My Husband Cooked Dinner, and Minutes After My Son and I Ate, We Both Collapsed. I Played Dead on the Floor and Heard Him on the Phone: “Soon They’ll Both Be Gone”

I came back and there were sirens—”

“You know exactly what you put in our food,” I said, and I pulled Lucas in against my side.

He opened his mouth to answer, and the front door burst open, and the house filled all at once with light and noise and people — two police officers and two paramedics, moving fast, fanning into the room.

“Ma’am — are you the one who called 911?” The lead officer had his flashlight up, his eyes moving over the room, over Christopher, over the two of us on the floor.

His name, I would learn, was Officer Davis.