The thing about a moment like that, Lazaro thought later, was that it went by so fast nobody in it knew it was a moment. They carried Celestina down the outside stairs strapped into the stair chair with an oxygen mask over her face and her eyes over the top of the mask fixed on her son. Officer Ostrowe asked if there was another adult who could stay with Emi, a relative, a neighbor, a family friend, and Celestina pulled the mask down and said "No. There's nobody. There's just me," and Nestor put the mask back up. The officer said then Emi could ride with her to the hospital, and Emi said "No," in a voice like a door slamming, and moved across the kitchen and stood next to Lazaro.
Next to him. Not touching him. Close enough that his hoodie brushed the leather of Lazaro's vest.
Officer Ostrowe looked at the boy, and then up at Lazaro. She took in the tattoos and the vest and the letters on his neck, and Lazaro watched her do it and did not hold it against her. It was her job. Then he watched her take in, also, the empty naloxone boxes on the bathroom floor and the way the paramedic had said his name.
"You know the family, sir?"
"No," he said honestly. "I met Emi about fifteen minutes ago. He came and got me."
"Why you?"
It was the question. Lazaro had been asking it himself since the alley.
"I keep a can of Narcan on the fence behind the laundromat on Lake," he said. "His mother told him if anything ever happened, to come find the man with the can."
Officer Ostrowe's eyebrows went up just a fraction. "That's you? The coffee can?"
"That's me."
She wrote something then. "My sergeant has opinions about that can."