Must Love Otters Read Online Free PDF

up a little. Herb, Herb, honey, can you hear me? It’s Mona …”
    “Your name is Mona?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, Mona, can you tell me if Herb has any medical conditions?”
    “Yes, he has diabetes. And a pacemaker.”
    “Does he take insulin?”
    “Yes. He was just about to take his next shot.”
    “Okay, stay with me here. I’ve got an ambulance on its way.” I click the right buttons and send the info over to the medics. Answer their return chirps. “Mona, they should be there in just a few minutes. Is there a code to let them into your apartment?”
    “No, dear, we’re on the ground floor. I will make sure the door is open for them. They can come through the patio.” I radio the driver and let him know.
    “Mona, is Herb still breathing? Is he conscious?”
    “Herb, honey,” she says. “Yes, he’s a little bit awake.”
    I pull the protocol flip cards from my shelf to make sure I don’t screw this up. I don’t want this old geezer dying today. It might be the nudge that sends me over the cliff. “Can you ask him if he’s experiencing any chest pain?”
    “Herby, does your chest hurt, honey?” She pauses. “No, he’s shaking his head no. Oh, he just gave me a thumbs up. Now … now he’s pointing to his leg.”
    “His leg hurts?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. Does your leg hurt, Herby?” A muffled voice, deeper than Mona’s, rumbles in the background. “I think he wants me to give him his shot.”
    “Do you know how to give Herb his insulin?”
    “Yes, yes, I do. I should do that. Should I hang up, then?”
    “No, stay with me, Mona. Just put the phone aside and give Herb his insulin. Then pick up the phone again when you’re all done.”
    She does this, and I hear her grunting, likely trying to get Herb’s pants down enough to find skin, cooing to her husband as she talks him through what she’s going to do for him.
    “Okay, I gave him the shot. Oh, now, there’s my sweetie cakes. The color’s coming back into his face.”
    “Mona, let’s keep him comfortable until the EMT guys get there, all right? He doesn’t need to get up from the floor yet.” She tells him this. Small chuckles float through the phone as he tries to tell her he wants to get up. She pooh-poohs him. Yay. Herb is going to make it.
    “Mona, do you have family nearby? Anyone who can help you get to the hospital?”
    “Oh yes, dear, I can call one of our sons. We have four.”
    “You have four sons?”
    “Yes, we sure do. Such nice boys, all of them. Joseph, Martin, Larry, and Daniel. My little sweeties, although I suppose they’re not so little now.”
    “They’re my boys too,” Herb says in the background. He’s coming around.
    “And we have nine grandchildren, don’t we, Herby?”
    “That sounds wonderful,” I say. “How long have you and Herb been married?”
    “This year will be our fifty-ninth anniversary. We met when I was a coat check girl at the dance hall, and he would come in with his boys and try to dance with all the pretty girls. I fancied his friend Bert, but he turned out to be a real cad. Drank too much gin. Herb was a real gentleman. But I wouldn’t dance with him until he bought a ticket,” she laughs.
    Dance halls. Coat checks. Gin. Times have changed. Nowadays, if I want to meet a man, I have to flash my boobs on social media or have a sex tape go viral.
    “My Herb, he courted me for a few months before we knew that we wanted to be together, but I knew right away—I knew Herby was the one when he spent the whole night talking to me in the stinky coatroom instead of dancing the night away with his friends.”
    “That is so romantic …”
    “My father would only allow him to take me out for an hour at a time, and only to the park to feed the ducks. We still walk by the duck pond, Firwood Lake, over at Laurelhurst Park. Every day. Doctor says we have to exercise, so we moved here next to the park so we could walk and keep an eye on those birds.”
    Herb mumbles something in the