48
My blood felt like it drained out of my upper half as I struggled to breathe. Maintaining my wits enough to know the one thing that mattered, I called out after the doctor, “Can I see him?”
I could tell that he was going to say that Brinkman needed to rest if he was going to have any chance of recuperating, but when he looked at my pale, frightened face, he lamented. “Don’t stay too long, but it would be prudent to say your final goodbyes.”
The tears blazed a trail down my cheeks at those words. I refused to believe that this could possibly be the end, but the surgeon seemed confident that it was.
After gently extricating my lower half without jostling Macy awake, I turned to the fire chief. “Watch her while I’m gone?”
“Of course,” he answered, and I had faith that he would. Mere h
