Read Sunset in St. Tropez for Free Online

she hit her head?” the operator said in a businesslike tone, as Robert fought back tears of terror and frustration.
    “I don't know … do something … please … send someone right away …” He put his cheek close to her nose, still holding the phone, but he could feel no breath on his face, and this time when he felt for her pulse, at first he thought it was gone, and then he picked it up again, but he could hardly feel it. It was as though she were rapidly slipping away from him, and he could do nothing to stop it. “Please … please help me … I think she's dying …”
    “There's an ambulance on the way,” the voice said reassuringly, “but I need some more information from you. How old is your wife?” “Sixty-one.”
    “Does she have a history of heart disease?”
    “No, she was tired, very, very tired, and she's overworked,” and then without saying more, he put down the phone, and gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he could hear her breath catch and she let out a sigh, but there was no other sign of life from her. She was as gray as she had been before, as Robert picked up his phone again. “I don't know what's wrong with her, maybe she fainted and hit her head. She threw up …”
    “Did she have chest pains before she got sick?” the voice asked.
    “I don't know. I was asleep. When I woke up, I heard her coughing and getting sick, and when I came into the bathroom, she was passed out on the floor,” but as he said the words, he could hear sirens approaching, and all he could do was pray that it was an ambulance for her. “I hear an ambulance … is that ours?”
    “I hope so. How does she look now? Is she breathing?”
    “I"m not sure … She looks so terrible.” He was crying, terrified of what was happening, panicked by how she looked. And as he wrestled with everything he felt, the bell rang from downstairs, and he ran to press the buzzer in the hall to let them in. He unlocked the front door, and left it standing wide, and then rushed back to her. When he got back to Anne, nothing had changed, but within instants, the paramedics were on his heels, and standing in the bathroom. There were three of them, from fire rescue, and they pushed him aside and knelt over her. They listened to her heart, checked her eyes, and the man in charge told the other two to get her on the gurney they had brought, and all Robert could hear in the muddle of their words was “defibrillator,” as he followed them downstairs. He was still in his pajamas, and he barely had time to grab his coat and put on his shoes, as he shoved his phone into the pocket of his coat, grabbed his wallet off the dresser, and ran after them at a dead run. They already had Anne in the ambulance by the time he came outside, and he just had time to jump in next to her before they pulled away.
    “What happened? What's happening to her?” He wondered if she had choked on something she vomited, and had been strangling quietly, but the paramedics told him that she had had a heart attack. And as they explained it to him, one of them tore open her nightgown and put the defibrillator on her chest. Her breasts were exposed, and Robert wanted to cover her, but he knew this was no time to worry about modesty. She looked like she was dying.
    Her heart had stopped and she was already wearing an oxygen mask as Robert watched in horror as her whole body convulsed, and they did it again. “Oh my God … oh my God … Anne,” he whispered as he stared at her and took her hand in his, “baby … please … please …” Her heart started again then, but it was obvious that she was in dire straits, and Robert had never felt so helpless in his life. Only hours before, they had been having dinner with their friends, and she looked tired, but nothing that would have suggested something as dramatic as this, or he would have taken her to the emergency room right away.
    The paramedics were too busy to talk to him, but they seemed satisfied with her