When Mark had, at last, made his decision, when he knew what he had to do, he scooped Chloe up from the chair by the window and carried her down the stairs. She weighed nothing, it seemed, and he was worried that this was because whatever animated her, whatever gave her breath, had already left her. That he was, in the end, too late.
He carried her past Connie and Jacob, sitting together on the couch. Shouted to Connie to call the ER at Ohio State and tell them he was coming. What happened? Connie cried, and Mark said, Overdose, his voice ringing out. He kicked at the front door, forgetting he’d shut the deadbolt behind the Weills, but Connie’s hand scrabbled at the lock, and Mark pressed Chloe close—her cheek lolled damply against his throat, where his shirt button was open—and moved sideways through the doorway so she wouldn’t hit her head on the frame. He had not carried Brendan like this; he had not been allowed to touch him, not until his boy, Chloe’s boy, their boy, was in the emergency room, not until after the doctor came into the hall and put a hand on Mark’s shoulder and a hand on Chloe’s shoulder, his face deeply lined, and Chloe had begun to pant, to say already No, No, to strike out, first at the doctor and then at Mark, and Mark had grabbed her, he’d held her to him, and she fought him, she began to scream, and the doctor shook his head and said, He’s gone—
But here, now, he carried Chloe down the steps and the icy walk to the Volvo, and then Connie was in front of him, pulling open the door, and Mark slid Chloe into the passenger seat; he scrambled around the hood for his own door, dug with spasming hands for the keys in the pockets of his jeans, started the car and pulled squealing out into the road.
The hospital was close, only a mile or so up Neil Avenue, at the south end of campus. Mark kept his hand pressed to Chloe’s breastbone; she was shaking, either because of their speed, or because she was convulsing. Mark gave the car gas, felt it shudder like Chloe had, only the opposite—fighting against gravity, the pull of nothing.
But he couldn’t go fast enough, he was sure he couldn’t—
—because he’d already spent too long kneeling in front of Chloe in Brendan’s old room, the bottle of pills in his hand, stunned by what she’d offered him.
Too long saying Chloe! Chloe! Listen to me!
Too long, thinking about how he could do what she’d asked. How he could close the door of the bedroom and jam it shut with a folding chair; how he could lower Chloe to the floor and take the rest of the pills, and then lie down, too, holding her; how this would be so easy—easier by far than deciding what to do with the next minute, the next hour, the next week, the rest of his life without her.
Easier than having to survive again.
What if, he thought, he’d been wrong?
Come with me, she’d said. Let’s find him.
Maybe after he took the pills and closed his eyes, he would open them and Brendan would be standing before them, at the end of the long tunnel, holding the hand of Mark’s mother.
Maybe this was what Brendan had wanted, all along: For them to come to him. In the tunnel their shadow-boy would at last run to them and hug them and take their hands.
He would smile, their Brendan, he would laugh; he would say, as though he had expected it all along, You came back.
How long had Mark imagined all of this? Seconds? Minutes? How many?
Too long, too long.
Now he drove through stop signs. Now he took a hard left onto Neil, laying on the horn, bracing Chloe hard against the seat with his forearm. His front right wheel clipped the curb. The rear end caught a patch of ice and fishtailed, too wide. Another horn sounded behind him, and lights loomed up, but they were not struck; the car scraped through a slow revolution and then he was pointed forward, punching the gas, and they were speeding up—
—No more than a minute or two, deciding. It couldn’t have been more, before he knelt in front of Chloe and said, No—
And now: Lights flashing behind him; a police car drawing even beside him; Mark rolling down his window, yelling Hospital! as loud as he could; the cop nodding hard, then pulling ahead of him, siren wailing; traffic clearing from the streets.
The Volvo speeding, the streets clear, everything in the city in a matter of seconds pointing the way toward the emergency room like a tunnel lined with lights—
—and then there were nurses and a doctor running out of the ER’s sliding doors, opening the passenger door, listening to Mark say Overdose, taking the bottle of pills from his shaking hand, and they were taking Chloe away from him, lifting her onto the gurney, putting oxygen to her lips, the cop who’d escorted him suddenly gripping his shoulder saying, Okay, buddy, you got her here, you did good—
Mark, his chest heaving, agreed. It did feel good. It did.
This was what it was like when you paid attention.
This was what it was like when you had time.
What it was like when you believed.