I can't believe it. Ash is dead?
Delia asks Officer Jenny if there's been some mistake, but she assures her that it's not. Suddenly, Delia starts to collapse.
"Delia!"
I race to her side and grab her before she falls. As I help her to the couch, I notice that she's deathly pale. But at least she's still in enough control to thank Officer Jenny for calling. As the telephone screen goes black, she begins to cry.
"Ash…oh, Ash. My baby…my baby's dead," she wails as she buries her face in her hands. I sit down next to her and take her in my arms. I'm starting to tear up too. I'm crying not only for the boy lying at the bottom of the ocean, but also for his mother, who's now childless. And I'm crying for another reason too. The memory of an awful day nearly eight years ago has suddenly resurfaced.
Delia buries her face in my neck and cries with huge, gasping sobs.
"Oh, Delia," I whisper as I start stroking her hair in an attempt to console her. "I'm so sorry."
She cries harder and harder until she's nearly hysterical. She can't even speak, she's crying so hard. Realizing that she's starting to hyperventilate, I try to get her to calm down.
"Delia, shh. Try to breathe normally."
She tries to answer me, but can't. There's a panicked look in her eyes when she realizes that she can't catch her breath.
"Delia, calm down. Don't panic," I try to reassure her, although I'm starting to panic myself at the sight of her gasping desperately for breath. "Listen to me. Try to calm down."
Choking, she pushes me away and gasps for breath, but I realize that she's too hysterical from grief to stop crying. I've got to do something before –
Suddenly, her eyes roll back in her head and her body grows limp.
"Delia!"
I manage to grab her before she hits the floor. Shaking from fear, a thousand horrible scenarios race through my mind – heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, asthma attack -- as I lay her down on the couch and press my ear to her chest.
Thank God, she's still alive. Her heart's racing, but as I listen for a moment, the frantic pounding slows down to a more normal rate. And the body's autonomic response has taken over, and she's breathing once more.
But still, I'm scared. I've seen people cry hysterically before, but I've never seen anyone collapse and lose consciousness just from crying. She looks so frail, so pale lying there that I wonder if the shock of Ash's death has done some sort of physical damage to Delia's system.
I jump up and quickly dial the number of Pallet Town's only physician. The nurse who answers explains that the doctor is out on a call and will stop by as soon as he's through with his other patient.
"Please tell him to hurry," I tell her urgently while I try to remember how to perform CPR on a human. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I'm not certain that Delia's condition is entirely stable.
"I will," replies the nurse. "In the meantime, keep Mrs. Ketchum warm and comfortable. Check her frequently to make sure she's still breathing."
"I will." I hang up the phone and hurry back to Delia's side to check her once more. She's still breathing. Remembering the nurse's advice, I cover her with the quilt that's lying on the back of the couch. As I tuck the blanket around her chin, I gently lay my palm against her cheek. She's so cold.
"What the hell is taking the doctor so long?" I mutter while I search around for another blanket.
A knock at the front door answers my question, and I nearly stumble over a footstool in my haste to answer it.
"Professor Oak? What's going on?" asks a bearded, brown-haired man standing on the doorstep as I yank open the door. "My nurse said that Mrs. Ketchum collapsed."
"Thank God! It's about time you got here, Doctor Byington." I grab his arm and drag him to Delia's side.
"What happened?" the doctor asks as he reaches inside his medical bag.
"Officer Jenny called earlier with some distressing news. Ash and his friends drowned aboard the shipwreck of the St. Anne off the coast of Vermilion City," I explain as I hover over the doctor's shoulder.
The doctor looks up from checking Delia's pulse in surprise. "Ash is dead? I…I can't believe it."
"Neither can I. I wish it weren't true. Delia started crying so hard that she couldn't catch her breath," I explain as the doctor reaches inside his bag for his stethoscope. "Then she collapsed."
I watch anxiously as he examines her.
"Well, her vital signs are normal," Doctor Byington replies as he removes the stethoscope from his ears. "I think she's just fainted, that's all."
I exhale in relief. I had been holding my breath throughout the exam.
"But when she wakes up, she needs to rest quietly for a while, although I know that's going to be difficult with everything that's happened," the doctor says, replacing the stethoscope in his medical bag.
"Doctor Byington, can you help me carry her upstairs to her room? I think she'll be more comfortable if she wakes up in her own bed."
The doctor gives me a skeptical look. "I don't think it would be a good idea to move her until she wakes up."
"But I think it would be less of a shock to her system if she wakes up in her own bed," I explain. "And besides, with my bad back, I can't carry her upstairs myself."
The doctor reluctantly agrees, and we carefully carry her upstairs to her room. Once we get her settled in bed, he checks her once more.
"Everything seems normal, despite the fact that she's had a terrible shock," he says as he puts his medical equipment back into his bag.
"Is she going to be all right?" I ask anxiously.
"Physically, she'll be all right, but emotionally is another story. In her condition, she shouldn't be left alone right now."
"Don't worry. I'm not going to leave her," I reply firmly.
The doctor reaches into his bag and hands me a pharmaceutical sample. I squint to read the label on the tiny pill bottle and realize that I'm in bad need of bifocals.
Doctor Byington notices my difficulty. "Give her one of these every six hours if she has difficulty sleeping tonight. I'll call later to see how she's doing."
"Thank you for coming over, Doctor."
"No problem, Professor Oak. Please give Mrs. Ketchum my condolences when she wakes up. Ash was one of my patients too." He shakes his head in disbelief as I accompany him downstairs. "I still can't believe it. Ash Ketchum dead."
"Neither can I," I reply sadly as I open the front door. "Neither can I."
"And Professor, be sure to stop by my office sometime in the future so we can get you fitted for a pair of bifocals," Doctor Byington says with a slight smile before he turns and heads down the sidewalk.
"Screw the damn glasses," I mumble under my breath as I shut the door. They're not what's important now. Delia is.
To be continued…
