Over His Dead Body

CHAPTER 7

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, when Teddy pulled into the driveway of the family house , he still had that happy grin on his face. Cassie went right inside through the garage. Teddy started to follow her, then saw the Volvo station wagon in its usual spot in the driveway. Marsha watched him stop and circle it curiously. "What's the matter, bro?" she asked.

He came into the garage where the Mercedes and Porche sat companionably side by side, then circled both of them with a dawning comprehension. "Mom wasn't in a car crash," he said.

"Of course she was. Don't make a big thing of it." Marsha draped an arm around his shoulder. "Look, idiot. We're going to have to stick together now. Dad isn't going to get better."

Teddy was a big boy, twenty-three and a half, but he looked about ten now, stricken by two felled parents in one day. "How do you know? Daddy's real tough. Maybe he'll get better."

"Tom said he's pretty much brain-dead. We're going to have to close ranks and help Mom," Marsha said.

Teddy shrugged off the diagnosis. "Well, Lorraine told me they do wonders with stroke victims these days. I'm not writing him off."

"You didn't see him, Teddy. He's nonresponsive. He's in a deep coma. Face it, he's not coming out of this."

"Well, you don't know him. He's a tough guy. He's not toppling."

"You didn't see him," Marsha repeated. "It was awful…" She shook her head. "I almost felt sorry for him."

Teddy snorted derisively. "Well, I'm sure you'll get over it."

Marsha gave him a sharp look. "What is that supposed to mean? Who's Lorraine?"

Teddy's mood suddenly lifted. "Isn't she great? She's the nurse I was talking to. She gave me her number and everything. She told me to call anytime. She never sleeps."

"What is she, a hooker?"

"Bitch," Teddy spat at her.

"Teddy, you're disgusting. Your father had a stroke and you're flirting with nurses." Marsha turned her back on him.

"Well, who the fuck is Tom?" he mimicked her.

"Tom is Daddy's doctor. I was talking to his doctor! Don't you have any brains at all?"

"He looked like a little runt to me," Teddy muttered.

"You're such a jerk," Marsha replied loftily.

The door to the house opened. "What's the matter with you two? I could hear you arguing all the way in the living room," Cassie cried. The sequined scarf was gone, and her garish yellow hair stood out in the halo of light from the kitchen.

"Why hurt each other like that?"

Teddy stared at her, as if he hadn't seen her bad dye job before. "Mom, you dyed your hair."

"Yes, I did," she said quietly.

"I bet you had your face lifted, too. Oh God, it's gross!"

Marsha let her breath out explosively. "What a jerk! Teddy! How can you be so mean?"

"She had her face lifted. What did she do that for? It looks terrible."

"Teddy!" Marsha screamed loud enough to rouse the entire neighborhood. She was known for being something of a hysteric.

Cassie pushed the button to close the garage door and waved them inside. "Stop, Marsha. It doesn't matter. The only thing I care about is peace."

"What are you mad at me for? I'm the good one," Marsha complained.

"I'm not mad at anybody." Cassie threw up her hands and disappeared into the house.

"Watch out, the shit's hitting the fan," Teddy warned.

Marsha spun around and caught his arm. "What's going on, Teddy?"

"I don't want to go into it," he said.

"Give, asshole. What's going on?"

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. I'm sick of your calling me an asshole."

"Oh Jesus! You're something." Marsha followed her mother into the house and slammed the door. She found Cassie in the kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table, shredding a used paper napkin.

"Mom, are you okay?"

"No, I'm not. Why do you two have to fight like that? I heard every word you said. I'm demoralized with this."

"Oh we're just playing. Don't let it get to you, Mom." Marsha touched her mother's awful hair.

"It is getting to me. Everybody's fallen apart and it's all because of that face-lift. What was I thinking?"

"The face-lift had nothing to do with it. Daddy had high blood pressure. Tom told me he was a walking time bomb."

Teddy barged in. "What's for dinner? I'm starved."

The two women ignored him.

"No, no, Marsha. I know it was the shock. Daddy likes things natural," Cassie said.

Teddy laughed. "Natural, oh sure."

Marsha turned on him. "What do you know about anything?"

"Daddy couldn't stand women who had plastic surgery. He said you could always tell a mile away."

Cassie groaned. Why oh why had she done it?

Teddy snorted and opened the refrigerator.

"Teddy!" Marsha cried. "Stop that."

"What did I do? I'm hungry… Jesus, Jell-O! Soup! Cottage cheese! What happened to food?" he complained.

"Shh Teddy, we have to talk seriously about this. Mom, does Daddy have a living will?"

"I have no idea. He never tells me anything. I didn't even know he had high blood pressure." Cassie touched her cheek and didn't feel a thing.

"Well, where's his will? The document will be with that." Marsha spoke briskly. She was back in social work mode.

"Diet Coke, anyone?" Teddy offered.

Ignored again.

"I don't know where his will is. Call Parker, he'll know," Cassie said.

"Why don't I call out for a pizza, then," Teddy suggested.

"I'm trying to get something accomplished here," Marsha told him sharply. "Let's focus on the problem."

"Well, we have to eat," he replied reasonably enough.

"Can't you see Mom can't eat pizza? Where is your head, Teddy? Daddy had a stroke; Mom can't eat pizza. This doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. Order something else."

"Marsha, why can't he have pizza?" Cassie asked.

"You always indulge him," Marsha grumbled.

Cassie gave her daughter an angry look. "Let's not get caught up in this ridiculous bickering, okay?"

"Don't make me feel guilty. I'm just trying to-"

"Thanks, Mommy, you're a peach. What do you want on it, everything?" Teddy interrupted happily as he dove for the phone.

"I'd rather die on the spot than eat that poison. Mom, what about the health insurance policy?"

"And don't forget the life insurance," Teddy threw in when Domino's put him on hold.

"How can you talk about money when your father's in intensive care?" Cassie was shocked at the very mention of life insurance. She couldn't believe the way her children were behaving. And she had no idea where the documents were. Her ignorance made her feel like an absolute jerk, just as helpless and infantile in the situation as her children were.

"This isn't about money," Marsha said. "This is about caring for him. We have to know what he wanted…"

"I'm sure he'd want to linger," Teddy said.

"Teddy! Mom!" Marsha was boiling over.

"Honey, calm down. We'll sort it out."

"Fine, let's sort it out now. Where's the will?"

"Gee, I don't even know if he has a will. Your daddy never talked about things like that. Could I have a cup of tea, please, sweetheart?"

"What do you mean, you didn't talk about it? Didn't you plan for your future?" Marsha was shocked.

Cassie clicked her tongue. "Of course, he worked for the future. He wanted to be in the top ten, you know that. He just didn't want to burden me with the dust of life, sweetheart."

"What's the dust of life, everything?"

"Marsha, that's not nice!" Cassie put her head down on the table.

"He didn't talk about anything, and you put your head in the sand. Same old, same old."

"Amen," said Teddy.

Marsha sighed and put the kettle on. Crushed, Cassie watched her daughter move around the kitchen, putting together the cups, the teapot, the milk, amazed that she seemed to know how to do it. When the pizza arrived, Teddy paid for it himself, then sat at the kitchen table, eating it thoughtfully. Despite her contempt for it, Marsha also ate the pizza. Cassie, however, couldn't eat a thing.

"Poor Mitch." She kept thinking of his blank face and all those tubes going into him. Poor Mitch. How he had loved the good things of life. He would absolutely hate seeing his children resort to the humble pizza. He'd hate being a vegetable.

Marsha finished her pizza. "Come on, Mom. I'll clean this up. You need to lie down."

"I am tired," she admitted, and let Marsha take her upstairs and help her get ready for bed. It wasn't so easy. Cassie had to sleep sitting up, bolstered against the pillows so her head would be above her chest and the blood wouldn't collect in her face. All week she'd kept waking herself up to be sure she didn't relax too much and fall over. Plastic surgery was like giving birth the first time. No one had told you beforehand any of the things you needed to know. In this case the doctor had promised that she would look gorgeous and completely natural. He didn't tell her that to achieve this she'd have to be practically immobile for weeks to prevent scarring. Cassie was certainly scarred for life now. She'd been so humiliated by everyone looking at her in that ridiculous scarf. She lay back against the pillows, groaning, wishing she could put a bullet in her head.

"Just close your eyes and get some sleep, Mom." Marsha covered her sore eyes with a plastic bag filled with crushed ice even though the time for cold packs was long gone.

"Thank you, Marsha. You're a nice girl." The cold was comforting, but it didn't stop Cassie's seeing the same thing over and over. All the devastating moments: Mitch's unexpected return home. His angry conversation with Marsha in the kitchen. The way he'd looked when he walked through the bedroom door and his handsome face went purple at the sight of her in bed, a mess, wearing his beautiful aqua lace pajamas. The sweat that beaded his forehead. The color leeching out of his face. Just like in a movie, frame by frame, she watched it all again and again. She saw him teeter and fall. She saw his head crack against the corner of the bedside table. She saw his blood spilling out of the cut onto the boring beige carpet she'd never liked. Marsha left the room and returned a few moments later to give her a pill. Gratefully, she took it. In a little while she wasn't seeing anything anymore.

Many hours later when it was still deep night outside, Cassie was startled back into consciousness. Sounds of people in the house alarmed her. She wasn't used to hearing anything but the wind and rain. Squirrels running on the roof. At first she thought Mitch had come home and was down in his den, doing his paperwork. Then with a start she remembered he was in the hospital. She realized the sounds were her kids. Teddy and Marsha were quartered in their old rooms that had never been remodeled from the days they'd lived there as children and teenagers. But they were not asleep. She could hear their voices drift up from downstairs. What were they doing down there?

Cassie dragged herself out of bed, grabbed her old bathrobe, and padded downstairs to see what they were up to. When she came to the door of Mitch's office, she was horrified to see that they had invaded their father's territory. Mitch's computer was on. The locked filing cabinet was open, and her two children were deep in conversation surrounded by his sacred private papers.