"She has one pen," Saoirse said finally.
"She has one pen."
"Go to the pharmacy. Now. Don't wait for me."
The CVS on Santa Fe had her prescription on file. The pharmacist, a young woman with a nose ring and a name tag that said DOMINIQUE, told me insurance wouldn't cover a second fill this month without an override, which on a holiday meant Wednesday. The generic two-pack was a hundred and twelve dollars with a coupon she found for me. I'd have paid a thousand. I told her why I needed it, the whole thing, and when I got to the part about the narcotics, Dominique put down the box and said, "Excuse me, she said what," and then went in the back and came out with the box in a bag and a little stapled sheet that said Epinephrine: Schedule — Not Controlled at the top of a printout from the reference software, and said, "In case you need it. For anybody."
I still have it. It's pinned to the wall of my shop over the paint rack.
Soledad Quisenberry called me that night at 10:40. I didn't know her number. I almost didn't answer. She was on I-29 somewhere south of Council Bluffs, driving back from Omaha with her husband asleep in the passenger seat because he'd been up since four and had to drive the second shift, and she was talking very quietly so she wouldn't wake him, and also because, I think, if she'd talked any louder she'd have come apart.
"Mr. Benedetti, I got your number from the Association directory. I hope that's okay. I'm Archie's mom." She took a breath. "I wanted you to know. He had a second reaction at the hospital. About five hours after. Around seven-thirty. He was sitting up in the bed watching cartoons, and he said his tongue felt big, and the nurse saw the hives coming back and they gave him epinephrine again, and steroids, and they're keeping him overnight. He's okay. He's okay now. He's asleep. The doctor said it was a biphasic reaction, and that it was a moderate one, and that he was in exactly the right place for it."
I sat down at the kitchen table.
"She wanted to take him home," Soledad said. "The paramedic told me. She wanted to take him home. And his pens were in her car. In the heat. The nurse took them out to check them and the liquid in the window had gone brown." She stopped. When she spoke again it was barely a whisper. "If he'd been at her house at seven-thirty."