Chapter 74

A HELICOPTER WAS CALLED in to transport me from Brunswick Hills to the Albany Medical Center. After being lifted off the porch floor of the Scaramuzzi house, I found myself floating far above the valley. I was lying on my back, a translucent oxygen mask covering my face. When I turned my head to the left I could see the deep blue/green water of the Hudson River; the way it snaked itself from north to south between the cities of Troy and Albany. There was the loud-whump-whump-whump noise of the chopper blades—a sound I felt deep inside my chest.

When I turned my head I looked for Michael, as if everything that had transpired over the past dozen hours was an elaborate nightmare. But instead I spotted Caroline Scaramuzzi. She was strapped into a seat that folded out of the aircraft’s sidewall. From where I lie belted to a collapsible gurney, I could see that she was dressed in her usual blue jeans, thick fisherman’s sweater and green Crocs.

I felt Michael’s absence like a hole in my belly.

I locked eyes with Caroline. I allowed her image to guide me back to the land of the unconscious.