Santa Barbara, 1999
If one must have a heart attack, the library of Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara is not a bad place to do it. James had been attending a meeting of a Santa Barbara Foundation Board to hear about funding requests for home-care services for elderly people released from the hospital. He had not been feeling particularly well that day, but attributed his faint nausea and headache to a hangover.
When he began to feel chest pains, he tried to ignore them. Then he looked up, and standing at the back of the elegant room were three men in strange costumes, and James recognized them. It was William and Joshua Cobham and that nasty old earl. Soon, the pressure in his chest increased, and he was dizzy. When he fell to the floor in a cardiac arrest, a quick response from hospital personnel saved his life. Within hours, he was pronounced stable, settled in the cardiac care unit with his wife beside him, and contemplating bypass surgery. Life and all of its rich possibilities was suddenly confined to one small room and one large muscle in his body.
Every sight and sound was buffered through a gauzy screen of medications. Eleanor was looking crisp and efficient as she questioned his doctors. Katie was white-faced and left a kiss on his clammy forehead. His children, pampered and bewildered young adults, seemed to regard all of this as a television show. “Survivor?” wondered James bitterly. Aunt Bette pounded her cane on the floor and demanded to speak with his cardiac specialist. Then there were the nurses and technicians who came to draw blood and hurt his body in other ways. He thought that he was surely hallucinating when a “Raggedy Ann,” fully grown and sympathetic, came into his room. A white-haired lady with a golden retriever wearing a pink bandana also wandered by. James was thoroughly confused and totally unable to control his life, his body, and his mind. “I’m dying and I’m going mad.”
The surgery was successful, and days of his life were missing from memory. He dreamed of his mother, Anne Gowan, the beautiful and distant figure who had given him life and then left him to deal with it. He dreamed of his father, Robert Cobham, who had never much cared for this clever and ambitious younger son. He even dreamed of his brother, Geoffrey, who was handsome and charming and had broken his father’s heart when he admitted to being a homosexual. He was frightened, in his more lucid moments, of seeing the three gentlemen from the past, reeking of their own smells and waiting to welcome him to the tavern of the dead. He knew that they might come to claim him, and he was more fearful of them than he would have been of the devil himself.
Interstate 5, 1999
“Maddie, James is going to live. His surgery was a success, and he’s out of the hospital,” explained Kate. Her sister, frustrated with an inability to get any information from the hospital and weary of Aunt Bette’s admonitions, had contacted Kate via cell phone. “I’m on my way to Sacramento, and James is recovering well from his surgery. You don’t need to rush down here.”
“So … why don’t you come up here when you’re finished in Sacramento. I’m lonely,” explained Maddie. “I can’t get away until Winston finishes this term.”
“Mad, I’ve got to testify on this oil rigs issue for Senate Bill # 1 and then get right back to see Geoff. You know that he’s being released from the hospital, and I have to make plans with him.”
“Surely Geoff has some friend that he can move in with there in San Francisco,” commented Maddie. “He’s lived there for so many years.”
“Friends die,” said Kate. “Especially Geoff’s friends. You remember his partner, Cicero? It took all of the dot-com sales money to see him through his last illness. Geoff needs a place to stay and somebody to look after him.”
“Send him up here. I have a big house,” began Maddie, wondering if she could actually cope with her brother and his illness.
‘He doesn’t want to live with his relatives. I don’t know what to do.” Kate sounded tired. “Anyway, Mad, my dear … I’ve got to go. My cell phone batteries are running low. I’ll call you from San Francisco.”
The State of California, 1999
The cardiologist was a thin, bald man with thick eyeglasses and a no-nonsense manner. “Mr. Cobham, you must lose some weight and start on an exercise program. Your operation was successful, but lifestyle changes are essential if you want to continue living.”
Maddie’s cosmetic surgeon was a handsome, fit man in his forties with a head of unnatural silver hair and an excellent chemical tan. “You’re a good candidate for surgical enhancement, Mrs. Smythe. Your skin is fairly elastic, so you’ve come just in time. Let’s schedule you for next week.”
Kate’s dentist was a slender and charming old friend from college. “Katie, you’ve got to stop grinding your teeth. This enamel is getting thin. The world is not going to change just because you break another tooth.”
Geoff and Dr. Raymond O’Donnell were pleased when Geoff gained five pounds and was able to walk about without dizziness. “So, when is your sister coming to visit you?” asked the doctor.
Aunt Bette’s physician was a young woman with photographs of her children in the examining room. “You’re amazing, Mrs. Lawrence. Your blood panel is pretty much within normal limits, and your blood pressure is great. Enjoy!”
Eleanor Cobham’s oncologist was smiling. “Good news, Mrs. Cobham. That lump in your left breast was benign. The ultrasounds show nothing else of suspicion. I think that we can safely say that a recheck in a year is reasonable.”
Maddie’s editor at Sekhmet Publishing Company shook her head and scowled. “Some of what you and your sister have written here might be worth the attention—but maybe not. Let’s meet with your agent and talk about it.”