Over His Dead Body

CHAPTER 40

ON SATURDAY MORNING, Mitch's condition was downgraded to stable, and he was move d to a private room. Monday was the designated holiday, so Tuesday the hospital arranged for him to be transported to a rehab facility. Since Mitch's insurance wouldn't cover the $5,000-a-day, round-the-clock therapy and care that he needed, the rehab facility wouldn't accept him without an advance payment of $150,000 to cover his first month's stay.

Mark Cohen was elated. He was in a state of absolute ecstasy. He personally had saved one of his best friends. Only twice in his thirty-five years as an internist had he seen a brain-dead patient recover after spending a month on a respirator. He was God, walking on air. Everybody was talking about his miracle, for he had been at Mitch's side when the respirator was turned off. Three clicks to turn the machine off and the room was silent except for one snuffling young nurse who always cried when someone died-didn't matter who it was. Since Mitch's family wasn't there, Mark was the one to hold his hand and whisper into his ear.

"I'm with you, buddy. You take care now."

Mitch's hand had slipped out of Mark's, and Mark had let him go. But when Mitch's death rattle quickly turned into the sound of someone gagging on his own vomit, Mark and the attending physician removed the tubes from the patient's nose and mouth. Mitch's chest heaved. He coughed a few times. They cleared his throat of vomit and mucus. After a few seconds he began breathing on his own, and they all cheered.

Cassie, on the other hand, went into free fall. Mitch had told her time and again throughout their marriage that she would never have to worry about money, and for the last month all she had done was worry about money. Money, money, money. It was enough to make a person crazy. Friday she had even been prepared to kill for it. But since Mitch survived the attempt on his life, the odyssey wasn't over. Money was still the central issue of her life.

There was $3,000 in Mitch's account, and about the same amount in hers. Whatever Cassie said and did, she could not shake his doctor's deep belief that Mitch was a very rich man. Mark's fees for managing the case were in excess of $30,000. She shuddered to think what Mark would charge for raising Mitch from the dead. Not only that, the Sales family insurance covered only 80 percent of the hospital bills, which in Mitch's case were especially excessive because they'd given him the best of everything.

Cassie called Parker Higgins to ask for a power of attorney to access Mitch's assets so she could pay the ridiculous amount the rehab facility demanded before they would take him. Parker suggested she bring Mitch home for a few days while he worked on it. Cassie suspected that Mona was behind his hesitation to give her the power to decide how the case should be handled. What if Mitch recovered only partially, lived for a long time, and Cassie refused to relinquish the control forever? Cassie knew that the spineless Parker was buying time, waiting to see which way the wind blew.

Therefore, on Wednesday, the actual Fourth of July that year, exactly thirty-five days after Mitchell Sales went into intensive care with a massive stroke, he came home. His return was mandated by his diligent lawyer and the vicissitudes of managed care. Many people live their whole lives without having a single wish come true. In less than two months Cassandra Sales had had three wishes come true. First, she became beautiful, noticeable, and desirable again after a sleep as long as Snow White's. Second, her boring life would never be the same. And third, her husband was alive, so his girlfriend could not collect his life insurance. None of it helped her one bit. The only bright spot in the whole story was that Cassie vowed never to pay another of his life insurance premiums again. If he lived only a few months, the policy would lapse. The few hundred thousand of cash surrender values would revert to Mitch's estate. Mona would be left out in the cold. This was the kind of thing Cassie had sunk to wishing for now. She did not have a clue how much the company with her name on it was worth. Not a clue.

IT WAS A VERY DRAMATIC MOMENT when Mitch Sales left North Fork Hospital, for he didn't walk out. Neither was he driven the five miles home in his black Mercedes. His brand-new wheelchair did travel in the trunk of the luxury car, but he himself returned home the way he'd come, in an ambulance.

His condition was exactly the same as it had been when he was on the respirator, except that now all his vital organs were functioning well on their own. He still could not talk. He could not move. It was impossible to know if he understood anything that was said to him, or what was going on around him. He did not react to music, to needle pricks, or to any other physical stimulation. He didn't respond to simple commands or expressions of affection. He could sit up, but only when carefully propped. He could receive food in his mouth and swallow, but only baby food. There was a slight tremor in one of his hands, but he could not use it for holding anything, or for writing. He was wearing adult diapers. His mouth was open, and he drooled.

The day before his return, Cassie, Teddy, and Marsha moved the filing cabinets, the desk, the desk chair, and computer out of his office on the first floor and into the dining room. Marsha vacuumed away all the office dust that had been accumulating since the dawn of time, and Cassie washed the moldings and floor. Her housekeeper had still not returned from Peru. Late Wednesday afternoon, a rented hospital bed, a stool for the shower, and a bunch of other hospital equipment, including sheets and pads, an oxygen tank, blood pressure monitor, and diapers, were delivered and moved in.

"It's only for a few days," Cassie told herself, stunned and unbelieving.

Each breath she took was like inhaling fire. After all this, Mitch was coming home an invalid consigned to her care. And Teddy's girlfriend, Lorraine Forchette, who was about as French as a flapjack, was coming home with him. At Teddy's urging she'd decided to devote a week of her vacation time to caring for his daddy.

They all arrived at the house at the same time. Cassie and Marsha in the Mercedes. Teddy in the Porsche, which he'd used to collect Lorraine in Rockville Centre, where she lived. Marsha was annoyed that Teddy was showing off with the purloined car, but held her tongue on the matter. Cassie was annoyed by the way Teddy had manipulated Lorraine into their house, but she was holding her tongue, too. They sat in the Mercedes for a moment, watching Teddy help Lorraine out of the car. Then he went back to wrestle her mammoth suitcase out of the trunk.

"Oh my God," Marsha murmured. "Someone needs to talk to her about that."

Lorraine's hair was too orange and too curly. Her hips and bosom and thighs were way too ample for the outfit of pink shorts and halter she was wearing. Not only that, she had on high, wedged sandals with straps wrapped Roman style around her thick ankles and calves. Her toenails were painted orange to match her hair. Her resemblance to a young and chubby Mona was unmistakable.

"I just love your house" was the first thing she called out, oblivious to the sudden presence of neighbors and the ambulance pulling into the driveway. Then, more imperiously, "Teddy, take my luggage inside. I want to get Daddy settled."

Marsha and Cassie exchanged startled glances. Daddy?

"Hi, guys," Lorraine chirped when the ambulance driver emerged and trotted around to open the back doors where, inside, the attendant was caring for the patient.

"How are we doing in there?" she chirped some more.

Cassie didn't hear the exchange that followed. She held her daughter's hand while the two ambulance people took their time moving Mitch out. Teddy came over to the Mercedes to get the wheelchair.

"I'm going to push him. Where do you think he'll want to sit?" Teddy's mood was very up.

"Teddy, he's too sick for that." Cassie jumped out of the car. Mitch wasn't joining the family.

"Oh, come on. Pop the trunk, Mom. I want to push him."

She couldn't believe they were having this discussion. The man had just come out of intensive care. She wasn't going to have him drooling in the living room. She popped the trunk.

"We're going to put Daddy to bed, Teddy."

"Oh, do we have to?" Teddy pulled the wheelchair out, then struggled, trying to figure out how to get it open. "Ah, got it."

"Yes, we have to. He can't visit," Cassie insisted.

"But he needs stimulation, Mom."

"Fine, turn on the TV."

"There's no TV in that room. Hey, this is neat." Teddy experimented with the wheelchair, rolling it this way and that, not so easily on the gravel. "I'm sure Daddy will like this."

"Daddy's a vegetable," Marsha chimed in, taking her mother's side for once.

"No, he's not. He winked at me yesterday."

"Teddy, he's a carrot."

Cassie put her hand to her splitting headache. Her kids were regressing again.

"Look, Mom, I'm an XKE." Teddy tipped the chair all the way back, making the rmmmm, rmmm sound of a sports car engine.

Just then Carol Carnahan appeared on the lawn with a casserole.

"Stop it, Teddy," Cassie hissed. She waved at Carol.

Carol hurried over and bestowed a careful kiss on Cassie's cheek. "The girls are organizing casseroles for you, honey. For the next ten days, at least. Then we'll see how it goes. After all you've put up with over the years, you deserve it."

"What?" Cassie's cheeks burned.

"Tonight's tuna noodle. I made it myself, with fresh tuna instead of canned. How's he doing?"

Cassie shook her head. "Carol, that's so nice of you."

"Hi, Daddy," Lorraine burbled loudly as the gurney with Mitch strapped on it was lifted out of the ambulance. "Remember me? I'm Lorraine."

An hour later, Mitch was settled in his room. Cassie, Marsha, and Aunt Edith were sitting on the patio, bucking themselves up with unbelievably velvety Château Petrus '45 from the cellar. And Teddy and Lorraine were in the pool, bobbing around in neon inner tubes. Lorraine was in the pink one. Teddy was in the purple one, each chugging beer from a can. Every few minutes, not looking a bit like Venus emerging from her scallop shell, Lorraine got out of the pool in her pink bikini to check on the patient. Fifteen minutes, like clockwork. She was a very responsible girl. Edith was enchanted by her professionalism and weight.

"Isn't it wonderful that Teddy found himself such a lovely, normal kind of girl?" she remarked.

"Wonderful," Cassie said, rather pleased with herself. This was the first time she'd ever taken a single bottle from Mitch's cellar without his express permission. He didn't approve of her drinking, and now she knew why. Wine eased her anxiety, let her be warm and giggly. She didn't think it was so bad to take the rare Pomerol, because even though it was a special Bordeaux, one of the wine auctions' particular darlings because there was so little of it around, Pomerols weren't classed among the great red wines of Bordeaux, like the Château Latour, Château Margaux, Château Haut-Brion, Château Lafite-Rothchild, etc., etc., etc., not in 1855, when quality control was first established in France, or in 1973, like Château Mouton-Rothchild, the only new addition ever made. So the Pomerol was not better than the best, really, by objective standards. Still, it was earthy and deep and almost mystical in the way it made her think about burgeoning cocks, specifically Charlie Schwab's. The first bottle disappeared quickly, and she went down into the cellar for a few more.

After a while a pretty tipsy Marsha got up to dress for her date with Tom Wellfleet. By eight o'clock the two of them had left for dinner at L'Endroit. After Edith and Cassie and Teddy and Lorraine finished Carol Carnahan's tuna noodle casserole, Teddy ordered several take-out pizzas. They ate them in the kitchen while Cassie drove Edith home. When she returned forty minutes later, she noted that the two of them were fooling around outside on one of the deck chairs. Totally sober now, she went into the makeshift hospital room to check on Mitch.

He was raised up slightly in the hospital bed, resting against two down pillows. The lights were on, clearly illuminating his thin hair, very long now and white at the roots. His stubbly cheeks that hadn't been relieved of his grizzled beard in many weeks. His open mouth was blowing bubbles. She could see his yellow teeth and wet chin. As in the hospital all month, he didn't register her presence now. But unlike all those other times, tonight she had no interest in getting his attention. She studied him coldly, watching his chest heave as he breathed noisily on his own. Apparently it wasn't so easy staying alive. He was struggling. Stubborn bastard.

She noted that Lorraine had dressed him in a pair of his own expensive Sulka pajamas and had made an attempt to neaten his hair. He smelled as if he needed a diaper change, but despite what Edith said, Cassie's contract didn't call for such a service.

"I'm going upstairs now," she told him solemnly. "I'm going to drink a whole bottle of '89 Domaine Romanee-Conti all by myself. I know for you it wouldn't be ready. But my sources say the Grands Echezeaux is about perfect now-spicy, firm, with a taste of berries, minerals, and oak. In California, they may cheat and add too much oak-‘oaky, oaky,' as you would say-in the Cabernets and Merlots to enhance mediocre grapes. But not in France, right, Mitch?" She paused for a breath, then went on.

"Listen, if you have to stay here for any length of time, I swear to God that I'm going to start dating. I'm going to have sex whenever I want it, wherever I want it. I'm going to drink this cellar down to nothing. I'm going to travel, and I'm going to leave you with a nurse. When I'm here, I'm going to dust you like a piece of furniture. And when I go out, I'm going to leave you in your wheelchair facing the wall. Welcome home, you son of a bitch."

MITCH MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE HEARD HER, may or may not have registered what she said. But the rest of his evening didn't go well. At two in the morning Teddy and Lorraine were necking out by the pool. They'd turned off the lights outside so no one could watch them, but they could easily see the glow from the soft light in the office, where Mitch's hospital bed had been cranked down so he could go to sleep. Lorraine had wanted to turn that light off, too, but Teddy had wanted it on so his dad wouldn't feel disoriented if he woke up in the middle of the night.

"Do you think he knows he's home?" Teddy wondered.

"Of course, honey, don't you worry; he's happy as a clam."

They were lying on a single chaise and it wasn't easy to stay balanced. Teddy was skinny and rested on one hip. Lorraine was tilted toward his chest, her breasts straining to free themselves from the bikini top that barely covered her nipples.

"Kiss my neck, honey," she said.

Teddy leaned forward and touched his lips to Lorraine's floral-scented shoulder. It was soft and round, and damp from the swim they'd taken. He was in terrible pain from all the time she was taking to warm up, and wanted to move along down to the business end of the operation.

"That's nice, a little higher. Okay, that's good, just like that." She threw her head back and received his kisses on her neck where she wanted them. "Like butterflies, that's right."

His arm was draped over her hips and he felt the wonderful curves of her belly, overflowing from the binding band of her tight bikini bottom. All around was the roll he loved to squeeze. But he wanted it all to spill out. He wanted in there, where he knew it was going to be heaven. He pretended some innocent roaming, then began to inch his fingers inside the band.

"No, no."

His hand jumped away at the barking command. She sounded a lot like his sister.

"Not yet, honey. I'm not wet yet."

He lost it for a moment, felt himself deflating.

"There, okay, that's nice. Go ahead."

He struggled with a completely unfamiliar closing on the bikini top, then felt a surge of pure joy when suddenly the two skinny straps parted, the front fell off, and her heavy breasts swung free. "Ohhh," he moaned as he put his face into the glorious orbs and nuzzled away. His little man sprang back to life.

"Hey, take it easy. One at a time, lover. Ohh," Lorraine squeaked. "Oh, that's great. Yes, circle the tongue. That's too hard. Yeah, like that. Now the other."

Teddy was hanging off the edge of the chaise. His shoulder, wedged against the arm of the chair, was what kept him from toppling off. Lorraine was leaning closer.

"Yeah. That's good, lower."

He was panting, in the region of her belly button. He peeled the bottom down just a little, felt the pelt. Oh, God. If only she'd shut up and stop trying to make him her perfect lover… hurrah, his hand was in. Ooooo, that was good.

"Ow! Honey, you have a hangnail," Lorraine yelped.

Two fifteen-minute nursing periods passed as Teddy had to go back to square one with his erection killing him. Then it took another fifteen minutes to peel her bottom off, get his condom on just the way she thought it should be, then securely plant himself inside her in exactly the position she liked it. He did not consider it a bad experience when he came almost instantly. In fact, he thought it was a great big plus that he was spared getting any more instruction since he was pretty sure he already knew what to do.

"I always teach my boyfriends how to be my perfect lover," she confided, not seeming to hold a grudge, this time anyway. She reached for a towel and another beer. Then she settled in for a natter and a recap of the plays. He dozed beside her.

Back in the house, Cassie had long since fallen into a deep, drunken slumber. During the poolside frolic, Mitchell Sales heard the mumblings outside and began having trouble breathing.

He made some sounds like "Heel…" Too soft to be heard above the gentle drone of the air conditioner in his room. He became further agitated when no one responded to his distress. This was not like the hospital, where the monitor had been on him day and night.

"Heel…" He tried to move, but had no control of himself at all. He couldn't sit, and when his body convulsed, he fell over against the bars of his bed. Outside, while Lorraine was lecturing on the proper pressure a tongue should exert on a nipple, Mitch stopped struggling. When she looked in on him nearly an hour later, his body had already begun to cool.