
Nevvie leaped from her seat, clutching the admissions paperwork she’d been given, and followed the nurse. She caught sight of a clock—she’d already been there a half-hour. That long? Time seemed to fold and twist. It felt like five minutes ago she’d been standing in the shower with him, and yet hours since Peggy jumped on him to perform CPR.
The nurse spoke to her on the way and Nevvie didn’t understand a word of it. EKG. Echocardiogram. Blood work. Cath lab. Stents. She might as well have been speaking Latin. Inside the room, several nurses and doctors worked on Tyler. He was hooked up to monitors and on a ventilator.
Her tears ran unabated as she leaned over him and kissed his forehead.
“I love you, Ty. Baby, please, you’ve got to pull through for Tommy and me and Adam. You can’t leave us, you stubborn evil genius.” She softly whispered in his ear, “Please, come back to me, come back to your angel. I love you.”
One of the doctors spoke. “I’m sorry, we need to move him.”
“Hold on,” one of the nurses said. She removed Tyler’s wedding band and watch. “Here, ma’am, hold onto these for him. You can give them back to him once he’s in recovery.” She said it kindly, apparently hoping to calm Nevvie’s nerves. It didn’t help.
Nevvie took them, nodding, noting the warmth in the gold band. She slipped it on her left hand and had to put it on her middle finger because of the size. She slipped his watch into her pocket.
They wheeled him out and the nurse guided her back to the ER waiting room. Peggy waited with Adam in his carrier.
“How is he, sugar?” She took the paperwork from Nevvie’s numb hands and looked through it.
Nevvie burst into tears. Peggy turned to the nurse, who filled her in. “He’s going to the cath lab right now, ma’am. I’ll take you to the surgical waiting room.”
Peggy nodded and tried to manage the baby carrier and the bag. Nevvie unfastened Adam and picked him up, carried him in her arms. Nevvie trailed behind while Peggy toted the empty carrier and asked the nurse questions. The nurse brought Peggy up to speed during the walk. Once they were settled in the waiting room, Peggy turned to Nevvie.
“Sugar, do you understand what’s going on, what the nurse said?”
Nevvie cradled Adam and shook her head.
Peggy took a deep breath and put a hand on Nevvie’s leg. “Tyler had a cardiac arrest. His heart stopped beating. I was right there and started CPR immediately so I’d be willing to bet he’s going to be fine. They’ve got to find out why his heart stopped because he had a heart attack. They’ve got him on medication that will help, but they’ve got to do a heart cath on him so they can see what’s going on. Depending on what they find they might do what’s called a stent, or they might have to do surgery. We won’t know for a while.”
Nevvie squeezed her eyes tightly shut and nodded.
Peggy worried more about Nevvie’s state of mind at that moment than she did Tyler’s health. At least if Tommy was here she’d have a solid rock to lean on. Without him, she was a wreck.
“We’re gonna call Tommy in a few minutes,” Peggy said. “But not yet. We need to make a couple of other calls first. I need you to get Bob on the phone for me, okay?”
Nevvie fumbled Tyler’s BlackBerry with one hand. She finally found Bob’s number in the contact list and hit the send button before handing the phone to Peggy.
Peggy stepped out to the hall to talk to him. She briefly explained the situation.
“Oh, no. How’s Nevvie and Thomas?”
“Nevvie’s near collapse. Tommy’s out of town, doesn’t know. We haven’t had any problems with the hospital yet. If we do, Nevvie’s in no state of mind to handle them. Can you come?”
“Where are you? I’ll be right there.”
When Peggy finished with him, she found Pete’s number and called him next. Pete met her news with a brief stunned silence.
“Is he gonna make it?”
“I don’t know. Can you and Eddie get over here? Right now? I’ve still got to call Thomas and tell him. Nevvie’s not doing good.” Peggy peeked around the corner and watched as Nevvie stared at the floor, rocking in her chair, the baby in her arms and a stunned look on her face.
“We’ll be right there.”
“Thank you.”
One more call, dialed from memory. Karen answered her cell on the third ring. “Momma? Why are you calling from Tyler’s cell phone?”
More shock once she broke the news. “Can you come down?” Peggy asked.
Karen’s stunned voice nearly finished Peggy. “Yeah. I’ll call the airlines and see if I can get a flight to Tampa. Otherwise I’ll drive. Momma, is he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, sugar. If we lose him, Nevvie and Thomas are gonna need all the support they can get.” She gave Karen the hospital information.
“I’ll let you know once I get a flight.”
“Okay. Call April and the others.” She knew she didn’t have to say not to call Em.
Peggy returned to Nevvie. “We need to call Thomas, honey. Do you want me to do it?”