Part Four: The Drive
I ran two red lights.
The first was at Clearwater and Main, where I looked both ways and then went because stopping felt like something I couldn’t do. The second was at the intersection two blocks from the hospital, and I didn’t look both ways, I just went, because Leo had made a sound from the back seat that made my foot press the accelerator before I had consciously decided to press it.
I talked to him the whole way.
I don’t remember everything I said. I remember the shape of it — his name, a lot, repeated as anchor. Leo, I’m here. Leo, we’re almost there. Leo, look at me in the mirror. Leo, can you see me? Good. Good boy. I’ve got you. Almost there.
He was conscious. That was what I held onto during those eight minutes. He was in pain and he was struggling to breathe and the color of his face was wrong, but his eyes were open and when I said his name he responded.
I pulled up to the ER entrance without finding a parking space first.
I got out of the car. I opened the back door. I said to the first person I saw in scrubs: “My eight-year-old son. He was kicked in the ribs. He’s having trouble breathing. Please.”
They took him from me very quickly. That speed — the speed of the response, the way two nurses moved to him immediately and a third went for a gurney and a fourth was asking me questions — was both terrifying and the most relief I had felt in the last twenty minutes, because speed meant they saw what I saw, which meant I had been right to run the red lights.
