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open, as if she had been gasping for air, but her eyes were tightly shut. The Indiashaped coffee burn on her cheek glowed even more, but now she was wearing a deep gold silk blouse and beige linen slacks, dark at the crotch.
    I grasped her arm, shocked by its iciness. But the whole room was freezing, I realized, with the air conditioning running unchecked. Margaret, always worried about costs, would never have put it on this high.
    "How's she doing?" the constable asked, though he could see exactly what I could. "I'm calling 911." Behind me I heard the click of keys on a portable phone and his muffled voice.
    I kept my eyes on Margaret. The silky fabric seemed to be moving under my anxious palm, shifting just slightly, but it was impossible to be sure. "Margaret?" I whispered. "Don't give up; we're getting help!"
    Then I looked up at the library ladder, at the riser that had splintered halfway up the wooden steps. Evidently it had thrown her off balance and pitched her backward. I hated those vertical ladders and avoided them whenever I could. Now I added them to my list of things to avoid, along with dark basements, open heights, and running out of money.
    "Don't touch her!"
    I jumped with fright at the voice.
    As the cop knelt at Margaret's other side, I stared at his broad face and tight light brown curls. He had the bland look of a boxer outside the ring. And he was no more than twenty-four, my daughter Jane's age.
    "You see it happen?"

    "No. We found her like this. I tried to reach her by phone and couldn't and was afraid something had happened"
    It was the abridged version.
    Scooping up Margaret's wrist, he pressed his thumb against it expertly. Then he lowered his ear to her chest and listened. Straightening back up, still absently holding her arm like a plank of wood, he said, "Ambulance is on the way."
    "Oh, good. Then she's not-is she. I mean, she's alive, don't you think? Or what ..." I was babbling.
    "I didn't order a body bag, did I?"
    My God.
    "She have a history of dizziness? Heart problems?"
    "I don't think so. But her sister-"
    He shook his head. "Those ladders, they're dangerous. Go straight up, and-" With unexpected gentleness, he turned her head to the right. "Nasty gash! Look at that."
    I didn't want to. "What's that under her head?" I pointed to a piece of tan cloth that I'd noticed when he moved her head.
    "Looks like some kind of rag." But he was fixated on her wound. "She must've hit something on the way down. Old people, their skulls get thin."
    "Old people! She's in her fifties."
    He nodded as if I had just confirmed his thesis.
    I sighed. Even at forty-three, I could have been his mother.
    Time held us tautly; hours passed before I heard the sirens outside the shop. When I checked my watch, it had been three minutes.
    I heard the constable open the front door and slam it again, then the murmur of voices. Two women in loose blue cotton tops and pants hurried over to us. The lanky redhead was carrying a large metal box. The smaller woman held a contraption that I realized was a folding stretcher, a long board under her other arm. As the policeman and I scrambled out of their way, one of them pressed an oxygen mask to Margaret's face. The other started an IV in the crook of her elbow. Then they unfolded the stretcher and laid it down beside her. As they started to ease her onto the board gently, coddling her loose limbs, I pressed my hand over my mouth. No one could be that limp and still be alive.

    They carried Margaret through to the front room, and I saw the policeman hand a leather purse with its familiar Celtic brass clasp to the red-haired EMT. It seemed incongruous-like she would need to freshen her lipstick on the way to the hospital. But in the next minute, I realized that, of course, they would need her identification and medical insurance. Some days I was a few chapters short of a book.
    The village constable held the door for them, and then turned back to me. "Poor lady," he intoned. "A