Free Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez Page B

side, as if someone were taking swings at him. The pounding in his ears was so fierce it felt like a sudden loss of hearing.
    “But I heard him last night—”
    “Don’t shout,” she whispered. She stood up and embraced him. They staggered together, gripping each other for support, a macabre little waltz. She let go of him then and coaxed him down onto a chair, saying, “Sit, sit, sit.” They were both crying.
    She went to the fridge and took out a bottle of water. She took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water and carried it to the table and set it in front of him. Every movement careful and slow, as if even the least gave her pain.
    Cole stared at the water as if he had no idea what it was.
    She gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “I have to lie down before I pass out.” Her voice was a croak; her eyes looked as if someone had tried to scratch them out. “I’ve been up all night.”
    He wanted to help her. He picked up the glass and tried to give it to her but she waved it away.
    She didn’t want to climb the stairs. Without taking off her coat she stretched out on the living room couch, resting her heels on one of the arms so that her feet were higher than her head. Cole knelt on the floor beside her. He sucked in his lips to stop them from trembling.
    It wasn’t his father he’d heard, she said. His father had been unconscious.
    “He needed to get to a hospital, but I knew I’d never get an ambulance to come here.” She had run out into the street and started knocking on doors. Two houses down lived a retired widower—the owner of the chocolate Lab that sometimes roamed the neighborhood—who’d agreed to come back with her.
    “I wanted him to help me carry Dad to the car. He tried talking me out of it. He said the hospital wouldn’t be able to do anything. But I wouldn’t listen. I hung on to his arm, I begged him until he gave in.”
    “Why didn’t you wake me , Mom?”
    “Oh, sweetie, I don’t know.” She looked at him imploringly. “I wasn’t sure, I didn’t think it would help if you—yes, maybe I should have woken you. Can you understand why I didn’t think so at the time?”
    Cole nodded, but inside he was screaming. He remembered waking up to the noise and how he’d decided against going downstairs. Mistake! Mistake!
    The man wouldn’t go with her to the hospital, she said. Suddenly she began to sob. “Why did we come here? We never should have come!” She sat up and gazed around the room with a look of terror. “We never should have come!” She was sobbing so hard Cole could barely make out the words.
    He said nothing. He felt utterly helpless, under a spell, without the power even to put his arms around her. How would they live? How would they live without his father?
    His mother had let herself fall back. She was still sobbing, but quietly, and Cole let her be. Minutes passed—he had no idea how many—and he saw her fall asleep, or pass out. A river of fear ran through him. He didn’t want to be alone.
    “Mom!”
    Her eyes flew open. For an instant she looked blind.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t stay awake anymore.”
    Cole thought again of that old movie, the one where falling asleep meant worse than death. The one whose hero had the same name as his father.
    “Let me sleep just a little,” she slurred, eyes closing again.
    He was alone.
    He got up and drifted back into the kitchen. He took a sip of water from the glass sitting on the table and poured the rest down the sink. How clean the kitchen was, all neat and shiny. The whole house was like that. It was one of his mother’s ways of dealing with stress. If my hands are busy I’m not wringing them, she said. At other times, the house was a mess.
    He sat down at her laptop and tapped the touchpad.
    Addy, the worst has happened. Miles had a heart attack and died last night. I’ve been trying to call you but can never get through. I’m writing now mostly just for something to