“I say I’m impressed. With the way you’re processing this. Slowly and safely. Just do it at your own pace”

IN the evening, Tovi suddenly couldn’t breathe.

She sat on the pink chair in the foyer of the guest apartment, choking, with both hands clasping her heart.

“Abba, help! I’m having a heart attack!” she shrieked, terrified. “I’m going to die, Abba!”

“Tovi, calm down, I’m here,” he said, bending over her, giving her a shake, trying to make her catch her breath.

That was a mistake, he quickly realized. She was shaking plenty already. “Come, lie down in bed,” he tried. “You are breathing, Tovi. You’re talking to me, you’re breathing.”

Her hands were trembling. “I’m no-o-t, I’m no-o-t, I can’t breathe,” she sobbed. “The room looks all dark, Abba — do something! I’m gonna die!”

Gedalya commanded himself to think. It didn’t work. Tovi slid to the floor, panting with difficulty. Her breaths sounded like a struggling animal. He put a hand to her little heart, detected a rapid pulse.

“It can’t be from the surgery,” he muttered. “They didn’t even do anything to you today… just took some blood samples.”

“There’s not going to be any surgery!” she gasped, as if in the middle of running a race. Her tears were wetting the rug. “I’m not going back there!”

He looked at her, his child, his smart, funny, eldest daughter, who’d always been a little different from him and was now quietly crying on the blue rug, head down, body shaking.

What should he say?

“It looks like you’re having an anxiety attack,” he tried. “But you know, the surgery is totally safe, practically risk-free.”

His words floated away and were lost.

“And you don’t die from an anxiety attack. They’re not fatal.”

That wasn’t the right thing to say.

Was there any right thing to say at a time like this?