Moments In Time (30 page)

“It’s such an empty feeling to give birth and leave the hospital without the babies,” she told J.D. the night the second twin had been released, “I worried about them the whole time I was here and worried about the others when I was there.”

“Hmmm? Oh, yes, well, they’re both fine,” he agreed absentmindedly.

“Okay, what is it?” She sat up in bed and turned the light on.

“What is what?” he asked with some caution.

“What’s on your mind? What’s distracting you?”
When he failed to reply, she said more pointedly, “What’s going on that you don’t want to tell me?”

“Lindy
…”
he began, stopped, then began again, “Lindy’s had an accident. She was driving too fast and ran the car down an embankment.”

“When? How bad?” The chill traveling down her spine sat her straight up.

“Actually, i
t was the day the twins were born
,” he admitted. “Rick had called, and before I could tell you, you told me you were in labor and it seemed not the best time—”

“How bad?” she repeated.

He took a deep breath, then said softly, “Her spinal cord is severed, Maggie. She’s paralyzed from the shoulders down.”

“And you waited two weeks to tell me?” She began to cry, pushing his hands away as he sought to comfort her.

“Maggie, you’ve had more than your share to deal with these past few weeks. I thought I’d wait until things settled down a bit for you. And it’s not like there’s anything you can do.”

“I could call her, talk to her—”

“She’s not talking to anyone, hardly speaks to Rick, he tells me. She’s in a terrible state of depression.”

“Jamey, we
have to go…”

“Maggie, you’re not ready to go on a trip and neither are the babies. We just brought Susannah home today—there’s no way you can travel with them right now. Are you willing to leave them behind after having waited two weeks to bring them home?”

She knew he was right; she could not separate herself from her newborn daughters. She leaned against him.

“Is it permanent?” she asked. “Lindy’s condition?”

“I’m afraid so,” he told her softly. “Rick has called in every specialist he could find.”

“She’d rather be dead,” Maggie whispered.

“Apparently that’s true,” he nodded, “from what Rick’s told me.”

“As soon as we can all travel, can we go?”

“Of course,” he assured her, “as soon as we can.” Maggie insisted on cal
ling Rick the next day at the
hospital number he’d given to J.D. Lindy refused to speak to her when Rick had placed the phone to her ear, shaking her head to tell him to take the phone away. It had been another ten days before Lindy would respond to her and then only to say yes, no, or uh-huh.

“We’ll be there next week, Lindy,” Maggie told her one day.

“Don’t,” Lindy replied and, breaking her habit of monosyllables, added, “Maggie, I don’t want to see anyone. I wish I was dead.”

“Lindy, don’t think that way,” Maggie pleaded.

“You’ve no idea what hell this is, Maggie,” she sobbed. “I can’t stay like this.”

“Lindy, if there was anything I could do to help you
…”

“You can help me”—her voice lowered—“you can tell him to help me. He would do it if you told him to
…
”

“Told who to do what? Lindy, what are you talking about?”

“She’s upset, Maggie, I think she’s had enough for one day.” Rick’s voice drowned out Lindy’s sobs.

Over the next several days her conversations with Lindy had reverted to the dull yesses and noes, so Maggie was totally unprepared when Lindy got on the phone a week later and said, “You must think I’m a terrible friend
…
I never even asked about your new babies.”

“What? Oh, they’re fine,” Maggie managed to respond, jarred by the light tone in the voice on the other end of the line.

“I guess I should have inquired earlier,” Lindy said apologetically, “but I’ve been preoccupied
…
”

“It’s okay.” Confused by Lindy’s suddenly buoyant mood, Maggie asked, “Has there been a change, Lind, any improvement?”

“Nope. Never will be. I will spend the rest of my days right here, flat on my back,” Lindy assured her, a bit of the old sassiness breaking through. “Can’t even snap my fingers
or tap my toes to the music anymore. Ain’t much happening among us undead.”

There was a silence then, Maggie not knowing what to say. “Look, Maggie,” Lindy said, breaking the awkward void, “I know I’ve done a lot of things that have hurt you these past few years, and I want you to know I’m sorry. And I want to thank you for all the times you cared when there was absolutely no reason why you should have. You were a better friend than I ever deserved. You’re what I’d have chose
n to be, had I had a choice…
”

She had paused to take a deep breath before adding, “Keep an eye on Sophie as she’s growing up, Maggie, you’ll be a better influence on her than I would.”

“Lindy, maybe in time—”

“Time won’t change what is, Maggie. I never want her to see me like this. Not ever. I don’t want anyone to see me like this, I can’t bear it. Look, you take care, okay? And tell J.D. I said good-bye. Here’s Rick
…
”

“Rick, is she okay?” Maggie asked tentatively. “Are they drugging her or something?”

“She’s fine,” he replied somewhat stiffly. “Look, the nur
se is here, we’ll talk soon…
”

Maggie was still standing next to the phone when J.D. came in through the back door.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, noting the look of confusion on her face.

“I just had the most bizarre conversation with Lindy,” she told him. “She was pleasant and talkative, almost like the old Lindy.”

“Maybe she’s finally come to terms with her condition,” he said with a shrug.

“She’ll never come to terms with that,” she said, “and she went on and on, thanking me for being her friend—”

“She should thank you,” he said, nodding. “You’ve been a better friend than she ever deserved.”

“That’s exactly what she said. And before she hung up, she told me to tell you good-bye.”

“People normally say that at the end of a conversation, Maggie, I don’t see where that’s so odd.”

“Well, it was odd,” she insisted uneasily.

“For the past weeks you’ve been upset because she’s been depressed and wouldn’t speak to you, now, when she finally engages in a conversation, you’re upset.” He reached behind her to lift an apple from a wooden bowl, rinsed it off, and bit into it, chiding her playfully, “There’s no pleasing some people.”

She gave him a dirty look.

“Look, sweetheart, we’ll be there in five days. You’ll see her and have more time to talk. And I think you’ll probably find that she’s just come to accept that she can’t change what’s happened and is just trying to make the best of it.”

"That’s not her style,” she insisted.

“Then what do you think it is?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know.”

There was a bustle of activity for the next several days, trying to pack and make arrangements for the dogs, cats, parakeets, and other assorted family pets. Two days before they were to depart, Rick called, his voice a weary whisper. “It’s all over,” he told Maggie tearfully.

“What’s all over?” She froze where she stood.

“Lindy’s gone,” he said simply.

“Gone?” she asked uncertainly. “Gone where?”

“She’s dead, Maggie.” He seemed to choke on the words.

“Dead?” She caught her breath and stumbled into the nearest chair as her legs began to shake uncontrollably. “How could she be dead? Three days
ago she was fine…”

“A lot has happened since then,” he said sadly. “When will you be here? I want you to be here for the funeral.”

“I don’t understand,” she cried. “How could she be dead?”

“She passed in her sleep.” He seemed to choose his words carefully.

“Were you with her?”

“Yes,” he replied after the briefest of pauses, “yes, I was there.”

The memorial service, brief and to the point, had been arranged so that J.D. and Maggie could attend and was held on the day after their arrival in England. They returned with
Rick to his home and barely got beyond the vast foyer when he immediately disappeared into his study. An hour passed, then two, and still he did not emerge.

Tentatively knocking on the door with a cup of coffee in her hand, Maggie hesitated before she called to him. “Rick?” She knocked again lightly on the heavy mahogany door. “Rick?”

When he did not reply, she opened the door cautiously. The room was in semidarkness, the glow of the setting sun through the far window and the tidy fire burning at the hearth the only light. He was seated on the small brown leather sofa, staring blankly into the fire that had been made earlier to dispel the chill. She sat the coffee before him on the table, and he nodded his thanks, looking up at her with haunted eyes.

“Can I sit with you for a few minutes?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Rick, did you ever wonder if she did it on purpose? The accident?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I suspected it, though she denied it
…
said if she’d planned it she would have driven into a wall at full speed. Like her mother did.”

“I still don’t understand why she died. I thought she had stabilized. How could she have taken such a turn? Did something just give out? Her heart? Her kidneys?”

“Her will,” he replied. “Her will gave out. She wanted to die.”

“Rick, as terrible as the situation was, as crazy as it made her, people don’t die just because they want to.”

“She did,” he said with a nod. “She was in complete control.”

“In control of what?”

“Me,” he said simply. “She was in total control of me.”

“Rick, you’re not making a bit of sense.”

“She made me do it,” he said as he turned to face her. “She was relentless, Maggie. Every day, every night, pleading, crying, begging
…
”

“Oh, God, Rick,” she whispered in horror. “What did you do?”

“Exactly what she wanted me to do,” he told her. “I acquired a certain amount of morphine and put it into her IV that
night
…
that last
night
…
”

“Jesus, Rick, you—”

“Killed her.” He spared her the agony of accusing him. “Yes, I did. I did not want to, but I felt I had no choice. There’s no question in my mind that she wanted to die. If she’d had the means, she’d have done it herself. But she could barely turn her head, you know, and it was driving her mad. And I finally gave in. She was so much happier, knowing it would end soon, Maggie, she was happier than I’d seen her in years.”

“What if you’d been caught?”

“Little chance of that. They’d been giving her morphine every night to help her to sleep, and we figured that if they ever checked, they’d think that they had overprescribed her dosage. There was no autopsy, Maggie, and it seemed worth the risk for her to finally be at peace.”

Maggie sat in stunned silence, absorbing the shock of Rick’s revelation.

“What would you have done?” he asked.

Mrs. Gaines, the housekeeper, knocked on the door and entered to inquire about their plans for dinner. Rick gave abbreviated instructions, and after she’d closed the door behind her, he repeated the question, “What would you have done, Maggie?”

She walked to the fireplace and stood directly in front of its blazing warmth, seeking to shake off the chill that had spread through her, pondering his dilemma, recalling her last conversation with Lindy. There was no question that Lindy would have worked him over unceasingly. She had never feared death.

“I most likely would have done the same thing,” she said as she turned to him, tears clinging to her dark lashes.

He nodded slowly, and they locked eyes.

“Maggie?” J.D. poked his head through the door. “Everything all right in here?”

The two in the room had frozen at the intrusion, and J.D.
sensed immediately that his sudden appearance had interrupted something of importance.

“What is it?” he asked, apprehension washing over him as his wife and his best friend exchanged a long look of conspiracy.

“Come in and close the door,” Rick instructed him. “
I have something to tell you…”

22

W
OULDN’T
H
ILARY LOVE TO BE READING MY MIND
right now,
Maggie thought.
What a coup for her to uncover that little item.