In a second they had slapped the blood pressure cuff onto her arm and were pumping it up.
"Mom, are you all right?" Marsha's anguished cry revived her.
Cassie's vision cleared. "Mitch," she mumbled.
"What, Mom?"
"Take care of Daddy!" she said sharply. "They're here for Daddy."
The two EMS people talked to each other.
"Her blood pressure is-"
Cassie slapped their hands away. "Stop that. I'm not the patient."
"We understand, ma'am."
"I'm telling you I'm all right. It's my husband."
The two referred to Marsha. "My father collapsed," she told them.
"Must have been quite a fight. Where is the other vic?"
"Better call in for another ambulance," the man said to the woman.
The woman pulled out her radio.
"No no, I'm fine," Cassie insisted.
"What about you, are you all right?" he asked, turning to Marsha.
"I'm perfectly well."
"Is there only one other victim? Is there anyone in the house with a weapon?" The questions came fast.
"There are no victims. Daddy collapsed and hit his head. It may just be fatigue, for all we know," Marsha cried.
"What about your mom, here?"
Marsha shook her head. "Car accident. Last week. She's on the mend."
"No kidding, looks fresh to me," the woman said, examining her critically.
"Hurry. Please," Cassie begged them.
"This way," Marsha said.
"Are you sure there's no one with a weapon in here?"
"Absolutely certain."
"Okay, then. Let's go."
They left Cassie sitting there and headed for the bedroom. Cassie remained in the hall just for a moment, trying to calm herself. She had to go in there and protect Mitch from these idiots. She didn't want to, but God help her, she had to. She only hoped they wouldn't stick anything into him. Or shock him with those paddles she'd seen on ER. Finally, when she felt able to stand, she followed them in.
CHAPTER 4
IT TOOK TWENTY PRECIOUS MINUTES for the EMS team to try to talk to Mitch, get no response from him, cursorily examine him, strap him onto a gurney, carry him down the stairs, and roll him out to the ambulance, where they firmly shut the doors on his women. The team would not allow Cassie to ride in the vehicle with them, given her own condition, so she was separated from her husband on the driveway, where a rising wind suddenly churned the air, shaking the limbs of the two cherry trees that flanked the front door. As the trees trembled, thousands of cherry blossoms way past their prime were seized by the current and jettisoned up into the air. The moribund blooms whirled around and showered down on the ambulance just like some deeply meaningful scene from a foreign film.
"Oh my God, look at that," Cassie cried as the flower-strewn ambulance sped away. "Look at it, Marsha, look."
"Get in the car, Mom, we have to hurry." Marsha already had her father's Mercedes out of the garage. She opened the car door for her mother, and Cassie gingerly edged herself in.
"You missed it," she said, thinking of the flower shower.
Marsha didn't care what she'd missed. As soon as the car door was shut, she peeled off, spewing gravel on the drive. She then broke every speed limit on the way to North Fork Hospital. There, she stopped at the E.R. entrance and let Cassie out to deal with the paperwork, because there was no parking space nearby. Four minutes later she found her battered-looking mother in deep conversation with a woman whose name tag readESTELLE ROGERS.
"What's the problem?" Marsha asked.
"She won't listen to me. She thinks I'm the patient," Cassie said. She was nicely dressed now in gray slacks and a blue blazer like Mitch's.
"It's okay. Put on your scarf, Mother. And go sit down. I'll take care of this."
"What?" Surprised, Cassie saw the immense black chiffon scarf from her very best evening dress dangling over her arm. How had it gotten there? Had she grabbed it when she got dressed?
"Put the scarf on," Marsha urged her, making faces at the Frankenstein stitches around her ears.
"Oh." Cassie had forgotten how she looked. "Oh God." She struggled with the scarf, couldn't manage it.
"Here, I'll do it." Marsha wrapped the dressy scarf around Cassie's head, covering everything but her eyeballs. Now she had a crown of sequins. "There, isn't that better?"
With her newly dyed, aggressively blond hair, discolored forehead, and bruised lower face all suddenly hidden from view, Cassie found herself actually calming down.
"Good girl. Sit here, I'll be right back."
Oh God. Cassie had heard that before, a thousand years ago. Her mother took her out once for ice cream and the next thing she knew she was in the hospital having her tonsils out. "Don't leave me," she whimpered.
"Just for a second, you can do it." Marsha led her to a molded plastic chair, where Cassie watched helplessly when Mitch was rolled in on the gurney and rushed through so quickly, she didn't have a chance to offer him even one encouraging word before he disappeared through automatic doors, his face lifeless and gray. OhmyGod, he's going to die, she thought. I'm going to be a widow, after all.
"Hi, I'm Maureen. I'm your social worker. I'll be guiding you through the process."
Cassie's panicked thoughts were interrupted by a worn-looking woman with curly red hair and oversized purple glasses. She held out her hand as she introduced herself. "You're"-she checked her clipboard-"the Sales family."
Cassie blinked in surprise. Social worker? What did they need a social worker for? "How is my husband?" she asked timorously.
"Oh, that's not my department. I'm here for you. How are you doing?"
The woman regarded her with such deep meaning that Cassie gasped. "Is he-?"
"Oh no, no. Nothing like that. The doctors are working on him. We won't know anything for a while." Maureen pushed up her glasses, hesitating. Then she put her hand solicitously on Cassie's arm. "Estelle, the head nurse, tells me you don't want to be examined yourself. Can I talk to you a little about that?"
"Oh no, that's all right." Marsha suddenly reappeared. "My mother has already been to the doctor today. Thank you for asking, but we're fine."
Maureen shook her head. "Don't worry. There's nothing to be ashamed of. This kind of thing happens at all levels of society. We have many services to offer, and we're here to help you in every way we can."
"I'm not in the least ashamed. My husband hit his head. I think he tripped." Cassie spoke quietly from behind her sequined veil. "I'm sure he's going to be fine."