He cut himself short.
“Yes?” she said. “Why don’t I what?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Good night, Hillary,” he said.
“Did you want to talk about something?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, all right then,” she said. “Good night.”
There was a click on the line.
He went to the drapes and closed them. He went back to the bed. Lied to me about being thirty, he thought. Jesus.
Well, he’d lied to her, too. Tiny little white lie. Shy, self-effacing David Weber averting his soulful brown eyes and boyishly muttering, “Well, I’m not used to this sort of thing. Meeting a young girl... and... talking this way... sharing an afternoon this way...”
Bullshit.
A lie.
Tiny white lie.
Not so tiny.
Well, Your Honor, one might reasonably argue that if 80 percent of all married men have experienced at least one extramarital relationship, then half a dozen or so over the course of almost twenty-two years of marriage might not be considered excessive. Half a dozen, more or less, relatively innocuous liaisons with women who’d meant nothing at all to the defendant, Your Honor, save for the momentary satisfaction they offered. Women who will offer you their comfort, Your Honor, as a learned bartender associate once remarked, see Weber v. Martini, merely accommodating women who were willing to offer comfort and solace and tea and sympathy and perfectly good blow jobs after Molly had retired from that profession, so to speak. Well, who could blame her? We were both under considerable strain afterward, we were both — listen, let’s not get on that again. But you see, Your Honor, it’s sometimes difficult to apportion guilt is all I’m trying to say, especially under circumstances as stressful as those were, the death of an only—
Forget it, he thought.
Pick up the phone, he thought. Call the English girl again. Ask her if she’s blond down there, ask her if she owns a quivering, quaking quim, ask her if my father will die tonight, like all the others.
The British once ruled an empire.
Maybe she’ll have some answers.
He turned off the bedside lamp and fell into a troubled sleep.
Friday
There were two shopping bags full of mail. They rested on the floor between him and Bessie. He had met her in the Emergency Room waiting room, as they’d arranged yesterday. He had known, even before he was fully awake this morning, that today would be the longest day. The two shopping bags full of mail somehow fortified his surmise.
“This is only the first-class,” Bessie said. “There’s more first-class at the building, but I couldn’t carry it all. And the other stuff, too. The packages.”
The clock on the wall read ten-thirty.
A man holding a bloodied handkerchief to his face was sitting on the leatherette couch opposite them. His T-shirt was slashed across the front and drenched with blood as well. David figured the man had been in a knife fight. The man watched with interest as David pulled some envelopes from the first shopping bag of mail. He seemed not to be in any pain. He kept the bloodied handkerchief pressed tightly to his face. No one had yet come to see what was the matter with him.
“A lot of this seems to be bills,” David said.
“Well, he was always sending away for things,” Bessie said. “Plates and stamps, other things.”
“What I thought we’d do,” David said, suddenly overwhelmed by the mass of envelopes stuffed in the shopping bags, “is just separate the letters from the rest...”
“Yes.”
“...and read him the ones he wants us to open.”
“That would be good,” Bessie said.
He began sorting through the mail, separating what were obviously bills or first-class mail offerings from what appeared to be personal letters. A nurse came from behind the counter.
“Mr. McGruder?” she asked.
“Yes?” the man with the bloodied handkerchief said.
“Will you come in now, please? Doctor will see you.” She looked at David and Bessie. “Are you with him?” she asked.
“No,” David said.
“This isn’t the public library,” she said.
“My father’s in Intensive Care,” David said.
“That’s on the third floor,” the nurse said.
“I know that. We thought...”
“There’s a waiting room up there. This is Emergency,” she said. “We can’t have you sitting here reading your mail.”
“It’s my father’s mail,” David said idiotically.
“Whoever’s,” the nurse said. “Mr. McGruder? Will you come with me, please?”
David picked up the mail he’d already sorted and placed it on top of the other envelopes in the first shopping bag. He picked up both shopping bags and followed Bessie through the labyrinth of corridors that led to the main lobby. They took the elevator up to the third floor. But instead of going directly to the Intensive Care waiting room, they settled instead on one of the leatherette couches just beyond the elevators and the third-floor nurses’ station.
It took him almost twenty minutes to go through the mail. Included among the envelopes he had separated as bills were several from doctors. He opened one of them. It contained a slip of paper and a return envelope. The slip of paper read:
This is to remind you that your account is still unpaid.
Your check TODAY will be appreciated.
Thank you.
The doctor’s name was Carlos Herrera. Apparently, he had been the anesthesiologist during the first operation. His fee was $1,175.00.
David opened another envelope. The enclosed statement for professional services was from three doctors who called themselves The Pulmonary Medical Group. The statement was a computer printout. It read:
Dear patient:
This is a statement representing your recent hospitalization charge of $615.00.
We do not accept assignment of Medicare claims. Upon receipt of your payment, this office will file your Medicare claim for you in order that you may be reimbursed by Medicare.
We have a signed form and we’ll file your claims as soon as your payment is received.
If you would like to discuss payment of your account or filing of your insurance, please contact our bookkeepers or insurance clerk.
Thank you,
Insurance department
Note: An itemized statement of this charge (s) will follow.
“You don’t have to pay any doctor bills,” Bessie said. “They try to get you to pay them direct, because sometimes Medicare takes a long time. Just forget about them. When my husband died, alav ha-sholom, I didn’t pay nothing. The doctors got their money direct from Medicare.”
She’s giving a lawyer advice, David thought, and said nothing. He put the statement back into the envelope and looked at his watch. It was five minutes to eleven.
“We’d better go in now,” he said.
The tube was still taped to his father’s mouth. The Cuban nurse had told David it was attached to a respirator, to help his father breathe a bit more easily. The respirator huffed and puffed beside the bed. The tube was still beaded with drops of moisture. His father’s eyes looked moist. There was a bewildered expression on his face. Bessie leaned over the bed and kissed his cheek.
“Hello, Morris,” she said, “how are you feeling today?”
His father lifted his hand and then let it drop onto the sheet. The bewildered expression remained on his face.
“We brought some mail for you,” David said. “Would you like me to read it to you?”
His father nodded.
“You tell me which ones you want me to open, okay?”