“Don’t let them take the baby.”
Victor stopped moving.
Margaret stopped breathing.
And I stopped being the man they thought they had buried alive with her.
Part 2
The ambulance arrived in seven minutes. I rode beside Clara, my hand locked around hers, while the paramedic shouted numbers and placed oxygen over her mouth.
“She has a pulse,” he said. “Weak but present. How was she declared dead?”
“That,” I said, staring through the rear window at Margaret and Victor following in their black Mercedes, “is the question.”
At St. Adrian’s Hospital, Clara was rushed into emergency care. I was barred from the room for forty minutes. Forty minutes long enough for Margaret to sweep in with Victor and start performing.
“My poor daughter,” she sobbed to the nurses. “My son-in-law is delusional. He disturbed her funeral. He has been unstable since the accident.”
“What accident?” I asked.
Margaret turned slowly.
Victor smiled. “The emotional one.”