50 Harbor Street - Debbie Macomber [76]
Next, she reached for the phone and called the newspaper office. When Steve Fullerton, the assistant editor, answered, she rattled off the instructions Jack had given her. By then, the water was bubbling and she added the oats and turned off the burner to let them cook slowly.
Wondering how Jack was doing, she went back to the bedroom. As she rounded the corner, she realized he’d quit already. He’d only been at it for fifteen minutes. She hoped that in time he’d increase his stamina. She also hoped it wouldn’t be a battle every morning the way it had been today.
When she entered the bedroom, Olivia found Jack sitting on the treadmill, dragging in deep breaths. His color was a sickly gray and he was sweating profusely.
“Jack?” she whispered and hurried toward him. “Jack? Jack, are you all right?”
He pressed his hand over his heart, shaking his head.
“I’m calling 9-1-1.”
“No,” he gasped. “I’ll be all right. In a minute.”
Olivia wouldn’t chance that. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. She punched out the three numbers.
“9-1-1 Emergency,” a woman’s voice answered.
“This is Judge Olivia Lockhart,” she said as authoritatively as she could. “I need an aid car at 16 Lighthouse Road. My husband is having a heart attack.” She heard the panic in her own voice but couldn’t restrain it. It felt as if her own heart was in danger of failing.
“Judge Lockhart, please stay on the line.”
“No—my husband needs me. Just hurry! In the name of God, please hurry.” She dropped the phone, remembering something she’d read months ago—that an aspirin might help a heart attack victim.
Her hands trembled as she took the aspirin bottle from the kitchen cabinet and shook it into the palm of her hand. Several tablets tumbled out and in her panic, she flung what she didn’t need onto the floor.
Jack looked bad when she returned, lying prone and gasping for air. “Jack, oh, Jack,” she sobbed. She managed to get him to swallow the aspirin. A siren wailed in the distance, and she ran to unlock the front door.
An aid car parked outside the house and two EMTs dashed toward the front steps, carrying their equipment. Olivia’s relief was so great she nearly sank to her knees.
From that point on, events blurred in her mind. Both men worked on Jack for the first few minutes. He was unconscious by then and for one horrifying second she thought he’d died. Terror gripped her. She couldn’t breathe. Before she’d even noticed what was happening, Jack had been loaded onto a gurney and transported to the aid car.
“We’re losing him!” one of the technicians shouted.
“No!” Olivia screamed as she stood in the middle of her yard. “No—” Unable to watch, she covered her face. The aid car sped off.
She went back into the house, found her car keys and realized how badly she was shaking. In this condition, she’d be incapable of driving. It took three tries to dial Grace’s home number correctly.
“Olivia,” her best friend said when she answered. “I was almost out the door. You’re lucky you caught me.”
“Jack—heart attack.” The three words fought their way through the tightness in her throat.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
It was the longest five minutes of Olivia’s life. All she could think about was the day her son Jordan had drowned. She remembered what a lovely August afternoon it had been when the sheriff’s deputy came to the house. At first she didn’t believe him—didn’t want to believe him. Then she’d wanted her husband with her as quickly as possible.
The officer had called Stan, but her husband worked in Seattle. It took him nearly two hours to get home. Two hellish hours as the reality of their son’s death started to set in. Olivia remembered how she’d gathered Justine and James around her. The three of them had sobbed and clung to one another. Grace had been the first person Olivia had phoned that day, too. She’d come over and sat with her and the children until Stan arrived.
Olivia