Page 58 of The Kiss | AllFreeNovel

Janine was already on the phone behind me. "This is Dispatcher Janine Curtis, off-duty. I have a female, approximately seventy-five, cardiac event at the Christmas market on Hanover Street. She's conscious, pulse is rapid and irregular. We need an ambulance immediately."

I'd heard that voice a thousand times through a radio speaker. Hearing it three feet behind me on a cold sidewalk, calm and precise while the woman in front of me gripped my jacket, was something I wasn't prepared for. She was doing what she did every shift. Except she was here.

Rose's eyes kept drifting toward the crowd. I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Look at me, Rose. Just me."

She did. Her breathing started to steady.

Janine crouched on her other side and took Rose's hand. "Rose, I'm Janine. The ambulance is two minutes away. You're doing really well."

"I'm sorry," Rose said. "I've ruined your evening."

"You haven't ruined anything," Janine said. She squeezed her hand. "We're right here."

The ambulance was there in six minutes. I briefed the paramedics on the vitals while Janine handled the report. By the time they had Rose on the stretcher, her color was coming back.

"We'll ride with her," Janine said. She looked at me. "She shouldn't be alone."

I looked at Janine on a sidewalk in December, holding a stranger's hand on what was supposed to be our first date. This was who she was. The woman who stayed on the line. The voice that didn't hang up. Of course she was going to ride in the ambulance.

We climbed in. Rose held onto Janine's hand the whole way, and I sat beside them with my hand on Janine's shoulder.

The hospital was bright and quiet after the noise of the market. We stayed with Rose while the doctors worked. When they moved her to a room, we followed.

"You don't have to stay," Rose said. She was propped up now, an IV in her arm, the monitor beeping steady beside her. "You've already done so much."

"We'll stay until your family gets here," Janine said. She pulled a chair up to the bed. "You shouldn't be alone."

Rose looked at her. "You're very kind."

We sat with Rose until her family came. Janine talked to her about her grandchildren, about Charlestown, about her late husband. I adjusted her blanket when she got cold and flagged the nurse when her monitor beeped in a pattern I didn't like.

Then her family arrived.

Three men came through the door in heavy coats, moving with the kind of gravity that fills a room. They went straight to Rose, gentle in a way that surprised me given their size. One kissed her forehead. Another held her hand and spoke to her in Italian.

The third turned to us. He was the oldest, dark-haired, solid, with calm eyes. He shook my hand and held it.