Over His Dead Body

CHAPTER 3

"MOM, PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES. Mom! Come on, Mom. Get up." Marsha pulled on her mothe r's arm. "I'll stay with Daddy until they come."

"OhymyGod! OhmyGod!" Cassie whimpered, listening to her husband try to breathe. Her forehead was pressed against the carpet at a lower level than it should be. She could feel the blood pulsing in her face. Her surgeon's warning about blood clots and hematomas flashed into her mind. She pushed it away. None of that mattered now.

"Maybe you should get some ammonia to wake him up. He's okay. It's a cut, right? It's a just a cut. He hit his head." Cassie kept trying to reassure them both.

"Mom!" Marsha spoke sharply. "Get up! I'll stay with him."

"Marsha, do you think he's drunk? Did he seem drunk when he came in?" Cassie couldn't put this thing together in her mind. Could Mitch have been that shocked by seeing her like this? No, it couldn't be. He just fell over all of a sudden, so he had to be drunk. That had to be it. Mitch had toppled like a tree several times in the last few years. She'd never told this to the children, or anyone else, but he'd been a big drinker for at least five or six years. Maybe more. Big.

She blamed all those Syrahs he'd been slurping up. The finicky Pinots, the grapes that make the headache wines. Oh, and the zinfandels-so rich, they tasted like jam. The gamays, low in tannin with a grapey taste: the grenaches light colored, high in alcohol and not so great as reds went. But the best were like raspberries. All these he'd guzzled, and the whites, too. Chardonnays, the great universal white with the oaky flavor. They called the taste oaky because of the oak barrels in which the wine aged. The reislings were dry, light bodied, and fresh, never oaky. The Cabernet Sauvignons, fairly tannic, rich and firm, with great depth. Oaky, she'd always liked the word. Oaky, oaky.

She tried to remember all the grape names Mitch had taught her when she was young. Wine had seemed so innocent then, so promising. Not a drug at all. Wait a minute, there were so many names she'd banished over the years. Some wines were place-names, like Bordeaux, like Rhone. Like Haut Medoc. But some were grape names, like Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot. The Loire valley. One side of the river or the other? Quick, which side of the river was which? She used to know it all. And the blends, sometimes nine grapes to a label, the Graves, the Pomerols. Mouton something or other… Those wines had stolen him from her.

"Oh God. Mitch, you idiot. You're drunk! You're supposed to swish and spit. But you always have to swallow, don't you. Shit you always swallowed, swallowed a lot." She chafed his hands. "Come on, baby. Wake up. I forgive you."

"Mom! EMS is coming, put on your clothes." Marsha couldn't budge her. "Come on, help me out, here," she pleaded. "You have to go to the hospital with him."

" Medoc," she whispered. Place-name, not a grape. La Grande Dame Champagne, Le Grand Cru of Perrier-Jouet, right? Nine grapes or only three? The one he'd planned for their son, Teddy's, wedding.

"Come on, Mitch. Come on, baby." Cassie couldn't get off her knees. Mitch was her other half, the man to whom she'd been faithful all her life. Practically the only lover she'd ever had, except for Matthew Howard. And look at what Matthew had become: owner of a cruise ship line! Tears flooded her swollen eyes. What had she done? He looked so pathetic, lying there in his Gucci loafers and cashmere jacket, his ruddy face blue as skim milk. Had she done this, felled the captain of their ship with a face-lift?

"OhmyGod." She kept chafing the lifeless hand, terrified that she and Marsha had done the wrong thing when they thumped on his chest and breathed into his mouth. They had no idea if the CPR they'd seen on the TV show ER was the right procedure. It certainly didn't seem to make any difference. His heart had kept on beating throughout their ministrations, and he was breathing on his own. Porto, Portugal. Madeira, the longest-lived wine of all. It could keep practically forever. But it wasn't really a wine, more a fortified wine. That's right-right, Mitch?

"Oh God." Their failure to revive him made Cassie think he had to be drunk. His mouth against hers brought back all the memories, all the familiar smells. The dominant one right now was not wine at all. It was whiskey. Under that, the stale emanation of Havana cigar. Tobacco smoke, like the air in a musty old attic, was deep in the fabric of his jacket, in his hair, in his hot breath. Under that cigar smoke was sweat. Musk male and unusually strong this afternoon. And under all those masculine aromas, a peculiarly sweet cologne that didn't match any of the above, or indeed the man himself. None of the smells were reassuring to Cassie. All were dangerous in their ways. The cologne teased her nose. It was not his brand. But maybe he'd been trying a new one. The idea of a new cologne was too painful to linger long. Instead of getting up, Cassie collapsed further. She laid the ruin of her face on the carpet near Mitch's large, cauliflower ear that suddenly seemed not ugly and wrong on his handsome head, but dear, inexpressibly dear.

He lay on his back, conscious, but not conscious. It was odd. He didn't seem connected. He stared straight up, his eyes unfocused. The white fingertip towel with the gold embroidered sun on it that Marsha had used to swab the cut on his forehead was now soaked with his blood. So was the hand towel that replaced it. The cut where Mitch's head had hit the side table didn't seem so bad. Not bad at all, but it was still seeping red. Blood trickled down the side of his head into the thick pile of the carpet in a steady stream. It wouldn't stop. It was a beige carpet. He'd chosen it himself. A shocking thought paraded in and out of Cassie's head. If he died, she could get a brighter one.

"Where are they? Why are they taking so long?" she cried.

"It's been less than five minutes. Come on, Mom. Get up. You can't go to the hospital like this."

"Oh God," Cassie cried. "Maybe he's just dazed. Don't you think so? It's nothing more than that, is it?" She held on to his hand, trying to reassure herself like all the times recently when his plane had been delayed or he'd been late getting back from a tasting or a dinner in the city. She'd wish that plane had gone down or his car had crashed. So small-minded, she'd wished him dead for the petty reason that her kids didn't need her anymore and he, too, had left her behind. Then, full of remorse, she'd frantically reassured herself that he was fine, probably fine. And he always was. These sad and panicked feelings she had were such a cliché, she was afraid to tell a single soul.

"I don't know." Marsha was dressed in her new uniform, a little cashmere sweater twinset, this one baby blue to complement her lovely eyes. Her short black skirt ended just above her knees. Her sheer black panty hose set off her lovely legs, as long as her mother's and just as nicely formed. It occurred to Cassie that maybe Marsha had planned to go out. She'd always been something of a freak in high school, never had any fun. She really deserved a break. And now this, poor girl. Cassie's heart broke for her former loser of a daughter who so deserved a dashing suitor.

The heavy chimes of the doorbell resounded throughout the house. "They're here," Marsha screamed in relief, and ran out of the room. Cassie put her lips to Mitch's ear.

"Help is here," she whispered. "Champagne. You're going to be fine." She let go of his hand and pulled herself to her feet. Her head throbbed as she dragged herself to the bedroom door. Her face felt unbearably tight. No part of her body felt like it belonged to her. She went out of the room to the hallway and leaned over the banister. When she heard Marsha speak, she was overcome with dizziness and had to hang on for dear life. She wished she could just topple over it and break her neck.

"It's my dad. Up here." Marsha marched up the stairs with two odd-looking people behind her. They were dressed in gray pants and nylon zip jackets with the logo of their service on the front. The man was wearing Birkenstocks and orange socks. Cassie swooned as those socks moved up the stairs under a long graying ponytail. Oh God! She realized he had an earring in each ear. The woman with him was much bigger than he was; her hair was very short. It appeared that the two had switched genders. Cassie's vision blurred as she thought of a man in a ponytail touching her darling husband, the virulent homophobe.

"I don't know what it is. I don't think it's a heart attack," Marsha was saying.

"Did you check for the Babinski reflex?"

"What's that?" Marsha asked.

They rounded the top of the staircase. Cassie got a better look at them and swayed.

"Holy shit, it's a domestic case," the woman blurted.

"Take it easy, ma'am." The man rushed toward her.

"Mom!" Marsha said sharply as the two raced to the top of the stairs and wrestled her mother into a chair, examining her swollen black-and-blue eyes, her face, raw as hamburger, the blood on the aqua silk pajamas that were way too big for her.

In a second they had slapped the blood pressure cuff onto her arm and were pumping it up.

"Mom, are you all right?" Marsha's anguished cry revived her.

Cassie's vision cleared. "Mitch," she mumbled.

"What, Mom?"

"Take care of Daddy!" she said sharply. "They're here for Daddy."

The two EMS people talked to each other.

"Her blood pressure is-"

Cassie slapped their hands away. "Stop that. I'm not the patient."

"We understand, ma'am."

"I'm telling you I'm all right. It's my husband."

The two referred to Marsha. "My father collapsed," she told them.

"Must have been quite a fight. Where is the other vic?"

"Better call in for another ambulance," the man said to the woman.

The woman pulled out her radio.

"No no, I'm fine," Cassie insisted.

"What about you, are you all right?" he asked, turning to Marsha.

"I'm perfectly well."

"Is there only one other victim? Is there anyone in the house with a weapon?" The questions came fast.

"There are no victims. Daddy collapsed and hit his head. It may just be fatigue, for all we know," Marsha cried.

"What about your mom, here?"

Marsha shook her head. "Car accident. Last week. She's on the mend."

"No kidding, looks fresh to me," the woman said, examining her critically.

"Hurry. Please," Cassie begged them.

"This way," Marsha said.

"Are you sure there's no one with a weapon in here?"

"Absolutely certain."

"Okay, then. Let's go."

They left Cassie sitting there and headed for the bedroom. Cassie remained in the hall just for a moment, trying to calm herself. She had to go in there and protect Mitch from these idiots. She didn't want to, but God help her, she had to. She only hoped they wouldn't stick anything into him. Or shock him with those paddles she'd seen on ER. Finally, when she felt able to stand, she followed them in.