Helen watched from across the room as Owen stepped back from Gerald and let the paramedics take over. He straightened up, said something briefly to Richard, then looked across the room until he found her. Then he quietly returned to his table, sat down, and folded his hands, as though he hadn’t just held the room together.
The next forty minutes belonged to other things entirely. The ambulance. Claire materialized at Helen’s shoulder and between them they managed it—kept the room calm, kept the alarm from spreading, and answered the same frightened questions repeatedly with the same steady voice.