What followed was a choice made slowly, with time to reconsider at every moment, and remade the same way again and again for long minutes: the choice not to help.

My phone within sight and moved out of reach.

A cloth taken up to clean rather than a call placed to save.

A mother-in-law wiping a counter with unhurried hands while her son’s wife screamed on the floor a few feet away.

That is not the arithmetic of panic.

Panic calls for help; panic dials the number with shaking hands.