A Heart of Time by Shari J. Ryan

appreciated the wrong parts of life. Now I appreciate time—the time I had with Ellie, the time I take to be a dad and raise Olive, and the time Olive is awake and home from school. Time is what I’m grateful for, because without time, nothing else matters.
    I bust through the front office doors and into the nurse’s office, searching around the room until I see the school nurse, principal, and receptionist hovering over Olive. “What happened?” I snap. They already told me over the phone, but I need to hear it again. I need every single detail.
    The EMTs are on my tail and I’m forced to back away so they can take care of her. One of them is pulling up her eyelids checking her pupils with a flashlight while another checks her limbs. I hold my gaze on the EMTs as the nurse describes in detail about this “ misfortunate accident ” on the playground.
    “She climbed up to the top of the play gym and stood on the monkey bars while reaching for the sky. By the time her teacher saw, it was too late…Olive’s foot had slipped through one of the openings and she fell off the side. The drop was about seven or eight feet, and she fell directly onto her head.”
    This was one of my biggest concerns during open house. I asked them how carefully they watch the children on the playground. They explained how great their teacher/student ratio was, and that each child would be carefully supervised. Don’t they know it only takes one second?
    “Looks like a grade three concussion,” one of the EMTs says, matter-of-factly, without a hint of emotion in his voice. As another EMT rushes past me with a stretcher, they place a brace around Olive’s neck, and it nearly covers her face. I can’t even touch her because they have closed in around her, keeping me away. I can only see through the cracks of their bodies, allowing me a view of the dirt staining her pink leggings.
    Again, for the second time in my life, my heart physically aches. It’s beating the shit out of me from the inside out, and I’m having trouble catching my breath. Whoever the hell said, “ What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger... ” can kiss my ass.
    “Olive!” I shout, worthlessly. “Olive, sweetie, wake up!” A warm hand clenches around my shoulder, and a chest presses against my back, but I don’t turn around. I don’t care who is behind me—who is trying to show me sympathy or comfort. My little girl is lying in front of me unconscious, from a goddamn seven-foot tall fall. “Is she going to be okay? I need to know. Is she?” No one responds, so I grab one of the EMTs by the shoulder, the one who doesn’t have his hands on Olive. I yank at him until he turns around. “Is she going to be okay?”
    “I’m not a doctor,” he says. “I’m not able to give you any definite answers.”
    The hand that was on my shoulder is lowered to my bicep and another hand rests over my other bicep. The hands squeeze harder, but I still don’t turn around. I will not take my eyes off of Olive. As the EMT I was just speaking to moves to the side, I see that Olive is missing her shoe. She looks uncared for; she doesn’t look like my daughter.
    The two minutes it takes to have her strapped down on the gurney feel like an hour—an hour of impatiently waiting for her to blink or say the word, “ Daddy ”.
    “Sir, you can ride along with us.”
    The hands around my arms release and a voice echoes in my ears. “I’ll meet you there,” she says.
    As the EMTs rush by me, the wind of their speed knocks into me. I run, unable to feel the soles of my shoes hitting the ground, or hear the panic in everyone’s voices, or focus on the dozens of children lining the hall with fear in their eyes. I know it’s all there, but I feel locked inside of a tunnel with only darkness at the other end.
    I climb into the back of the ambulance, still forced to sit far enough away from Olive that I can’t touch her. Maybe if she knew I was here, she’d wake up.