25
Seven years ago our lives were so different, Barbara Colbert thought as she watched the familiar landscape roll by. As he did each week, her chauffeur, Dan, was driving her from the apartment on Fifth Avenue to the Natasha Colbert Long-Term Care Residence on the grounds of Lasch Hospital in Greenwich. When they arrived in front of the residence, she sat for several minutes, bracing herself, knowing that for the next hour her heart would twist and break as she held Tasha’s hand and said words that Tasha probably didn’t hear and was no doubt beyond understanding.
A straight-backed, white-haired woman in her mid-seventies, Barbara Colbert knew that in the years since the accident, she seemed to have aged twenty. The Bible refers to cyclical events in terms of seven years of plenty, seven years of famine, she thought as she fastened the top button of her mink jacket. Cyclical events implied that something might change, but she knew that there was no change possible for Tasha, who was in the seventh year of unconscious life.
Tasha, who gave us so much joy, Barbara Colbert agonized-our beautiful, unexpected gift. Barbara had been forty-five, her husband, Charles, fifty, when she realized she was pregnant. With their sons in college, they had assumed they were done with raising a family.
Each time she reached this point, as she braced herself to get out of the car, the same memory always came to her. They were living in Greenwich then. Tasha, home from law school, had popped into the dining room. She was dressed in her running togs, her red hair twisted in a ponytail, her dark blue eyes warm and alive and intelligent. Her twenty-fourth birthday was only a week away. “See you guys,” she had said, and then she was gone.
Those were the last words they ever heard her utter.
An hour later they had gotten the call that sent them rushing to Lasch Hospital. There had been an accident, they were told, and that was where Tasha had been taken. Barbara remembered the short ride to the hospital and the terror she felt. She remembered the incoherent prayer she uttered over and over: “Please, dear God, please.”
Jonathan Lasch had been Barbara’s family doctor when the children were little, so she took some comfort in the thought that Gary Lasch, Jonathan’s son, would be taking care of Tasha. As soon as she saw him in the emergency room, however, she knew from the expression on Gary ’s face that something was terribly wrong.
He told them that, while she was running, Tasha had fallen and hit her head on the curb. The injury itself hadn’t been serious, but before reaching the hospital she’d developed a cardiac arrhythmia. “We’re doing everything we can,” he promised, but it soon became evident that there really was nothing they could do. A seizure had cut off the supply of oxygen to Tasha’s brain, destroying it. Except for the ability to breathe on her own, Tasha was, for all intents and purposes, gone.
All the money in the world, the most powerful newspaper family in the country, and still we couldn’t help our only daughter, Barbara thought as she nodded to Dan that she was ready to get out of the car.
Noticing how stiffly she moved today, he put his hand under her arm. “There may be a bit of ice, Mrs. Colbert,” he said. “Let me help you to the door.”
After she and her husband were finally resigned to the fact that there was no hope Tasha would ever recover, Gary Lasch had urged them to consider placing her eventually in the long-term nursing facility being built adjacent to the hospital.
He had shown them the plans for the modest structure, and it had proved to be a blessed diversion for them to call in the architect and to make the donation that totally changed and expanded the residence so that every room was bright and airy, with a private bath and comfortable homelike furniture and state-of-the-art medical equipment. Now all the residents, who, like Tasha, had had their lives unexpectedly, inexplicably shattered, were receiving whatever comfort money and care could provide.
A special, three-room apartment had been designed for Tasha, an exact replica of her suite at home. A nurse and an aide were in constant attendance. The classical music Tasha loved played softly day and night. She was moved every day from the bedroom to the sitting room, which faced a private garden.
Passive exercises and facials and massages and pedicures and manicures kept her body beautiful and supple. Her hair, still flame red, was washed and brushed daily and worn loose about her shoulders. She was dressed in silk pajamas and robes. The nurses were instructed to talk to her as if she could understand every word.
Barbara thought of the months when she and Charles had come to see Tasha almost every day. But the months soon became years. Worn out with emotional and physical exhaustion, they eventually reduced the number of visits to twice a week. When Charles died, she had, with great reluctance, heeded the advice of her sons and given up the house in Greenwich and set up permanent residence in the New York apartment. Now she made the trip only once each week.
Today as always, Barbara walked through the reception area and down the corridor to her daughter’s suite. The nurses had Tasha propped up on the couch in the sitting room. Barbara knew that under the coverlet there were safety straps that held her rigidly in place and kept her from slipping, a precaution against injury caused by the involuntary jerking movements Tasha’s muscles sometimes made.
With familiar pain, Barbara studied the calmly serene expression on Tasha’s face. Sometimes she thought she could detect eye movement, or perhaps hear a sigh, and would have the impossible, wild thought that maybe Tasha was not beyond hope after all.
She sat by the couch and took her daughter’s hand. For the next hour she talked to her about the family. “Amy is starting college, Tasha, can you believe that? She was only ten when you had the accident. She looks a lot like you. She could almost be your daughter, not just your niece. George Jr. is a bit homesick but otherwise enjoys prep school.”
At the end of the hour, weary but at peace, Barbara kissed Tasha on the forehead and signaled the nurse to come back into the room.
When she reached the reception area she found Dr. Peter Black waiting for her. When Gary Lasch had been murdered, the Colberts had debated moving Tasha to another facility, but Dr. Black had convinced them to leave her there.
“How did you find Tasha today, Mrs. Colbert?”
“The same, Doctor. It’s about the best I can expect, isn’t it?” Barbara Colbert knew that she was unreasonable in her ambiguous feelings about Peter Black. Gary Lasch had chosen him to be his partner, and she had no reason to feel that Tasha’s care was lacking in any way. Still, she just couldn’t warm to him. Maybe it was because of his close association with Calvin Whitehall, whom Charles had derisively dubbed a “would-be robber baron.” On those occasions when she got back to Greenwich and dined at the club with her friends, she often saw Black and Whitehall together there.
As she bid Peter Black good night and walked to the door, Barbara could not know that the doctor was staring intently at her, or that he was remembering the terrible moment when her daughter had been catastrophically damaged, and that he was remembering as well the words a traumatized Annamarie Scalli had screamed at Gary: “That girl came in here with nothing worse than a mild concussion.
26
For almost six years Philip Matthews had believed that he had done the best job a trial lawyer could to get Molly Lasch a light sentence. Five and a half years for the murder of a doctor with a thirty-five-year life expectancy was practically a free ride.
As Philip had often told Molly on his visits to her in prison, “When you get out, you can put all this behind you.”
But now Molly was out of prison and was doing exactly the opposite of that. It was clear that she did
Philip knew that, more than anything else, he wanted to protect Molly from the people who inevitably would attempt to exploit her.
