CASSIE DROVE HOME SLOWLY, worrying in equal amounts about long-term care, how mu ch it cost, and whether she should come right out and tell Mark not to put his hands all over her. When they were just a few blocks from home, Edith started screaming at her.
"Honey, turn here."
She always turned here. "Here" was the gorgeous Americana, where the North Shore rich went to buy their haute labels. Armani, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Chanel. Hermès. It was just like Beverly Hills or Palm Beach, a mall where shops had awnings, and security guards watched the cars. The Americana was practically her home. The community where Cassie lived was right behind it, hidden by trees. Just driving past it now made her queasy. This was where Mitch's girlfriend did her damage.
"No, don't go straight. Turn left," Edith demanded.
"No, I'm not going shopping now, Aunt Edith. I have to call Mitch's lawyer," Cassie told her.
"I said stop! Can't you hear me?" Aunt Edith didn't like being thwarted.
Her screech was so insistent that Cassie jammed on the brakes when ordinarily she would have kept right on going through the yellow light. The car halted with a jerk, throwing both women forward into their seat belts. There went Cassie's new face.
"What's the matter with you?" Cassie cried, terrified that the staples in the back of her scalp had popped open and blood would soon start pouring out into her hair, down her neck.
"I want to get you a hat," Edith said, all sweetness now. "What's wrong with that?"
"You scared me to death, Edith."
"Well, you need a hat, Cassie, and I'm going to get you one. Come on, turn in. Something soft, you know, with a big brim and maybe a veil. You can't go out looking like that, Cassie, it's upsetting."
"Edith, I don't want a hat."
"You're no Jackie Kennedy, honey. You look dumpy in that scarf."
Cassie glanced at her very heavy aunt bulging in the white jogging suit. Look who was talking about dumpy. "I don't need criticism right now." Cassie tried to ease the hysteria out of her voice. Next to her two children and her sister, Julie, who may or may not have stolen a number of her mother's most valuable possessions, Aunt Edith was about her only living relative.
"Don't get testy with me, young lady. It's not my fault you lost weight and look dumpy in those clothes. You should get a few new things. And a hat. Anybody with a brain would do that."
"I don't need a single thing." Cassie thought her aunt had gone right around the bend talking about shopping while Mitch was in the hospital.
"You always say that. Now, come on, consider your own needs for a change. He isn't getting out of that bed any quicker if you let yourself go."
This was the second time in an hour that someone had made that comment. What made them think she wanted him out of bed? The light turned green. Cassie accelerated, and the Americana swept by them. "Do you think I let myself go?" She couldn't help asking. It was the last thing she'd meant to do. She hadn't meant to let herself go.
"Let's not get too introspective. Let's just say, you have some problems in this area."
"Edith, did you ever suspect that Mitch was fooling around?" Cassie broached the subject quickly before she had a chance to change her mind. Naturally, she regretted it immediately.
"Oh, honey. I didn't suspect. I knew he was. Didn't you?"
"You knew?" Cassie coughed on her surprise. Was she the only one who didn't know?
"Well, sure, honey. Why do you ask?"
"A terrible thing happened on Friday. Uhuh-uhuh." Cassie tried to clear her throat. "After my eye stitches were removed, Marsha brought me this package all wrapped up in pink tissue paper. I thought it was from her to me, so I opened it. Silk pajamas," she said grimly.
"Nice," Edith said approvingly.
"They weren't just nice, they were gorgeous and very expensive. The price tag was still on them. They cost over a thousand dollars."
"My, my. That Marsha is a nice girl."
"I put them on, and that's when Mitch came home. You know his temper. When he saw those pajamas on me, he had his stroke."
"Honey, are you telling me those pj's caused Mitch's stroke?"
Cassie took a deep breath. "Not the pj's, Aunt Edith, me wearing them. They weren't for me, see?" There, the words were out. Those pajamas had not been for her. She'd known it from the minute she'd seen that price tag.
"How do you know?"
"He had a stroke, didn't he? The whole thing was going to come out. There was no way he could explain it. The man had a stroke to avoid me. Just like him." Another block east and Cassie made her right turn into the forty-year-old development, where she and Mitch had lived their whole married life. In front of her neat colonial the mangled post and mailbox were still on the ground. They seemed to symbolize her ruined life.
"That's speculation, not evidence," Edith dismissed her.
"What are you, a lawyer all of a sudden? You said the man was a womanizer. What's your evidence?"
"Oh, you get an instinct about people," Edith said, suddenly as vague as the garden under fog. "You should get someone over to fix that post. It's too close to the street. I've told you that a thousand times."
"It's the regulation distance," Cassie told her reflexively. They had this conversation regularly.
"No, it's way too close. No one can park there without knocking it right over. It's the post's fault. Are you hungry, Cassie? You need to eat something."
"I moved the post back once, don't you remember? The mailman refused to deliver." Cassie shook her head. It was way past the time for Edith to give up driving. "Aunt Edith, you don't have a license, you can't see that well. You should get someone to drive you." She'd said it a thousand times.
Edith ignored her as usual. "Cassie, I'll just fix you a little lunch and we'll talk about that girl. Do you know who she is?"
"What girl?" Cassie asked. Like a bird in a tree, Edith jumped from topic to topic, never sticking with anything long enough to make sense.
"Mitch's girl, of course. You need to make sure she keeps away from him."
"Oh, yes," Cassie agreed grimly.
"You never know with these things. These sick old goats give the farm away to whoever changes their diapers. You'd better be the one to change his diapers. Cassie, are you listening to me?"
"I heard every word." Cassie parked in front of the house because the garage was full. She got out, looked around for signs of IRS snooping, saw no strange vehicles on the street. Satisfied for the moment, she went around to the passenger side to pull Edith out.
Getting Edith into a car was easy. She just turned around and backed in, letting herself drop to the seat with a thud that sometimes resulted in a loud fart. Getting her out, however, took more stages. A hand, an arm, a foot extended tentatively out the car door that was open as far as it would go. A heavy leg. Then Edith shifted that butt and inched out by degrees, with a few experimental heaves of her upper body that expelled those internal gases with the authority of a motorcycle thundering down a country road. At the same time, Cassie hauled on her aunt's flabby arms as hard as she could. She had no idea how her aunt accomplished this hydraulic maneuver when she was alone. Edith kept talking as she worked her way out.
"You haven't heard from her yourself, have you?"
"No." Cassie waited for the first sneaker to appear. This new idea startled her; Mitch's girlfriend in actual contact with her.
"You want me to find out about her? I'm pretty good at this kind of thing. There are things we can do, you know."
"No, that's okay." Cassie didn't want to think about what kind of things her aunt meant.
"We could get something on her," Edith mused.
Cassie snorted. The sneaker appeared, the leg, the thigh, the shift. The haul. Miraculously, Edith came out without a gastric fanfare. Proud of this, she waddled regally up the walk to the front door. Cassie didn't want to say she already had something on the girlfriend. Credit card fraud was a felony.
"Listen, Aunt Edith. Why don't I settle you in front of the TV for a few minutes while I make a call. Then I'll drive you home."
"Oh no, I can take my car. You're not grounding me, Cassie. That post was right in the middle of the street. You damaged my car. You'll have to have it fixed for me."
"We'll talk about it later."
"I have to take my own car, Cassie," Edith wailed. "I have to have my independence."
"We'll see," Cassie told her.
But no, they wouldn't. The little stunt this morning had been Edith's last chance at independence. Cassie would not have on her conscience some fatal car crash like the ones she'd seen in the hospital. She got the front door open and led her aunt into the kitchen.
"I'll just make you a little lunch," Edith promised. But right away she found the clicker to the TV and turned on The Young and the Restless. She sat down at the kitchen table and forgot about cooking lunch for anybody.
Cassie moved quickly down the hall to Mitch's office. As she turned the corner, she moved like the cops in the TV shows, jumping to stay out of doorways just in case that IRS man was in there looking for the wine Mitch had in his cellar and other stuff he must have stashed away.
The IRS man, however, was not at Mitch's desk going through his papers, so Cassie sat down there. She picked up the phone and called Parker Higgins, the family lawyer. As she waited for the receptionist to get through to Parky's secretary, she hit the AOL button on Mitch's computer, then the automatic Sign On. Clearly, he hadn't been afraid of her gaining access. Ah, Mitch had mail. A lot of it. Cassie scanned down the ridiculous names people gave themselves: Abscul. MAD. Hopup. Winebuff. Kringeetc. She didn't know any of these people. Kringeetc. Who the hell could that be? Hopup? Didn't that sound like a prostitute? Maybe Mitch didn't have just one girl. What if there was a whole army of them and they all used a card with her name on it? Cassie was nauseated by the thought of having to change Mitch's diapers to stop his girlfriends from getting the farm. She wished it wouldn't ruin her face to heave up her guts.
"Yes, this is Diana, can I help you?" queried a woman with a thick Long Island accent.
"This is Cassandra Sales. Is Mr. Higgins there?"
"I'll check for you, Cassie."
"Thank you, Diana. Will you tell him it's urgent? Mitch is in the hospital." Cassie scanned down the list of e-mail names and didn't recognize any of them.
Five seconds later the friend they called Parky was on the line talking fast in his hearty lawyer voice. "Hey, Cassie, how are you? Long time no see, babe."
Even when she'd been young, Cassie had never been the babe type. "Yes, long time. I'm not so good, Parker. Mitch had a stroke on Friday. He's in intensive care." And I had my face lifted.
"Yes, Mark called me. It's a real shocker."
"Yes." It certainly was.
"How is he doing?"
"He's not doing well. That's the reason I called."
"Oh gosh, I'm sorry. What can I do to help?"
Gosh, indeed. "I need the papers, Parky."
"To what papers are you referring?" Parky's voice took on that furry-edged garden fog Cassie was beginning to recognize as the cover for all requests for information about her husband.
"Oh, I don't know. The doctors say I need a power of attorney, things like that."
"What for, Cassie?" Parker sounded sincerely puzzled.
"He's on life support."
"Oh, that's a shocker," he said more slowly this time as if Mark hadn't already discussed it with him. "It's hard to believe. We had lunch together only a few weeks ago. He looked in the pink then."
Uh-huh. "What did you talk about?"
"Oh the usual things, business… why do you ask, Cassie?"
"He's left a few things to be taken care of. The business, his personal affairs, an audit I didn't know anything about. Let's face it, there's a whole lot I didn't know a single thing about. I need to go through it with you. Just to get the finances all sorted out in my mind. And, of course, I have some decisions to make concerning his care."
"Uh-huh. I know what you're talking about, Cassie. But I don't know if I can help you there."
"Can't help me where, Parker? With the care or the decisions or the finances?" Cassie's own voice took on an edge.
"With any of it. I hope you won't take this personally."
"What are you talking about? Of course I take it personally. You're our lawyer. I need you to act in that capacity."
"Well, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Cassie, but there's a little problem with that. I represent Mitchell, as you know. That means there's a confidentiality issue here. And there are ethical issues as well."
"I thought you represented both of us, Parky. I don't understand."
Parker Higgins, a smoothie from way back, inhaled with such ferocity, Cassie could hear the rasping breath all the way from Garden City. "I've always represented Mitch, Cassie. Both for business and personal. We went to school together, you know that. Our relationship goes way back."
"So?"
"Let me stress that this is not personal. My responsibilities are with him and his wishes." He said this as if any reasonable person would understand this.
But Cassie didn't understand it. She exploded. "You're being a dickhead, Parker. This is a life-and-death situation. You have a responsibility to tell me, his wife, the things I need to know to determine what kind of care he gets. It's not a hard one."
"Well, of course, if he wants me to," Parker stonewalled.
"I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You can't tell me if there's a power of attorney, a living will, simple things like that?"
"Well, there might be a conflict of interest here."
"Conflict of interest? What kind of conflict of interest?"
"The usual kind, between one person and another."
The man was being more than a dickhead. Cassie boiled right over. "Between who and who?" she screamed.
"Between you and him, Cassie. Don't get crazy on me."
Cassie's surgeon had told her to watch happy movies and think lovely thoughts during her weeks of recuperation to promote healing and lessen the chance of scarring. She opened and closed her mouth, then her puffy eyes. Both were as dry as the desert. She was going to be scarred for life because of this, she just knew it. Getting crazy? Getting crazy? Was he crazy? What was this about conflict of interest, and why hadn't she heard about it before today? And by the way, where was her loyal, personal lawyer?
"What are you trying to tell me, Parky? We've known each other for a long time." Her voice meek now.
"I know we have, and I have very positive feelings for you personally, Cassie. I think you're a wonderful woman. Just wonderful. And I really, truly wish I could help you."
"And I really, truly think you're a callous prick, Parker. Your friend and client had a stroke. Don't you want to help him?"
"I'm very sad about that. What hospital is he in? I'll go see him. I have an hour at five. How's that? If he gives me the okay, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Is that fair?"
"He's in a coma. He can't give you an okay," Cassie told him coldly.
"Really?"
"What do you think I'm calling you for? Mitch is brain-dead. He can't talk, he can't even breathe on his own. He's not giving out okays right now. So where does that leave us? You and me?"
"Well, that's-a shocker."
I'm not crazy, Cassie told herself. I'm not crazy. The man in the coma had been preparing to divorce her. The deep silence that followed confirmed her suspicion that Mitch Sales had been about to divorce her, and he'd set her up to cheat her out of half his assets. It was another one of those things she got in a second. It wasn't a hard one, and it took her breath away. The two of them, Mitch and his old college friend, Parky Higgins, and maybe this woman, too-all of them had been cooking up a plan. She'd seen enough TV to know the story. Mitch had traveled to Grand Cayman Island, where he'd deposited a large sum of money in a bank out of U.S. jurisdiction and her sight. Right here at home, he'd had taken out accounts in her name and racked up huge bills that he would claim were hers and demand that she take responsibility for in the divorce settlement.
Without any warning that anything of this kind was in the wind, he'd probably believed that she would be so stunned and frightened and hurt and ashamed by the accusations of all those excesses that she would have to accept his terms just to be free of public humiliation.
And if he hadn't had his stroke, she might have gotten caught up in the scam, might well have ended up poor, poor, poor, just like Mary Ann Kaufman, who couldn't even get enough money from her deadbeat husband to pay for computer school. Or Sue Whistle, who'd gotten a brain tumor after she was dumped by Willie and had died of a broken heart.
Cassie knew just how this kind of thing worked. Mary Ann Kaufman's ex-husband was a heart surgeon worth millions who'd suddenly gone into a downward spiral. He claimed his hands hurt so badly, he couldn't operate. This caused him to become depressed and impotent. He couldn't bear to be with anyone. He had to be alone. No medication but divorce would work for him. Mary Ann loved him so much and felt so sorry for him that she agreed to let him keep the five-bedroom house and the cars in the divorce settlement. She moved into a studio apartment too small for an overnight with her college-age kids and took a job selling perfume at Lord and Taylor so he wouldn't be burdened with her care.
And guess what happened then? Harry immediately had a miraculous recovery. It was a complete miracle. His hand stopped hurting. He got over his depression and his impotence. He resumed his booming practice, and the nurse he'd been screwing for years moved in and redecorated Mary Ann's house. Within a year they married, and Mary Ann's two kids went to the wedding. And Harry never had to give her a dime.
"Cassie, are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here, Parky. And I may be wrong, but I think the law regards me as Mitch's wife and next of kin no matter what he was planning down the road. But you can research that."
"Yes, of course you are, Cassie, of course. Don't even think about that."
"What's the woman's name?"
"Woman? I don't know what you mean."
"The woman Mitch was divorcing me for, Parky."
"Cassie, I don't know what you're talking about. Mitch adores you. What are his chances for recovery?"
"Very slim, I'm afraid."
"Gee, I'm so sorry, Cassie. I'm shocked and I'm sorry. Are you sure?"
"You can ask Mark Cohen again. I'm sure you did already. Is he in on this, too? You guys together, all of you?"
"I'm sorry to cut you off, Cassie, but I'm going into a meeting right now. I'm going to get back to you later on this, okay?"
"Cassie. Cassie, Cassie," Edith was screaming from the kitchen. "I'm starving, honey. What had you planned to serve for lunch?"