She was one of the lucky ones. Her heart attack had been a minor one and the swift administration of a lowly aspirin coupled with a powerful clot buster and a diagnostic angiogram had stopped the attack in its tracks before there was permanent damage.
The whole thing was nothing more than an interruption, a small detour along an otherwise smooth highway. She had been absolutely fine before the cardiac incident and she was absolutely fine now. In fact, if not for the fact that she was currently a guest at Central Jersey Medical Center, it would be as if nothing at all had happened.
That was the good news.
The bad news? Her mother, her daughter, her colleagues, her friends, and the entire South Jersey contingent of aunts and cousins did know what all the fuss was about and they had converged on her hospital room to explain it to her.
“God saved you for a reason,” her aunt Pat said as she wolfed down a handful of truffles from one of the many open boxes of candy scattered throughout the room. “Now you need to look into your soul and figure out what that reason is.”
“Actually God didn’t save me,” she said. “Apparently it was a guy in a Grateful Dead T-shirt who did the honors.”
“Don’t say that!” This from her cousin Dorothy. “Of course it was God who saved you! He was just God’s emissary.”
The sign of the cross broke out on the far side of the room and spread fast.
“God has a plan,” Mary Fran the ex-nun offered. “We just have to open our hearts to the possibilities.”
“I said a rosary for you,” Aunt Sheila announced from the sofa near the door. “I asked the Blessed Mother to strengthen your heart so you can withstand the trials ahead.”
“Thanks, Aunt Sheila. I appreciate it.”
I don’t need it but I’m trying very hard to appreciate it.
“I don’t think there are any trials ahead, but it’s nice to know I’m covered.”
“I asked Father Loughlin to add you to the prayer chain at Blessed Sac.” Cousin Dorothy wasn’t going to be outdone by anyone. Kate was surprised she didn’t claim a private line to the Vatican.
“Really?” Sheila’s expression was decidedly unsaintlike. “Father Barrett promised to mention Kate at the early mass tomorrow.”
Kate was starting to feel like a volleyball during a holy playoff game. “I appreciate the concern, but you don’t have to do this. I’m as good as new. I don’t need to have masses said for me.”
You would think she’d stripped down to her red lace birthday thong in the vestibule of St. Patrick’s, the way they looked at her.
“Your cousin Linda cried when I told her I was having a mass said for her, that’s how happy she was.” Sheila eyed the two-pound box of chocolate truffles at her right elbow as if it were a consolation prize for Kate’s ingratitude. “She says it cut her recovery time in half. If you ask me, I think it was definitely a—”
Please don’t go there.
If they started talking miracles again, she would be forced to jump out the window. From miracles it was only a Hail Mary to Mother Teresa, and before you could say “Holy Trinity” they would be trying to drag her into their scheme to canonize Pope John Paul II and name him the patron saint of South Jersey widows.
“Anyone for politics or sex?” she mumbled under her breath. Either topic would be a relief. Had her family always been this church-crazy, or had she lost the ability to block them out?
Pat made a show of looking around the room. “Your mother and Gwynn aren’t here with you?”
Not unless they’re hiding under the bed.
“They drove over to the mall to pick up my car. It’s been sitting there since Monday.”
“Your car’s been at the mall since
Monday
?” Dorothy sounded downright gobsmacked, but at least it took her mind off religion. “You actually think it’ll still be there?”
“Princeton has a very low crime rate,” Kate said. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
Dorothy started to argue, but Sheila gave her a poke. “Kate’s heart,” she stage-whispered. “Don’t get her upset. We don’t want anything to happen.”
“My heart is good as new,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound like a ten-year-old kid begging to stay up to watch Letterman. “I’m not going to go into cardiac arrest on you.”
“Whatever you say, dear.” That was Sheila again. “You know best.”
Clearly she didn’t, because if she had known best she would have gone to pick up her car herself and left Maeve and Gwynn here to cope with the rest of the family.
“So what’s the chaplain here like?” Maeve’s younger sister Gloria asked, steering the conversation right back into troubled waters. “Jeannie Lapinski told me he looks like a young Merv Griffin.”
Don’t laugh. She means it as a compliment.
“The one at St. Francis is a living doll,” Gloria’s daughter Rebecca chimed in. “He came to see me when I had Brandon and he really put the birth into perspective for me. He was so compassionate.”
They turned toward Kate, who was beginning to understand why deer in the headlights looked the way they did.
“I don’t know what the chaplain here is like,” she said. “I haven’t seen him.”
“You haven’t seen him?” Gloria looked outraged. “What kind of chaplain is he? He should make it his business to visit all of the Catholics in this hospital. I have a good mind to speak to one of the—”
“He did his job just fine,” Kate interrupted. “He wanted to stop by but I told the head nurse it wasn’t necessary.”
Gloria and Dorothy exchanged horrified glances.
“Not necessary?” Dorothy’s voice held exactly the right tone of amazement. “Of course it’s necessary. I’m just surprised they didn’t give you the Last Rites when your heart stopped beating.”
Her heart was definitely beating now. “I didn’t need Last Rites,” she said through gritted teeth. “I needed CPR.”
“And thank God you got it,” Sheila said.
“No,” Kate said, “thank the man in the Grateful Dead T-shirt that I got it. He’s the one who saved my life.”
If only she could find him and thank him herself.
Three
Rocky Hill—that same afternoon
Who knew there were so many hospitals in central New Jersey?
He was on his seventh go-round with the good people at St. Francis and getting nowhere fast.
“I’m sorry. I know how frustrating this is but I couldn’t give you that information even if I had it.” The woman on the other end of the line was kind but not forthcoming.
“Sarah, listen—” He was on a first-name basis with the administrators by this time. “I’m the one who called nine-one-one for her. I’m the one who administered CPR when she crashed. She asked me to ride with her to the hospital. You can check my story. You’ve seen my credentials. I’ll give you my cell number and the time of the call. The EMT unit will vouch for me.”
“I wish I could help but there’s absolutely nothing I can do. We would have to contact the patient in question and ask permission before we release information and she just isn’t here.”
“I know that, but somebody has to know where they sent her to.”
“Not necessarily. If she wasn’t admitted, she won’t be in our database. You could try calling the rescue squad.”
“I would if I knew which one it was.”
“You didn’t catch the team’s number?”
“I didn’t even catch her name,” he said. “Listen, I don’t have an ulterior motive. All I want is to return property to its rightful owner.”
“Fax me some ID, your cell number, and the time of the call, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I faxed Jessie my ID yesterday.”
“Jessie has issues. Fax it directly to me.”
“You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not making any promises.”
At this point he was convinced it would be easier to get Oprah’s home phone number.
He hung up, thought about nuking some leftover pizza, thought better of it, leaned over the kitchen sink, and looked out the window. He was going to miss those woods. At first he had liked them because they reminded him of New Hampshire, but then, with time, he liked them because they were pure New Jersey.
FedEx had dropped off the contract earlier in the day. Maggy Boyd had explained everything in a long, chatty e-mail: where to sign, where to send it, what issues were still outstanding. It would take him all of five minutes to sign on the dotted line and slip it into the return envelope, but right now that other life seemed very far away.
Images from the other day were still fresh in his mind. The woman’s pale peach sweater . . . her beautiful hazel eyes . . . the scarlet thong a better man wouldn’t have noticed . . .
Women were definitely full of surprises.
Maybe she didn’t make it.
The world was filled with uncertainty. He knew that firsthand. Maybe that was the reason for the bureaucratic runaround he had been getting. Death was the flip side of the coin of life. It was always an option in the real world. But would God help him save a life only to snatch that same life away a few hours later? His training told him that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, while his experience reminded him that sometimes that was the way it was and nothing in his bag of tricks could change it.
The thing to do was let it go, but that was the part of the job that always screwed him up. He got involved in people’s problems; he let them into his heart, tried to keep communication going long after the other side was ready to move on.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t his responsibility. The only thing he knew about her was that she drove a Miata, looked smoking hot in a thong, and liked the color red.
A lot.
What in hell was he supposed to do with that? The metal box of papers hadn’t yielded any clues at all to her identity. It was clear at first glance that they were potentially valuable. They appeared to be authentic Revolutionary War-era letters written in a surprisingly clear hand. No business card. No receipt of any kind. No letters, notes, or memos written after 1778.
Wait a minute.
He straightened up. He was leading a meeting tonight and afterward he would share an early supper with some friends, one of whom was a retired cop who knew his way around the Department of Motor Vehicles.
License tags could yield a lot of information. He knew it was a long shot, but maybe her car was still parked at the Promenade.
And, if not, he would think of something else.
Back at the hospital
“What on earth did you say to Dorothy and Sheila?” Maeve asked when she and Gwynn returned from their rescue mission. “We bumped into them in the parking lot and they were apopleptic.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Kate, who had been engrossed in
As the World Turns
, reluctantly left Oakdale for New Brunswick. “Okay, so maybe I did tell them I hadn’t been to mass since nineteen ninety-three, but that wasn’t exactly a secret.” She aimed the remote at the television and clicked OFF. “So do I still have a car?”
“Of course,” Maeve said with an impatient wave of her hand. “Mission accomplished. I followed Gwynnie back to your house. We left it in the driveway.”
Gwynn, who had been inspecting the latest additions to the massive floral displays multiplying on every level surface in the room, looked over at her mother.
“I’m fine, Gwynnie,” she said with a laugh. “You don’t have to look at me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like I’m about to disappear.”
Gwynn fiddled with a stem of stephanotis. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sick in bed before.”
“I’m not sick.”
“But you are in bed,” her daughter persisted, “and it’s a little—” She lowered her head and started to cry.
Kate leaped out of bed and gathered her grown-up child in her arms. “Hey, none of that. This was just a little scare, that’s all. There’s nothing to cry over, Gwynnie.”
“Your heart stopped!” Gwynn sobbed against her shoulder. “What if that guy hadn’t been there to help? What if—” She sobbed harder, and for a second Kate was a young mother again trying to soothe her frightened little girl.
Kate stroked her daughter’s hair and hugged her close. “But that didn’t happen, honey. I’m right here with you and I’m not going anywhere.” She glanced over Gwynne’s shoulder toward Maeve and was shocked to see her mother weeping into her hands. “You’re both making way too much of this, both of you. Nothing’s changed. Everything is exactly the same as it was. I promise you.”
To her amazement, her daughter sobbed louder.
“It’s so unfair,” Gwynn managed. “I told Gran—”
“Oh, that’s water under the bridge,” Maeve said through her tears. “We don’t need to go there, Gwynn.”
“But you said—”
“Said what?” Kate looked from her daughter to her mother.
“We were just talking before,” Maeve said. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Which, of course, made Kate worry. “What did you tell your grandmother that she doesn’t want you to tell me?”
Gwynn sniffled twice. Kate grabbed a tiny box of tissues from her nightstand and handed it to the young woman.
“Gwynn?” she prompted.
“You could have died all alone,” Gwynn said, bursting into a new round of tears. “Without anybody to love you.”
She might as well have kicked her in the stomach. “People love me,” she said. “You love me, don’t you?” Gwynn nodded. “Maeve loves me.” She grinned. “Most of the time, at least. I have good friends and colleagues. I don’t understand how you could—”
“Gwynn means you don’t have a man,” Maeve broke in. “A lover, to be specific.”
Kate met Gwynn’s eyes. “Is that what you meant?”
“Yes.” Gwynn looked defiant. “I hate to see you so alone.”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“Well, it’s true,” Gwynn said. “All I know is that I don’t want to end up your age with nobody to hold me at night or care if I live or die.”
“Gwynn! That’s a terrible thing to say.” She loved her life. She enjoyed living alone. Why would her daughter and her mother think otherwise? “I’m completely happy with things the way they are.”