We'll Meet Again

He thought of Fran Simmons, how grief stricken she had been. In church her muffled sobs had been audible throughout the entire Mass. Then, as the casket was being lifted into the hearse, he had felt like a voyeur, jotting notes for his story while the cameraman took flash pictures.

Fourteen years had changed Fran Simmons. It wasn’t just that she had grown up. There was a cool professionalism about her, like an invisible armor; he’d sensed it when they met in Gus’s office. Tim was embarrassed to realize that when they were introduced he had been thinking about her father and how he had been a crook. Why did he have the uncomfortable feeling that he owed her an apology for that?

He was so deep in thought that he was at the North Street exit before he realized it, and he almost missed the turnoff. Three minutes later he was in the funeral home.

The place was filled with friends of the Gallo family. Tim saw a host of familiar faces, people he had lost touch with, a number of whom came up to him when he was waiting on line to speak to Mr. Gallo and Billy. Most of them made flattering comments about his reporting, but fast on the heels of those comments came references to Fran Simmons, because she was now on the program with him.

“That is the Fran Simmons whose father cleaned out the library fund, isn’t it?” Mrs. Gallo’s sister asked.

“My aunt thinks she saw her in the coffee shop at Lasch Hospital,” someone else commented. “What on earth would she be doing there?”

That question was asked of Tim just as he came face to face with Billy Gallo, who obviously had overheard. His eyes swollen from crying, he shook Tim’s hand. “If Fran Simmons is investigating something at the hospital, tell her to find out why patients are being allowed to die when they don’t have to,” he said bitterly.

Tony Gallo touched his son’s sleeve. “Billy, Billy, it was God’s will.”

“No, Pop, it wasn’t. A lot of people who are building up to heart attacks can be saved.” Billy’s voice, agitated and tense, rose in volume. He pointed to his mother’s casket. “Mom shouldn’t be in there, not for another twenty years. The doctors at Lasch didn’t care-they just let her die.” He was practically sobbing now. “Tim, you and Fran Simmons and all the reporters on your television show have got to look into this. You’ve got to find out why they waited so long, why she wasn’t sent to a specialist in time.”

With a strangled, choking groan, Billy Gallo covered his face with his hands and surrendered once more to the tears he had been fighting. Tim braced him with firm hands on both arms, holding him until Billy’s sobs quieted and, in a voice calm and sad, he finally managed to ask, “Tim, tell the truth. Did you ever taste a better pasta sauce than my mother made?”

32

I don’t know how I let this happen, Molly thought as she placed a tray of cheese and crackers on the table in the family room. Seeing Cal and Peter Black here, together, upset her in ways she had not anticipated. The serenity, the comfort she had found in being in her own house was suddenly gone. It was as though her privacy had been violated. Seeing these two men in here brought back the many times when they would meet with Gary in his study. The three of them would spend hours in conference there-the other Remington Health Management board members were only rubber stamps.

These past few days the house had felt different from the way she remembered it. It was as though the five and a half years she had been in prison had changed her perception of her life as she had known it.

Before Gary died, I believed I was happy, Molly thought. I believed that the gnawing restlessness I felt came from my frustration at not having a baby.

Now she could feel the old, familiar heaviness of spirit closing in around her. She could tell Jenna sensed her change of mood and was concerned. Jenna had trailed her out to the kitchen, had insisted on cutting the cheese into squares, had arranged the crackers neatly on the plate, had folded the napkins just so.

After being so curt on the phone, Peter Black seemed to be going out of his way tonight to be agreeable. When he came in, he had kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand. His message was clear: That terrible tragedy is behind us.

Is it? she wondered. Can we make something like that-the murder, the years in prison-just disappear, as though they had never happened? I don’t think so, she decided as she looked at these old friends-if indeed that’s what they were-gathered together in this room.

She looked at Peter Black-he seemed tremendously uncomfortable. Why had he insisted on coming here?

Philip Matthews seemed to be the only one at ease. He had been the first to arrive, getting there promptly at seven, an amaryllis plant held in the crook of his arm. “I know you’re looking forward to gardening,” he’d said. “Maybe you’ll find a corner for an amaryllis.”

The huge, pale red blossoms were exquisite. “Be careful,” she warned him. “The amaryllis is also called a belladonna lily, and belladonna is a poison.”

The lightness she had felt then was gone. Now Molly felt that even the air was poisoned. Cal Whitehall and Peter Black were not here as a welcome-home committee-that was clear from the outset. They had a different agenda. That would also explain Jenna’s nervousness, she decided. She was the one who had forced the meeting.

Molly wanted to tell Jenna that it was all right. She understood that Cal was a steamroller, that if he’d made up his mind to come, Jenna wouldn’t have been able to stop him.

The reason behind their visit soon became apparent. It was Cal who first broached the subject. “Molly, yesterday that TV news reporter, Fran Simmons, was in the hospital coffee shop asking questions. Was she there at your suggestion?”

“No, I didn’t know Fran was going there,” she responded with a shrug of her shoulders, “but it’s fine with me.”

“Oh Molly, please,” Jenna murmured. “Don’t you understand what you’re doing to yourself?”

“Yes, I do, Jen,” Molly said quietly but firmly.

Cal set his glass on the table with unnecessary force, causing a few drops to splash from it.

Molly resisted the urge to immediately mop up the spill, part of her impulse to do anything to escape this nightmare. Instead, she looked at the two men who had been her husband’s partners.

Cal was not ignoring the spill. He jumped up, muttering, “I’ll get a paper towel.” In the kitchen he looked around, found the towel rack. As he started back, his eyes diverted to the single notation on the wall calendar. Carefully he studied it.

Peter Black’s cheeks were flushed; clearly this wasn’t his first drink of the night. “Molly, you know that we’re in discussion about the acquisition of several other health maintenance organizations. If you persist in allowing, much less encouraging, this program to proceed, could you at least ask Fran Simmons to hold off until after the merger is completed?”

So that’s what this is all about, Molly thought. They’re afraid that if I open old wounds, the infection could spread to them.

“Of course, there’s nothing to hide,” he added emphatically. “But talk and gossip and rumors have ruined plenty of important negotiations.”

He was drinking scotch, and Molly watched as he drained his glass. She remembered that years ago he had been a heavy hitter when it came to booze. Obviously that hadn’t changed.

“And Molly, please give up the idea of trying to locate Annamarie Scalli,” Jen pleaded. “If she found out about a possible television program, she might sell her story to one of those scandal magazines.”

Molly still sat unspeaking, staring at the three people, feeling her old fears and doubts bubbling just below the calm surface she had displayed so far tonight.

“I think the case has been presented,” Philip Matthews said bluntly, breaking the awkward silence. “Why don’t we give it a rest?”

Peter Black, Jenna, and Cal left a short time later. Philip Matthews waited until the door closed behind them,