Flashback

“Yes, I understand, but—”

“Don’t!” The syllable shot out of Lutz’s mouth like a bullet. Then he turned on his heel and stormed away.

“Well, that was pleasant.”

Alice put her hand on Rene’s arm. “Look, hon, I don’t mean to turn up the heat, but my brother-in-law was caught up in a lawsuit involving a traffic accident that left somebody crippled. It went on for years and he lost nearly everything. Carter’s right: It’s not worth it. Believe me. Tell them you know nothing and let the lawyers fight it out. Please. Otherwise, it’ll never go away.”

God! It wasn’t all that long ago she’d been thrilled at landing a job in a community dedicated to doing good by doing right—a profession that was noble and dedicated to the well-being of needy people. The wonderful world of health care, the Hippocratic oath, of good science, healing and all that. Now she was knee-deep in murder, conspiracy, and corporate cover-up. And in her dissent she had ended up on the wrong side of the battle line. She looked at Alice’s supplicating eyes and suddenly she felt trapped between trying to sort out the merits of moral rightness versus professional ethics—of good versus the strangulating red tape of law.

“Thank you,” she said, thinking that her decision could render a brutal new shape to the universe.

23

THE DIRECTOR OF THE GREENDALE REHABILITATION Center called Beth to say that there was a bed available for Jack. He could be moved from Spaulding within two weeks.

Meanwhile Jack slept.

And after their visit, Vince drove Beth to Carleton. She didn’t want to go right back to an empty house, so she suggested they get something to eat. And Vince took her to a restaurant near the hospital. “He’s never going to come out of it,” she said in a low voice.

“Don’t say that,” Vince said. “He’ll be back. I’d bet my life on it.”

“But I’m okay with it, really. I just wish I could have said I’m sorry.” She took Vince’s hand. “You were such good friends. I envy that. Really. Jack and I were talking of separating.”

Vince’s eyes dilated in shock. “Well, he never said anything.”

She shrugged. “Pride. But things weren’t what they seemed. We had problems. It’s just too bad we never worked them out.” She could see Vince becoming uncomfortable with the conversation.

“The MRIs are showing activity, which means his brain is still active. He could snap out of it anytime.”

“Maybe.”

Vince checked his watch. “I think we should go.”

By the time they reached Beth’s place it was dark. Vince parked around back and walked her to the door. She put her arms around him. “Thanks, Sweetie.”

“Nothing to thank me about. We’re practically family.”

They were standing at the back door. The night was cool and overcast with a hint of autumn in the wind. The house was dark and forbidding. “I hate the thought of going in there. It’s so damn empty.” She hugged him to her.

Vince didn’t say anything, but she could feel him brace.

“You could sleep on the couch,” she whispered, and she pressed herself against him ever so slightly.

She felt Vince pull away. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

She nodded because they both knew that it was not the couch where she wanted him to spend the night but in her bed—to be made love to without thought, to nestle against the curve of his hard body like spoons, the way she would with Jack. Just this once—a momentary lapse into creature needs absent of reflection or consequence. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that it gets so hard at times.”

“I understand.”

But she knew that he didn’t understand. She kissed him on the cheek and let herself in the house as Vince returned to his car and drove home.

For over an hour Beth rolled around in her bed unable to compose her mind to sleep, thinking that she had in a moment of weakness led Vince on. Thinking that maybe he really did understand and would not see her proposal as an overture of betrayal. Thinking of the emptiness in the bed next to her.

I cannot live this way, she told herself. I cannot go on. Yes, I’m weak, selfabsorbed, starving. But that’s me, and I can’t spend the next months or years waiting to resume a dying marriage to a man who even if he does emerge will probably be mentally and physically impaired. What’s in it for me?

I can’t.

I won’t.

24

SATURDAY COULD NOT COME SOON ENOUGH. All Rene wanted to do was sleep in and not think about lawyers, depositions, and clinical trials.

But that was impossible, since over the intervening five days she got e-mails from Alice, Bonnie, and even the director of nursing at Broadview saying how well the meetings went with the attorneys representing the home. Bonnie actually claimed it was “kind of fun.” She also said that she understood Rene’s position, but it was a bit of an overreaction, if you asked her.

Of course, the wording was purposefully vague so as not to leave record of anything incriminating. In spite of the sweet-smelling wording, all the messages read the same: Don’t rock the boat. Deny, deny.

According to Rene’s boss, CommCare had provided her a lawyer named Brenda Flowers who would accompany her next week at the deposition with a Zuchowsky lawyer. Over the telephone Ms. Flowers assured Rene that it would be “a piece of cake.”

A little after eight o’clock, Silky began nuzzling her face to be fed and let out. She thought about taking care of the cat then going back up to bed to sleep until noon, the way she did when she was younger. But that was impossible. Her mind was racing with thoughts of the deposition she was required to give in a few days and the words of Carter Lutz, Jordan Carr, Alice, and the others whipping through her mind like hysterical sound strips.

The stress of the last several days had left her mentally and physically fatigued. It crossed her mind to put Silky in the car and drive until she reached the Pacific Ocean, maybe someplace in northern California or Oregon where in some nice little town she’d get a job as the local pill counter in some little mom-and-pop apothecary where nobody had ever heard of GEM Tech and the McCormick, Hadlock, and Woodbury law firm.

But she couldn’t do that, of course. So she slipped on her robe and followed the cat downstairs, his huge fat black tail trailing him like a skunk’s.

She dumped a can of Figaro into his bowl, changed his water, and looked out into the front yard. It was a sunny day, and a brilliant blue sky made a dome over the house. At the bottom of the driveway near the mailbox sat rolled-up copies of the Manchester Union-Leader and Boston Globe that the paperboy had left.

That was when she noticed the red metal flag of the mailbox sticking up. That was odd, since Joe the mailman didn’t come around to deliver until after eleven, especially on Saturdays. Maybe somebody else had taken his weekend route.

She opened the back door, and Silky shot between her legs into the middle of the backyard, where immediately he squatted down to assess the bird situation.

The sun was warm, and the air moist, although a touch of autumn laced the air. It was one of those mornings that made her grateful for living in New England. But in a month, the sky would be bleak, the ground crusted with frost, and the air snapping with the scourge of a Puritan God.

She headed down the driveway and picked up the paper rolled in the plastic bag. The headlines were about the war. More dismal news. More dead soldiers and civilians. “Will the world ever saner be?” The Thomas Hardy line shot up from college English class. “Seems not,” she said aloud as she approached the mailbox. She waved to a neighbor across the street who was packing her young daughter into her car seat. Rene watched them pull away as she reached the box.