Ralph carries Carolyn after seizure

Ralph Roberts returns home from his long walk to find his wife Carolyn in the grip of a seizure. The moment is a culmination of months of dread and denial, and it forces him to confront the reality of her impending death. The scene is a turning point in Ralph's emotional journey, marking the end of his hope for her recovery and the beginning of his own descent into insomnia and hyper-reality.

The Collapse of Denial

Ralph had spent the months between March and June of 1992 in a state of frantic, desperate activity, shuttling Carolyn to doctors and hospitals, researching her condition at the Derry Public Library, and clinging to the hope that the specialists had overlooked something. The worst midsummer heatwave since 1971 had settled over central Maine, and in the oppressive silence of those hot days, Ralph first heard the ticking of the deathwatch. He understood that Carolyn's slim chances had become no chances at all. He tried to deny the idea, scolding himself for being a morbid old fool, but the ticking was everywhere—even in the walls. It was loudest from within Carolyn herself, and he could see in her calm, white face that she heard it, too. The tumor in her brain had stolen her powers of observation, as it would soon steal her life.

The Seizure and the Rescue

On the day of the seizure, Ralph had walked much farther than usual, falling into a trance. He was startled back to reality by a United Airlines flight landing at the Derry County Airport. He realized he had walked more than five miles without any sense of time passing. He hurried home, anxious about Carolyn, and found the front door ajar. Bill McGovern met him on the stairs, pale and worried, saying Carolyn was having a seizure and that he had called 911. Ralph ran up the remaining stairs and found Carolyn lying half in and half out of the kitchen, her hair in her face. He knelt beside her, brushing the hair away, and felt her skin as chilly as his own soaked feet. Bill McGovern said he wanted to put her on the couch but she was too heavy for him. Ralph slid his arms under Carolyn and picked her up. She did not feel heavy to him at all, but light—almost as light as a milkweed pod ready to burst open. He put her on the couch and knelt beside her, her breath terrible but he did not turn away. He kissed her hand and held it against his cheek, telling her to hang in there, that everything was fine. When he heard the ambulance, he began to cry.

The Aftermath and the Deathwatch

In the ambulance, Carolyn talked gibberish, and Ralph feared she had suffered a stroke. A second convulsion struck, requiring both Ralph and a paramedic to hold her down. At the hospital, Dr. Jamal, the neurologist, told Ralph that Carolyn was stabilized but that the tumor was spreading. He said new medications would probably prevent further seizures, but that all predictions had to be taken with a grain of salt. Ralph spent the night beside his sleeping wife, listening to the ticking that was not in the walls but in her. He thought that someday soon he would be back in this room with her, and the thought felt not like speculation but like prophecy. He leaned over and put his head on the white sheet covering her breast, crying a little. He fell asleep in his chair after midnight, and when he woke the next morning, the air was cooler, and Carolyn was wide awake, coherent, and bright-eyed. He took her home and began the job of making her last months as comfortable as possible. It was a long while before he thought of Ed Deepneau again, even after he began to see the bruises on Helen Deepneau's face. As that summer became fall, and as that fall darkened down toward Carolyn's final winter, Ralph's thoughts were occupied more and more by the deathwatch, which seemed to tick louder and louder even as it slowed down. But he had no trouble sleeping. That came later.