I said, “I’m so sorry, I need two minutes,” and I took it standing in a hallway with floor-to-ceiling glass and the whole city going orange underneath me.
7 in 10 Fail This Quiz
15 minutes. Most adults miss more than half. Think you’re the exception“Mrs. Whitmore?”
“Speaking.”
“Ma’am, your husband has been involved in a serious motor vehicle accident. He’s been brought to our trauma center. How soon can you get here?”
Three Hours Later I Was Running Through an Emergency Department in a Business Suit With No Coat
I don’t remember booking the flight. I know I did, because I have the receipt — 7:14 p.m., one-way, the last seat on a United flight out of O’Hare, nine hundred and forty-one dollars, which at the time felt like nothing and which I later put in a spreadsheet because that’s apparently who I am.I remember the cab from DIA and I remember that the driver had a rosary on the mirror and that he didn’t try to talk to me, which I was grateful for.
I ran through those sliding doors at 11:52 at night in a gray suit and heels, no coat, March in Denver, with my laptop bag still over my shoulder because I’d never put it down.
The woman at the desk was young and kind and had a name tag that said PRIYA.
“My husband is Daniel Whitmore,” I said. I was out of breath in a way that had nothing to do with running. “They called me three hours ago. Where is he?”
She typed. She looked at the screen.
And her whole face changed. Not alarmed — uncomfortable. That particular look of somebody reading something they’re going to have to say out loud.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. You can’t go back there right now. His wife and child are already with him.”
