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Since Joe wasn’t answering, I called my friends and my partner, and I know they heard the terror inbut say, “How can I help?”

I said to each, “I’ll call you later”

And then I was fresh out of lifelines

For the next hour in that horrible, stinking night I watched as EMTs ran eh the ed bodies out to the sidewalk There the dead were lifted into the medical examiner’s van

As for the living, firefighters helped some of the blast victims walk out of the museum Others were carried out on stretchers

I dialed Joe’s number

Joe, answer your phone

This tietting louder as EMTs rolled a stretcher through the gate and out toward the curb I ran toward that stretcher, feeling hopeful and terrified at what I ain

“Joe?”

The face of the man on the stretcher was horribly swollen, bruised, and smeared with blood His left arm rolled out from under the blanket that covered his body, and I saw the wedding ring I had placed on his finger ere standing together inside a gazebo facing Half Moon Bay We’d vowed to love each other in sickness and in health

I gripped his shoulder and said, “Joe It’s Lindsay I’m here”

He didn’t answer Was he alive?

I ran alongside his stretcher, stayed with hie area, where he iftly assessed and lifted through the open doors of an ambulance

I fue and said hoarsely, “That’s my husband I’m his wife”

An EMT nodded and offered her hand and forearrip and she pulled me inside