AN HOUR LATER the Cadillac was separated from the mailbox and was parked in the driveway. The lovely conversation azalea that had been blooming in its myriad colors was a mangled mess. Above it, the post that secured the mailbox was bent to the ground, and the mailbox itself was crushed like a cookie in a toddler's hand. The bloodred clematis that had started winding its way up the post on its way to becoming a glorious flower bower that would camouflage the mail by July was in leaf but hadn't yet produced a single fist-sized crimson bloom. The vine lay on the grass, twisted forlornly around the wreckage.
Charles Schwab, the IRS one, had taken off, but Edith was still there, unrepentant about the damage to her niece's house and eager to be of help. Her idea of help was telling Cassie how awful she looked, how thin she'd gotten; requesting a breakfast of goat cheese and pancetta omelette with raisin toast, none of which Cassie happened to have in the house; and scolding her about wanting to improve herself (the surgery). She also encouraged Cassie to think of the pleasant future they would have together when Mitch was gone.
"Sweetheart, I'm going to take you on a cruise the minute this thing is over." She said as they left the house to drive to the hospital to visit the vegetable who was not likely to be with them long.
Edith wanted to drive, but Cassie wouldn't hear of it. So now the old woman was sitting regally in the passenger seat of Mitch's brand-new Mercedes that Cassie wasn't supposed to drive herself for another four days, doctor's orders, or forever, if Mitch had anything to say about it. Edith was wearing a white jogging suit with red chevrons on her thighs that matched the white Cadillac and made her look almost as large. Her moon of a face was round and rouged. Her lips were drawn on big and red. Her chins were multiple. Her hair was done like Debbie Reynolds's in 1952. And she was in a jolly mood, for there's nothing in the world a widow enjoys more than the impending widowhood of a close friend or relative.
"I don't know, it's almost summer, so we could go to the Greek Isles, how does that sound? Or maybe the Mediterranean. Heaven knows you'll be able to afford it. Mitch did very well for himself, didn't he? And you! You need to get away, get some rest, recover from your ordeal. Poor Mitch," she rambled on. And on.
"But, you know, it won't be so bad without him. He wasn't around much anyway, was he poor thing?"
"No, he wasn't," Cassie affirmed stonily.
"Well, men aren't all they're cracked up to be, if you want my opinion," she said. "Keeping up your curiosity. That's what keeps a person young. Look at me. I done all right for myself, haven't I?"
Cassie didn't want to look at her aunt. After the weekend she'd had, her nerves were completely shot. And now the thing that was beginning to gall her was that she couldn't even talk to Mitch, couldn't confront him with all her years of loyalty and the heartless way he'd repaid her for it. She was driving very slowly in the Mercedes, reminding herself that she mustn't hit anything and have an encounter with the police on the day she was going to murder her husband. If she couldn't yell at Mitch, at least there was the plug to pull.
"Who was that Charlie you were with?" her aunt demanded abruptly.
"I told you, Edith. He's assessing all the houses in the area for the IRS," Cassie told her.
"I never heard of such a thing," Edith clicked her tongue. "Casing the place in the morning before anybody is even up. My land! What is this world coming to?"
"My land," as far as Cassie knew, was an expression that dated back two centuries from the Midwest, where Edith's grandmother was said to have fought the Indians. Or maybe it was the far West. "My land," indeed.
"I never heard of it either," she said grimly about the sneak IRS attack. She couldn't get Charlie Schwab out of her mind. Hadn't she read somewhere that the IRS was trying to improve its image and wasn't auditing people anymore? The New York Times? People magazine? How could this be happening to her? Why now? What were the procedures? Could the agency really make home visits without warning, check out people's cars in their garages? Do anything they wanted? Maybe this was one of those "random audits," like the pat-downs at the airports.
"You two seemed very cozy. Did you know him before?"
"No, of course not," Cassie snapped.
She stopped at a red light on Northern Boulevard, only a few blocks from the hospital. She hadn't heard from anyone there this morning, and she hadn't called the nurses' station to check in. She didn't know what she was going to find when she went into that intensive care unit. Maybe Mitch had had another "event" in the night. He could be gone already. She forgot about the IRS incident, was filled with trepidation about the medical situation. Code, code. Where was a code when one needed one?
The light changed. Cassie reminded herself that she had to tell Mitch's employees what had happened to him, take charge at the warehouse. She had to call his lawyer. All kinds of arrangements had to be made. She pulled into the hospital, her head spinning again. She didn't know who Mitch's girlfriend was, what that woman was doing right now, or how she and Mitch communicated. One thing she did know was that the two of them were not talking again. She was going to pop that woman's balloon.
Cassie parked the car and got out. She adjusted her scarf and sunglasses. The tide was rising in her. Mitch had underestimated her. She wanted revenge.
"Come on, Aunt Edith, come say goodbye to Mitch."
"Oh dear, oh my, your poor children, losing their daddy so young," Edith said. Then, "You know, dear, I never liked that man."
"What?" Cassie turned to look at her. Edith was heavy. It wasn't easy for her to get out of that Mercedes, roomy as it was. She moved one enormous chevroned leg out the door, then another. Cassie had to haul her to a standing position. Upright, she examined her niece again.
"Cassie, are you sure you're all right? You look so thin."
"You never told me you didn't like Mitch."
"Oh well, you know. People don't say these things. They don't want to hurt your feelings. But he was a difficult man," Edith said vaguely.
Cassie blew air through her nose. Edith's opinion of her husband came as a surprise to her. She thought everybody liked Mitch. This was getting to be the longest day of her life. Slowly they made their way through the lot and into the hospital. There was the same bustle in the lobby on Monday at midday as there had been all weekend. They moved down the glass hallway into the head trauma wing. Cassie tried not to look at the people around her, all suffering losses.
When they got to the intensive care unit, everything seemed the same. The nurses at the station. Other staff with their blue pajamalike uniforms. In Mitch's cubicle of a room, his body was in the same position on the bed. His eyes were still at half-mast. Today, however, there was a little tremor in his hand. Cassie watched it with horror. The hand seemed to have taken on a life of its own.
Edith moved her great bulk toward the bed. Her chubby face held an expression of astonishment, as if she'd been ambushed by an unexpected feeling of sorrow over the mortality of a man she claimed she'd never liked.
"Mitch, honey. It's Edith," she said in her loudest, bossiest voice. "You remember Edith, don't you? Charlotte's sister. Cassandra's aunt. I've come to see you in the hospital. You look good, Mitch. Really good. How are you feeling, honey? A little better?"
Stupid question.
She gave him a big bright smile. "We're all praying for you, honey."
That would get him. Mitch hated God. Didn't believe in the power of prayer. The big woman's smile faded just a little as she stood there eyeing all those tubes going in and out of him. Her face was one big pucker of wonderment until she noticed Mitch's twitching hand that seemed to be trying so hard to say something. This got her going again.
"You'll be on your feet in no time," she said softly and with real conviction.
This wasn't the goodbye that Cassie had envisioned on the way over. On the other side of the bed, she held her breath, for Mitch seemed to be coming out of it. He looked drained, but definitely alive. Maybe that noisy machine pumping air into his lungs was actually charging him up again like a car battery, and soon he would roar into life again. A disheartening thought.
Cassie tried to muster some sympathy for him, to remember the bright moments, the good times of their twenty-six years together. As before, she was stuck in the later years, after he'd left her for another woman without her even knowing it. All the joy she could remember was being the mommy of Teddy and Marsha when they'd been babies, bathing them and changing them and cooking their favorite foods, teaching them those ABCs and making life fun. She remembered their hugging on the big bed, cuddling like puppies. Those long-gone days brought tears to her eyes.
She watched in horror as Aunt Edith picked up Mitch's puffy hand. "Give me a little squeeze," Edith instructed him. "We're all rooting for you, Buddy."
Not Cassie. She was imagining the lights flashing. Code, code.
"Look, honey, he's coming back," Edith said.
No, that was not possible. Cassie didn't want him back. She planned to turn off that respirator and make him history. Don't squeeze, she prayed. No swimming back to the surface now, you bastard.
Long, suspenseful moments passed as Edith experimented with Mitch's hand, curling his fingers around one of hers just like Cassie had done only yesterday.
"Can you hear me, Buddy? Give me a squeeze," Edith coaxed.
Suddenly the finger that had been moving around on the sheet stopped. The hand in her grasp lay there limp as a fish fillet. Aunt Edith extricated herself, and Cassie exhaled with a little hiccup of thanks.
"He was always a stubborn man," Edith remarked. "Can he hear us or not, honey?"
"We don't know," Cassie said.
"I had a friend once. Rosalind Witte, remember her? She lives in Florida now. Roz's husband, Paul, had a stroke. She pushed him around in a wheelchair for ten years before he finally passed on. Couldn't say a word." Edith clicked her tongue.
"She kept a pencil tied to his wrist. Every little while, she'd put that pencil in his hand and he'd make some squiggles. She told everybody he was writing his memoirs." Edith pointed to Mitch's finger suddenly making circles on the sheet again. "I don't envy you," she whispered.