Kore skids to her husband’s body. The skin on her knees scrapes and tears on the sidewalk—a hot press to the childish burns.
Her voice comes out broken, hoarse. “Leo? Leo, wake up!” Limp, he doesn’t respond.
Far off, Kore hears a siren. She imagines it’s for them, and someone is rushing their way with a gurney and defibrillator, oxygen, needles, bandages, and bags of O-negative. Thick warmth oozes beneath her fingers as she tries to staunch the bleeding. Leo’s stomach and chest are covered in the cheap merlot they toasted with on their wedding day because he hates champagne.
Her screams fall flat in the oceanic silence of a childless cul de sac Sunday afternoon. Leo’s chest hasn’t risen; it’s as still as the vanity rocks beside their mailbox.
Kore knows the moment her lips touch his that he’s gone. She just kissed these lips; they moved with hers, warm from a late morning coffee and chapped from the too-cold Spring.
Taking a deep inhale, she offers her life to him. Two breaths, three. Kore realizes she can’t remember how to properly perform rescue breathing. Four breaths, six. She presses on his ribcage, and her hands slip. It happens again with the second compression.
Nothing’s happening. “Wake up, Leo! Get up! Don’t do this to me! I love—”
Kore presses a kiss against his bloody chest as she does every morning, only this time without the expectation that it will rouse him. She surrenders to the already lost battle and briefly wonders if she’ll be able to hear sirens over her pounding heart—now beating for two.