Code Red

My wife has spent forty-two years compiling a very specific dataset on me, and one of its clearer findings is that I should not be on a ladder when no one else is home. She has told me this in a number of ways over the decades, none of which required repeating, because I heard her the first time and every time since. I heard her again last night, faintly, somewhere behind the more urgent argument that the spotlight over the garage had gone dark and the raccoons were not going to police themselves.

So I climbed. And at some point between the second to last rung and the ambition that got me there, the ladder and I parted ways.

The interesting thing about falling at my age is what happens next, before you’ve even decided to move. You take inventory. Breathing first. Heartbeat next. Then a slow accounting from the toes up, checking that everything still answers when called.

What I hadn’t accounted for was the response team already inbound.

Captain reached me first, nose working before his feet had even stopped, running the kind of methodical check you’d want from someone who’d actually trained for this. He checked my breathing first, holding his nose so close to my mouth I could feel it. Satisfied on that point, he made a slow circuit from shoulders to Nikes, pausing here and there as though comparing what he found against some internal checklist known only to golden retrievers. He nudged one hand, then the other. He considered my leg for a moment and apparently decided it fell outside his jurisdiction. Satisfied I was operational, he turned and headed for the house with the quiet confidence of a man whose paperwork was finished.

Morgan had arrived a half second behind Captain at a dead run and gone straight to the only diagnosis he was ever going to make, which was that a body on the ground needed a body on top of it. He landed on my chest with his full weight, the golden retriever equivalent of “do not move, you may be hurt” and held that position while Captain worked. Once Captain cleared out, Morgan escalated. His read on the situation called for mouth to mouth, and he committed to it without a shred of hesitation, working my face with real conviction until I got a hand free and pushed the first responder off my chest.

With me upright and no longer requiring resuscitation, the Boyz turned their attention to the ladder. Captain circled it once, nose low, sniffing the feet where they’d skidded on the concrete. Morgan gave the nearest leg a firm, decisive bark, the kind of citation that suggested he’d found something and wanted it on record. Whatever the finding, it didn’t strike either of them as urgent. The ladder stayed exactly where it had fallen, and so did the report.

Captain settled beside me with the air of a man who’d done everything the situation required. Morgan leaned against my leg, tail sweeping the grass, looking up like he was waiting for a medal. Neither spared the ladder another glance. As far as the Boyz were concerned, the patient had been saved, the investigation completed, and the case closed.

I still had the hydrangea to explain to my wife. Which, statistically speaking, she’d probably already predicted forty-two years ago.