Over His Dead Body

CHAPTER 4

IT TOOK TWENTY PRECIOUS MINUTES for the EMS team to try to talk to Mitch, get no response from him, cursorily examine him, strap him onto a gurney, carry him down the stairs, and roll him out to the ambulance, where they firmly shut the doors on his women. The team would not allow Cassie to ride in the vehicle with them, given her own condition, so she was separated from her husband on the driveway, where a rising wind suddenly churned the air, shaking the limbs of the two cherry trees that flanked the front door. As the trees trembled, thousands of cherry blossoms way past their prime were seized by the current and jettisoned up into the air. The moribund blooms whirled around and showered down on the ambulance just like some deeply meaningful scene from a foreign film.

"Oh my God, look at that," Cassie cried as the flower-strewn ambulance sped away. "Look at it, Marsha, look."

"Get in the car, Mom, we have to hurry." Marsha already had her father's Mercedes out of the garage. She opened the car door for her mother, and Cassie gingerly edged herself in.

"You missed it," she said, thinking of the flower shower.

Marsha didn't care what she'd missed. As soon as the car door was shut, she peeled off, spewing gravel on the drive. She then broke every speed limit on the way to North Fork Hospital. There, she stopped at the E.R. entrance and let Cassie out to deal with the paperwork, because there was no parking space nearby. Four minutes later she found her battered-looking mother in deep conversation with a woman whose name tag readESTELLE ROGERS.

"What's the problem?" Marsha asked.

"She won't listen to me. She thinks I'm the patient," Cassie said. She was nicely dressed now in gray slacks and a blue blazer like Mitch's.

"It's okay. Put on your scarf, Mother. And go sit down. I'll take care of this."

"What?" Surprised, Cassie saw the immense black chiffon scarf from her very best evening dress dangling over her arm. How had it gotten there? Had she grabbed it when she got dressed?

"Put the scarf on," Marsha urged her, making faces at the Frankenstein stitches around her ears.

"Oh." Cassie had forgotten how she looked. "Oh God." She struggled with the scarf, couldn't manage it.

"Here, I'll do it." Marsha wrapped the dressy scarf around Cassie's head, covering everything but her eyeballs. Now she had a crown of sequins. "There, isn't that better?"

With her newly dyed, aggressively blond hair, discolored forehead, and bruised lower face all suddenly hidden from view, Cassie found herself actually calming down.

"Good girl. Sit here, I'll be right back."

Oh God. Cassie had heard that before, a thousand years ago. Her mother took her out once for ice cream and the next thing she knew she was in the hospital having her tonsils out. "Don't leave me," she whimpered.

"Just for a second, you can do it." Marsha led her to a molded plastic chair, where Cassie watched helplessly when Mitch was rolled in on the gurney and rushed through so quickly, she didn't have a chance to offer him even one encouraging word before he disappeared through automatic doors, his face lifeless and gray. OhmyGod, he's going to die, she thought. I'm going to be a widow, after all.

"Hi, I'm Maureen. I'm your social worker. I'll be guiding you through the process."

Cassie's panicked thoughts were interrupted by a worn-looking woman with curly red hair and oversized purple glasses. She held out her hand as she introduced herself. "You're"-she checked her clipboard-"the Sales family."

Cassie blinked in surprise. Social worker? What did they need a social worker for? "How is my husband?" she asked timorously.

"Oh, that's not my department. I'm here for you. How are you doing?"

The woman regarded her with such deep meaning that Cassie gasped. "Is he-?"

"Oh no, no. Nothing like that. The doctors are working on him. We won't know anything for a while." Maureen pushed up her glasses, hesitating. Then she put her hand solicitously on Cassie's arm. "Estelle, the head nurse, tells me you don't want to be examined yourself. Can I talk to you a little about that?"

"Oh no, that's all right." Marsha suddenly reappeared. "My mother has already been to the doctor today. Thank you for asking, but we're fine."

Maureen shook her head. "Don't worry. There's nothing to be ashamed of. This kind of thing happens at all levels of society. We have many services to offer, and we're here to help you in every way we can."

"I'm not in the least ashamed. My husband hit his head. I think he tripped." Cassie spoke quietly from behind her sequined veil. "I'm sure he's going to be fine."

Maureen clicked her tongue. "Yes, well, I understand your reticence about addressing the matter. This is not uncommon. Reporting incidents of domestic violence is very difficult for everyone," she assured them. "But the reporting must be done. It's the law, and how else can we heal, hmmmm?"

She turned suddenly to Marsha. "Think of your daughter's future and the precedent you're setting for her." Maureen gave Marsha an encouraging look as she shoved some informational pamphlets into her hand, then charged right ahead without drawing breath. "We have a DV unit from the Sheriff's Department right here in the hospital. Someone's available 24/7. That's how seriously we take family violence."

Cassie bristled angrily. This was the third person to assume that she and Mitch had been in some kind of physical fight. "You're mistaken!" She was almost ready to issue a formal protest about this kind of offensive jumping to conclusions.

"My mother was in a car accident," Marsha chimed in quickly. "I told that to the EMS people. Her bruises are from a car accident."

It was clear, however, that the EMS team with the gender identity issues hadn't bought the story. Maureen was looking pretty doubtful about it herself.

Marsha raised her voice. "Look, Daddy just returned from a business trip in Europe an hour ago. He had no idea how badly hurt Mommy was. Maybe he had a heart attack when he saw her. They're a very devoted couple." On a roll, the suddenly competent Marsha embroidered further.

Cassie stared at her in surprise. The girl was good enough to have been a lawyer. When did Marsha develop such a talent to lie?

"Oh my." Even Maureen was caught up in the story. Nervously, she shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose, not sure what to believe. "Well…"

"Yes, well indeed," Marsha said pompously. "My father is a trustee of the hospital. Is there anywhere more private we could wait?"

Maureen tilted her frizzy head to the side, adjusted her glasses. Marsha's story wasn't really working for her, but she was impressed with the performance. "This is very embarrassing. But you know, so often people lie." She forced her lips into a smile. The patient was a trustee, after all. He must give the hospital a lot of money. Maybe she was wrong.

"Yes, I know it. I'm at NYU's Ehrenkranz School of Social Work." Marsha let her know they were almost colleagues.

"Really, I went there." Lifting her eyebrows as if that changed everything, Maureen scurried off.

About an hour later, without a word of apology, she came back and led them down a glass corridor to another wing of the hospital. There, she left them in a smallish turquoise lounge furnished with tables, sofas, and a TV set that was on. It was hardly private, and by late afternoon the garbage cans were overflowing with the remains of many take-out meals in soggy containers.

Cassie sat down on a sticky brown sofa, her nose twitching with indignation and hunger.

"You want me to get you something to eat, Mom?" Marsha asked.

Cassie's stomach churned. "No, no, sweetheart. I don't want anything. Maybe later."

Further conversation was prevented by the arrival of a young woman dressed in a lavender tennis outfit. "Get your hands off me, you fucking asshole!" she yelled at the deputy sheriff who was escorting her. "I told you to let me go." She launched herself at him, pummeling him hard.

The deputy was a big guy. He had a nightstick, a gun, and a pair of plastic cuffs dangling from his belt, but none of them were any help. He tried to ward off the woman's blows and talk her down. Almost immediately some hospital staff members arrived to help him.

Mesmerized, Cassie and Marsha watched the drama. Two male nurses calmed the woman. The deputy departed quickly. After he was gone, she became enraged again and tried to punch out the TV screen. More hospital staff arrived. They surrounded and eased her into one of the chairs. Their soothing voices hummed in the air. Now this was a domestic violence case. She put her hand over her eyes.

"Are you okay, Mom?" Marsha asked solicitously.

"Oh yes, fine. Don't think about me." She felt sick and frightened, but she had to be strong for the children.

"Mom, I hope you don't mind. I called Teddy," Marsha went on.

"Oh God," Cassie groaned. All she needed was to have the two of them together at a time like this. "Promise me you won't fight." Her body wouldn't stop shivering. Mitch would be upset about this. He was a private man, a gourmet. He'd hate the take-out food odors, the drama, the idea of his adoring son seeing him like this.

Suddenly the noise level increased. Cassie opened her eyes. The small room was filled with people screaming in Italian. The smell of garlic was strong. Oh, was it strong. Cassie swooned against her daughter's shoulder.

"I'll get you something to drink," Marsha said quickly. "You need to hydrate."

"Poor Mitch. This is such bad luck. I hope he doesn't die," Cassie murmured. And she meant it. She really did.

"I'll be right back." Marsha hurried away.

Cassie hid her eyes. There was screaming all around her. She couldn't help hearing the story. Oh God. The woman who'd tried to punch out the sheriff and the TV had good reason. Her husband had been driving their two kids to pick up a pizza for dinner. That's how late it had gotten. They'd been in an accident on the Long Island Expressway. He was dead on the scene; her son, too. The woman's nine-year-old daughter was alive, but her skull had been crushed. No one wanted to tell her how bad her daughter was. Protocol seemed to demand a certain order to things. A person could absorb just so much. An old man, talking to himself, was wondering what Tony had been doing, driving on the L.I.E. Apparently it wasn't his usual route to the pizzeria.

Marsha returned with two Diet Cokes. Cassie thought she was going to explode. Teddy was coming by way of the L.I.E.

"I called Edith," Marsha informed her.

"What?" Cassie cried. Oh, now her aunt was involved. Cassie couldn't bear it.

"She's your only relative. Except for Julie. Do you want me to call Julie?"

Edith, her mother's sister, was now seventy-three and the worst pain in the neck in the entire world. Except for Cassie's sister Julie. "No!" Cassie said. Julie lived in L.A. and hadn't spoken to Cassie in years. Cassie didn't want either of them here with her.

"You need support," Marsha told her.

What was that, some word she'd learned in social work school? "I didn't tell Edith about the face-lift," Cassie admitted softly.

"Car crash," Marsha said. "I've got that covered."

"Oh God," she whispered. It seemed so trivial now.

Another hour went by. The room emptied. The Italian family hurried away. Cassie realized she had been holding her breath.

"The poor little girl was never admitted here," Marsha said suddenly. "They let her go in the emergency room."

"They let her go?"

"She died."

"Oh no." Cassie's head throbbed. That poor woman had lost everything in a second. Cassie covered her eyes to stop her tears.

Dark descended outside, and the lounge filled up again. Old women came to see their old husbands, middle-aged women came to see their mothers, young parents came to see their kids, and every single patient was hanging on by a thread. Cassie was agonized by the wait. Why was it taking so long? Teddy finally arrived at eightP.M. Why had it taken him five hours to get there from Manhattan where he lived and worked?

"Oh shit, Mom! What happened to you? I thought it was Daddy!" He pretty much freaked out when he saw her.

"It is Daddy. She's going to be fine," Marsha told him superciliously, right away setting the tone for an unpleasant confrontation between them. "Where have you been?" she demanded.

"She doesn't look fine." Teddy was not as tall as his father and was much thinner. He had never grown into his nose. He didn't work out. His shirt and pants didn't go together. Two plaids. He had a golf hat on his head, but still he was a handsome boy. Very handsome, Cassie thought. And very good at numbers.

"Hi, Teddy," she said.

He paced back and forth in front of her as if she were an inanimate object. "She looks like shit," he announced. "Mom?" He raised his voice as if she'd gone deaf.

"She's fine!" Marsha insisted.

"She doesn't look fine, Marsha. What's that thing on her head? What's going on?"

"Shut up, you idiot, I told you she's fine!"

"What do you know about it?" Teddy stared angrily at his sister.

"I'm fine," Cassie said weakly. "Don't fight."

"I demand to know what's going on. What's wrong with her? She looks like an Arab," Teddy spoke to his sister.

"Mom was in a car accident," Marsha said quickly.

"No shit!" Teddy moved in for a closer look. "In Dad's Mercedes?" His voice was hushed.

"No."

"In the Volvo?"

"Yes, the Volvo."

"How is it? Is it totaled?"

Marsha rolled her eyes. She didn't, after all, think very much of her brother.