The rain fell harder now and the dirt that Decker's face was resting against had turned to mud. His hands were locked around the root, his clothes were wet, his stomach was scraped and bleeding, and he was getting cold. He tried calling for help but gave up as his voice grew hoarse. He was only a few feet below the surface, but there was no way to pull himself any farther up. He tried to think of this as an adventure: he'd get out somehow and then he could tell the kids at school about it. Maybe he'd get a lot of sympathy and his mom would even let him skip school tomorrow. He thought about taking off his belt and somehow using it as a rope to pull himself out. Boy! That would make a great story, he thought. But there was nothing to tie it to; and anyway, he wasn't about to let go with one hand to try to take off his belt.
For an hour or more he lay there on the muddy slope, holding onto the root. The rain had almost stopped but the sky was growing dark with the night. That's when he heard the voices of his mother and older brother, Nathan. They were calling him and they were getting closer. He called out – not for help, but to warn them.
"Stay back, Mom! There's a sink hole."
But, of course, she didn't stay back. In a moment he saw her terrified face peering down over the ridge of the hole. She had crawled on her hands and knees to the side and was holding back tears as she looked down at him clinging to the root about three feet below the surface. She struggled to think clearly. She looked at his fingers wrapped around the root. They seemed so tiny. The blood had long since drained from them, and they were white and wrinkled from the rain. Lying flat on her stomach, she reached down, stretching, sliding a little farther, a little farther, knowing full well that the ground under her could give way at any second, sending both her and her son to a muddy grave. In a last attempt to gain the extra inch she needed, she held her breath, flattened herself against the ground, and dug the toes of her shoes into the soft dirt to keep from sliding in.
"Just hold on, Honey. I'll have you out of there in just a minute," she said in her bravest, most reassuring voice.
Decker watched in hope as her fingers grasped his right wrist. It was already far too numb to be able to feel her grip. When she was sure of her hold she began to pull him upward. She lifted him a few inches while Decker did his best to try to climb with his feet against the muddy slope. "Let go of the root now, Honey," she said, "I've got you."
But Decker couldn't let go.
The grip which had held him just out of the reach of death's jaw now refused to release its hold. His hands were numb, locked together, fingers intertwined, and he could not make them move. His mother pulled harder.
"I can't let go! Mommy, I can't make my hands let go," he said, only now beginning to cry.
"It's okay, Mommy's got you and she won't let go." She pulled. With all of her strength and love, she pulled. And then suddenly, she stopped.
Decker sat bolt upright in his bed.
It was a dream.
It had really happened, just that way, but that was years ago; it seemed lifetimes.
Still, inexplicably, he felt his mother's tight grip on his right forearm. He tried to move it, but it hurt and it was heavy. In the dim predawn light he looked and realized what was happening.
"Elizabeth, wake up and let go of my arm," he said. "Come on, Babe. You've been having some kind of weird dream or something." Decker mused briefly at the irony that he would be telling her that she was having a 'weird' dream. "Elizabeth, come on, you're hurting me. Wake up and let go of my arm!" Decker grabbed at her hand and pulled her fingers loose from his arm.
Finally freeing himself and shaking his arm to get the blood flowing again, he lay down to go back to sleep. But something was not right. Elizabeth was a light sleeper. Why didn't she wake up?
"Elizabeth!" he called sharply, but there was no response. He rolled over and shook her to try to wake her, but she would not awaken. He shook her again, but still she didn't respond. Suddenly a horrible thought hit him and he grabbed her wrist. There was no pulse.
He checked for a pulse in her carotid artery. There was none. He listened for a heartbeat, but still there was nothing. His own blood pressure rose as his heart pounded in terror. His jaw clenched and his head began to ache. He tried to understand what was happening.
CPR, he thought suddenly. Her body's still warm. It must have just happened. I've got to try CPR. He pulled the covers from her lifeless body. It had been years since he had taken a class in CPR; he prayed that he remembered how.
Let's see, he thought, put one hand on top of the other on the middle of the chest. Oh, damn! Is it just above the place where the ribs come together or just below? Just above, he thought. He began to apply pressure, but her body just sank with the mattress. He had to get her onto something solid. He grabbed her arms and pulled her to the floor.
He tried again. "Damn!" he said out loud. "I forgot to check her mouth." Decker pulled his wife's mouth open and looked inside for any obstructions to the airflow. It was too dark to see.
He scrambled for the light, but lost more time as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. He checked her mouth again, but could see nothing. He reached into her mouth with his fingers. There was nothing there. "Damn," he said again, in tears of desperation. I should have just done that in the first place. He had lost precious seconds.
He quickly blew two full breaths into her lungs and went back to his position above her, pressing with his palms against the middle of her lower rib cage. "One, two, three, four, five," he counted under his breath, and then blew air into her lungs again. "One, two, three, four, five." He repeated the process. Again. Again. "Don't die… Elizabeth, please don't die," he sobbed. Again, and again. Five minutes. "Please, honey. Please wake up! God, please, let her wake up." But there was still nothing.
Got to call an ambulance. Just a few more. "One, two, three, four, five."
Decker grabbed the phone from the nightstand by the bed. His hands were shaking and his fingers struggled to dial 911 as he stretched the phone cord over to where Elizabeth lay. He held the phone between his shoulder and ear and began CPR again. The line was busy. He stopped and dialed again. Busy. How can it be busy? "Damn!" He pressed the "0" button for the operator. It too was busy. He tried again, but it was still busy.
Decker dropped the phone. He continued CPR for another thirty minutes, stopping every five minutes to try the phone again. Finally it rang. He held the phone between his shoulder and ear, continuing CPR, as over and over it rang. Minutes passed and it just kept ringing. Could he have dialed wrong? Now that it was ringing did he dare hang up? No, no! How could he have dialed 911 wrong? If he hadn't dialed right it wouldn't be ringing. Unless, unless he accidentally dialed 411, the number for information. It was unlikely, but in his state of panic, anything was possible.
He hung up and dialed again. It was busy.
It took only a moment while he dialed, but when he started CPR again he noticed something that had escaped him before. Almost an hour had passed and Elizabeth's body was growing cold. She was dead. There was nothing he could do. She was dead.
Decker sat down on the floor beside her and wept. The thought of losing her now, now that he had finally learned what it meant to truly love her, was more than his heart could bear. His muscles ached from the CPR. Outside their window the sun was rising just as it did on every other morning. Elizabeth always loved the sunrise. The clock-radio came on, and an announcer's voice started in mid-sentence, but Decker didn't hear it. He heard the noise, but that's all it was. Tears streaked his face but he didn't wipe his eyes. If all he had to offer her was his tears, he would leave them where they lay.