Fifteen

Nellie, changed into her street clothes, went to the room where David was waiting for her. Harold and Ruth were still there, Ruth crying and Harold with his arm around her. Nellie went to them and asked whether she could help. Rising, Harold took her aside.

“My wife would like to see him, her father.”

“Yes, I can understand that. They took him into the pathology room, and she can see him if she feels strongly about it.” Nellie spoke in a whisper. “But it wouldn’t be good now. Tomorrow, after the undertaker removes the body—well, Dr. Ferguson will look better.”

“What undertaker?” He had no idea how one went about a burial.

“Dr. Ferguson was a Protestant?”

“Yes—if he was anything. He left instructions to be cremated, I believe.”

“Protestants usually use Halley, I mean if you do it here in Greenwich. That’s—” She spelled it out, and Harold jotted it down. “You don’t have to do anything tonight. I have a couple of sleeping pills here. Try to get her to take them. In the morning, you can call Mr. Halley, and he’ll call the hospital and pick up the body.” She gave him a small bottle with two yellow pills in it. “She can take both of them. Mr. Halley will tell you exactly what to do, and when you can both go over there and look at the body. But take your wife home now, if you can talk her out of going to the pathology room.”

Harold told Ruth what Nellie had said, and she agreed; he helped her rise. His manuscript was stuffed into the large purse she carried, and he wondered briefly whether she had even looked at it.

When they had left, Nellie turned to David. “You poor kid. I plucked you out of bed in the middle of good love-making, and now you’ve been sitting here for hours.”

“It’s all right. She had someone to talk to.”

“You didn’t mention anything I said to you—about him having flubbed it?”

“Goodness, no.”

“Thank God. There was some bleeding internally, but that didn’t do it. His heart stopped, and we couldn’t start it again. There was just too much damage. Dr. Loring is sitting in his office now, getting drunk and still in his operating clothes—and, David,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I’ll marry you.”

“What? What on earth!”

“If you’ll have me?”

He threw his arms around her and kissed her. “Will I have you? Will I ever! But what—?”

“Death. It’s as simple as that.” She clung to him.