Charlie

Alice stood on the sidewalk outside her house and watched as they wheeled her mother through the front door, moving cautiously and deliberately as they negotiated the stretcher over the crumbling cement steps. Her mom had talked about repairing those stairs, or replacing them altogether with wooden ones, but had never gotten around to it. It had been third on her list of projects after cleaning out the garage and then the attic, which she had just started to do before this most recent incident. The paramedics loaded the gurney into the ambulance, and one of the EMTs walked over to Alice and told her what hospital they were headed to, asking if she wanted to ride along with them. Alice nodded and let herself be led into the back of the vehicle, where she sat on a small, molded plastic seat beside her mother, and she held on to her mother’s hand. A moment later, the roof lights began to flash, and then the siren let off a brief squawk before falling silent. They sped through several traffic lights on the damp, deserted streets and Alice wondered whether this was simply protocol, or if they were consciously trying to make her feel better and didn’t want to tell her yet that there wasn’t any reason to run the reds.